I was a ‘cradle Christian’, Sunday School regular (Anglican and Methodist) and sufficiently committed in my university years to take part in Diocese of London Youth Service ‘adventures’ in Europe in three successive summers in the late ‘60s, but then found myself in the wilderness for more than 20 years. Although I continued to hold some belief in God and recognised Jesus of Nazareth as an ideal example of ethical living, I could no longer believe in the biblical miracles because they were inexplicable within the biomedical framework of understanding that I had come to espouse as a pharmacologist. After I moved from teaching medical students in London to teaching nurses at St Martin’s College in Lancaster (in 1992) God intervened and gave me a visionary experience that convinced me that the biblical miracles were just as real as my scientific experiments. Things then moved fast: I was licensed as a Reader in 1997 and elected to General Synod in 2000, where I was welcomed warmly into the OSG. My passions lie with the church’s ministry of healing, taking the sacramental approach advocated by the Guild of St Raphael; and pursuing the ordained ministry of women and men as equals.

Helen Leathard