'The landscape, people and culture of Burma, so alien to the missionaries, are vividly brought to life.' Photo: Book cover of Callings, by Lucy Rushton
Callings, by Lucy Rushton
Author: Lucy Rushton. Review by Marisa Johnson
At the last Meeting for Sufferings, held in Leeds at the beginning of October, I met my f/Friend Lucy Faulkner Gawlinski. She had recently published a novel, Callings, under her maiden name of Rushton. She gave me a copy as a gift.
The book is fiction, but is based on stories Lucy heard from her missionary grandparents, who had served in Burma. It is meticulously researched, and brings to life a world I knew little about, through characters who struggle to make sense of what their ‘Callings’ might be, and how they may live them out.
Moving deftly backwards and forwards between the late 1920s and late 1940s, the book untangles the mixed motivations of: Ada, a young woman whose life is devastated by loss and grief; Nancy, the child Ada felt unable to bring up; Esme, Ada’s bereaved mother-in-law; and Ivy, the colleague who for a time usurps her role. The landscape, people and culture of Burma, so alien to the missionaries, are vividly brought to life.
It is hard for us contemporary Quakers to understand the impulse to bring Jesus to those who have never heard of him, and them to Jesus. Yet missionary zeal was, and, in some parts of the Quaker world, still is, a compelling calling.
But proselytising is not the only calling we experience. If we attend to the ‘still small voice’ we often find ourselves called to service in ways that we may not have expected, and may feel ill equipped for. It was so for me back in 2004 when I felt called to serve in the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel. It was one of the most significant turning points in my faith life. The same was true, to an extent, earlier this year when I found myself called to serve as a Britain Yearly Meeting trustee. As it happens, Lucy’s book provided much-needed, and frequent, relief from having to plough through 303 pages of documents in advance of the latest meeting of trustees in November!
Callings is an engaging read, and I marvel at Lucy’s imagination and erudition. I hope someone will make it into a film, and look forward to Lucy’s next offering – she clearly has a talent to share.
