Author: Donald Eadie

Publisher: Wild Goose Publications, Iona Books, 2019. 187 pages

Reviewer: Terry Wall

In 1989 I went to the UK to spend four years serving with the British Methodist Conference. We were warmly welcomed by the Superintendent of the Birmingham District, the Rev Donald Eadie. He set up a support group to meet with me on a regular basis. He offered an impressive continuing education programme. He proved to be a perceptive guide and mentor.

Throughout his youth Donald had been a good sportsman representing his county in both cricket and hockey. However, in 1993, the year I left England, he was diagnosed as having a degenerative spinal condition and in 1996 he was forced to retire from active ministry at the age of 56. In spite of appeals to continue his ministry as a spiritual director from a chair, sadly the church had not reached a point where it could welcome the service of one with such an impairment.

In his earlier book, Grain in Winter, (Epworth, 1999) Donald began to process the shock and disappointment of having to relinquish his vocation. He explored the uncertainty of the time of transition he found himself in, a Holy Saturday space. He focussed on the importance of waiting for the Spirit to open up a future he could never have anticipated. He asked, what does it mean to be no longer in control of one’s own situation.

Into the Foothills of Transformation is a remarkable book, like no other. Donald reflects at depth, finding a rich language of metaphor to speak of the pain and bewilderment that he encountered within. What does faith have to say to those who find themselves living with pain, to those whose suffering is intense, for whom there is no cure? What might discipleship and prayer and witness mean in this new and unsought territory?

Donald writes, “Some of us live with the implications of unexpected and unwarranted events that reshape our lives. I have been slow, perhaps reluctant, to acknowledge the story of pain hidden within my own story, its interconnectedness within the search for meaning.” What we have here is a search for the grace of God in the midst of adversity. We are met with a refusal to deny, fierce honesty and willingness to embrace vulnerability. A friend spoke to him of “a moving from all who I am toward what I have not yet become.”

Life with increasing physical fragility is not the only focus of the book. With striking openness Donald shares his experience of being in a car crash in London. The consequences of this left a deep mark and elements of trauma remain. Also woven into the text is Donald’s engaging the reality of his being adopted. Issues of abandonment and identity are confronted often at great cost. He discovered that ‘soul-pain’ is just as real as physical or emotional pain. He writes of ‘praying the pain’ and offering it to God.

This book is characterised by theology that begins with experience, rather than abstractions. There are no dogmatic assertions to be found in this writing. Nor are there simplistic or slick answers to complex questions. Rather Donald offers suggestions gleaned from experience. Do some have a ministry to be pain-bearers? Does Christian faith have resources to cope with anguish that will not go away? Can the church receive the ‘dangerous gifts’ of those who are wounded and impaired? The book promises much, and delivers more.