When I was about 40, I dreamed I would like to study medicine. It was a sort of mid-life crisis that never became critical! My wife and spiritual director talked me out of it – easily – on the grounds that I would find it unsatisfying to make a difference to health one individual at a time. I was called – and am still called – to a ministry to the many through preaching and writing.

My GP said I would find general practice boring: treating cold after simple cold with no conversation. Hugh made this statement while his waiting room filled and our conversation covered not only my mid-life ‘crisis’, but music, the church, politics, our families, travel.

This ‘crisis’ occurred at a difficult time in parish ministry. I was looking subconsciously for an escape from a parish in which the ‘difficult parishioner’ was the norm, and the pleasant parishioner the exception. It’s no wonder I dreamed of something else, but it does tell me something about myself.

Looking back 20 years, I can see that my desire was not to practise medicine, it was to study medicine. I envied the broad knowledge base a doctor needs: science (anatomy, physiology, biology, bio-mechanics) and the humanities (psychology, social awareness, passion for helping people).

I love to accumulate knowledge to convert to useful fuel for my thinking, writing and preaching. I want to know how the world works, and how sharp minds see the workings of the world. It’s not surprising that the doctors I know have sharp minds: the selection criteria for medical faculties include high academic ability as well as some insight into ethical and human situations. Rather like, I guess, the requirements for clergy, although our pre-requisites are spelled out differently, and a score greater that 99 for matriculation (TEE) is not compulsory.

But the helping professions are about translating knowledge, sometimes arcane, sometimes highly technical, into processes for healing and fostering personal growth in others. Calls to turn theology or medicine into ‘how to’ training miss this point. The discipline of theology, like that of medicine, teaches us to think in a particular way about the world and the interactions people have in it. I have often found myself drawing on the depth of my training, even though the particular content may not be directly relevant.

It’s not necessarily important to know that Antony of Egypt lived as a solitary in a silo for 20 years; but the movement from prayer in solitude to modelling prayer in community may well be the insight that a person needs now. Nor is it necessarily important to know how Jean Calvin turned Geneva into a tyrranical theocracy; but it may well be useful to know to moderate enthusiastic parish reforms.

I’m a little past mid-life, but perhaps a few more mid-life crises could throw light on my journey – as this one continues to do.