I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Rachel Grandey’s reflection on bringing the heart of contemplative practice to research and opening to the questions.
In 2023 I left my job of ten years as a teacher in South East Asia, to start the new adventure of a PhD back in my passport country. As I reflect on the past two years, I realise that the practice of persevering in being present to my studies is teaching me just as much about vocation as being in full-time ‘ministry’.
I admit I have it easy. My research topic –religious perspectives around cultural and ecological extinctions among the people I worked with in South East Asia – is literally the thing I’m most interested in, and possibly equipped for, in the world. As long as I remember to zoom out, the big picture will always engage and fascinate my soul. I don’t have to wriggle into this workspace to make it fit, or toil to bluff my way into enjoying this. There’s no need to force gratitude, because there is so much tangible privilege in this opportunity.
But it does require concerted contemplation: willingness to hold on to that ‘big picture’ thread amidst the slog of listening to interviews on repeat as I correct transcriptions. Openness to embrace the gift of the here and now despite the enticing siren-call of intellectual ambition in the academic pressure-cooker. Courage to tread my calling for this season – to be a monk in the world through this PhD – lightly, letting it shape but not define me. Recognising that all God asks of me is daily faithfulness to the Divine vision in the tension of this measured impermanence. Becoming comfortable with the discomfort of living once again in a place – materially and spiritually – that has always been my home, whilst missing my second home, and all the rich relational meaning I found there.
I ask hard questions of my calling on a daily basis. Can it be true that God has provided for me to spend three years of my life asking the question to which I most want the answer? How can something that feels so good also feel so tough? How can it not? Does my work mean anything? Can I really make a difference to the world? Like the thesis itself, answers are few and far between; a sparse horizon reframes itself as further avenues for exploration branching out ahead.
Embracing study – my daily work – as contemplative practice opens me to reflexivity: to asking these hard questions of my own insecurities. Why do I procrastinate rather than writing the paper before me? What fear of failure am I striving to avoid? What do jealousy and comparison reveal about my own lack of trust in being enough: the inner serpentine whisper that I can only make meaning and glorify God if I’m a perfect researcher? Sometimes I can learn from my research the necessity of complicating the picture: of considering others’ perspectives without twitching to fix, interpret or simplify. For the PhD to mean anything academically, I need to listen to what my participants are actually saying in order to delve into their narratives. For the PhD to mean anything spiritually, I need to wrestle with the warring voices within myself to delve into God’s narratives. God is, after all, the author of creation. God heard all these voices first.
Stopping to contemplate my research reminds me to cultivate joy for this opportunity to spend three years working on something I love. I don’t get it right all the time. There are days when I wonder if anyone else really cares about this seemingly self-indulgent project. When it’s easier to be half-hearted than to risk the vulnerability of giving everything and not being ‘good enough’. When I succumb to the lie that my life – especially my capacity to glorify God – depends on being ‘good enough’, efficient enough, successful enough, admired enough, impactful enough, intelligent enough. But as I sit in this space despite every inclination to run, to rush, to agitate… there are glimpses of a different story: I am here, and learning, and growing, and maybe even bearing fruit. Daily perseverance is a gift. I myself am a gift, precisely because I am seamed with fragile cracks: a grace that may open me to Divine light breaking through.
Rachel Grandey is a doctoral researcher in Extinction Studies at the University of Leeds, exploring religious perspectives around environment and culture in South East Asia. Her creative writing has featured in Vita Poetica, Agape Review, Amethyst Review and Paper Dragon. Find her on social media as @RachelGrandey or at rachelgrandey.wordpress.com.
