Daryl's Blog

A few weeks ago I wrote about a church that held a Transition Service one Sunday to say goodbye to an outgoing leader and hello to the new one. They needed to celebrate the event and did it in style. My friend Derek Brown blogged on transition last week. One of his gifts is brevity; he teases you with a sentence and leaves you to work it out. Transition, he writes, is learning how to manage what comes at the end of a season. You feel you've reached a dead end, there's a lack of motivation, stagnation, no real sense of direction, and help is far away.

If you are a midwife you will know a lot about transition: it's the first and most difficult stage of labour, thankfully usually short. Jennifer Vanderlaan describes it as wanting to give up, you just can't do it any more, you doubt your ability to carry on. You can't relax or get comfortable in any position. Others write about being confused and distressed, in danger of completely losing the plot even to the point of wanting to  give up and go home.

What it means is that you are about to give birth.

Put all this together and what do we have? Do you have any of these feelings? Are you drifting, stagnating, or confused or even distressed, asking what the point of it all is? Maybe you are in transition; maybe you've come to the end of a season and are about to embark on another. Maybe you are about to give birth. I'm certainly in transition: In some areas I have no motivation at all; in others I am bursting with new growth but confused as to what I should do about it. I'm certainly not comfortable. The chap who wrote the book of Deuteronomy knew all about transition. (Deut 32.10 - 12 sums it up wonderfully, even to the imagery of suddenly finding himself in a desert place)

If you're in transition, some simple tips:

Don't give into the desire to push too early (push too soon, before the cervix is fully dilated can make things very complicated).

Don't be alone,  you need a good midwife or a partner, who is patient and understanding (yelling, moaning, telling your helpers to go away is all acceptable at this point)

Be prepared for a new season, or a new story that will take your breath away. (Panting loudly is encouraged.) I'm in danger of mixing my metaphors, but you know what I mean!)

All this is both terrifying and exciting. I feel a bit like a bull in search of a china shop. Probably how some of my friends see me too.

Oh, a housekeeping note to end on: this is now my personal blog, so I can say what I like, subject to the watchful dragon not minding. Soon I will begin a new series of charity blogs (which is what this was always meant to be), and I am also going to write a Fundraising Blog, to follow up on my book (Fundraising Without Fuss) which is already out of date. A simple signing up process is to be found at www.iel.org.uk