Pentecost

“Come, Holy Spirit, in your power and might to renew the face of the earth.”
(Pope John XXIII)

Today we recall the Holy Spirit falling upon and filling the disciples of Jesus. This was the event for which He had told the apostles to wait in Jerusalem: the coming of ‘the Spirit of truth’ as foretold during our Lord’s final meal with them, and about which we read in chapter 16 of John’s gospel.
Every day brings us an opportunity to invite the Holy Spirit into our own lives, to open ourselves to His leading, His teaching, and the transforming effect of His dwelling within us, but today, with the focus of all Christians being on this momentous event, we could ask for no better backdrop to our own longing and commitment than the awareness and prayer of today’s disciples who already live with the breath of the Spirit blowing through their lives. It was the Holy Spirit that enabled the apostles to stand up, speak out, and draw others to an appreciation of who Jesus was; that day was the birth of the Christian church, and the church is perpetuated through the continuing presence and power of that same Spirit among us. That Christ’s church has not faded away before now is living proof of His presence: He is longed for, sought, invited and welcomed into the hearts of committed believers in Jesus Christ, and it is through such Spirit filled and Spirit led people that the Church continues today.
Let us make being filled with the Holy Spirit what today is all about, not just in church liturgies, Bible readings, sermon subjects, and in wondering what it must have been like in that room, on that day two thousand years ago. Listening, reading and wondering will not bring us to where we long to be. There is only one way to really know anything about having the Spirit of God in our lives, and that is for it to happen; prayer and a genuine desire will lead us there. We cannot begin to grasp the significance from outside the experience, and outside is not where we are meant to be.

‘When Pentecost day came round, they had all met together, when suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of a violent wind which filled the entire house in which they were sitting; and there appeared to them tongues as of fire; these separated and came to rest on the head of each of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit ...’ (Acts 2:1-4)

I have been waiting eagerly for today; waiting in anticipation, with a prayer and a longing for everyone hesitating near the edge of their fear, their freedom or their faith. If I could gather them with me in that far away forest cathedral with the Spirit swirling above, desiring, longing and waiting for their heartfelt response to His presence ... But that I cannot do. What I can do, and what I shall do after gathering with others for a Pentecost service, is rest awhile alone – in even the lightest breeze – beneath trees on a local hillside. My prayer will be the same; that many shall open their hearts to Him, become filled with Him, and be transformed by Him. And, dare I say that of the two my solitary focussed prayer will probably be the more important part of my day.

Organized traditional religion so often lacks the burning fire, the Teacher, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth promised by our Lord and which is at the heart of what today is all about, with the result that far too many of us – who call ourselves Christians – lack the essential life-force of faith and of the Church. All that we read about in Acts after the coming of the Spirit on the gathered disciples, would not have happened without the transforming effect of His empowering and infilling. In that respect, nothing has changed; we can do little of real worth without Him, and without Him as our guide and our power source we shall never achieve our aim of becoming the persons God made us to be.

God wants every one of us filled to the brim, and it is the Holy Spirit that will fill us. ‘The Filled’ is a collective title which should include every one of us. Until now it may have been an appropriate label for only one or two of our fellow travellers, but let that be changed today. Through the power of the Holy Spirit may ‘fellow traveller’ and ‘filled’ become synonymous.

‘Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful and kindle in us the Fire of Your love.’
To whatever degree may be necessary to each one of us,
tear us apart in the winds of Your presence.
Breathe upon us, open us wide,
and then, in the stillness,
in our need and desire,
in our vulnerability,
in our emptiness,
burn within us.
Consume us.
And fill us.
Be in us.
Amen

On looking up

“ Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.”
(Luke 11:9)

We have had some very breezy days recently, and at times gusts have swept through the trees with an abandonment and expressive freedom that roused memories of wild winds along the western edge of things rather than the purely here and now enjoyment of their atmospheric laughter and chatter-filled combing of branches and boughs. Everything is relative of course; one person’s steady breeze is another’s violent wind, and vice versa.
Leaves and twigs lie scattered everywhere, with tender young shoots wrenched into the limp beginnings of gradual decay and disintegration. Only when the wind has died away completely have I been able to fully bring my mind back to the present, to my own garden, and to the familiar trees within and beyond it. When they have been stirring more gently, memories of the excited but exquisite stillness and peace found within gales and storms on the Mayo coast have slipped out of mind, but the reminders of those far off Canadian forests have not ceased.
I have found myself watching the movement of branches and the fascinating flexing and bending of the tree trunks themselves; something I had seen but barely thought about before. Once fully seen, and watched and dwelt upon, the amount of movement is quite remarkable at times, and in the midst of the violent sounding passage of air through their full leafed canopies it is strangely comforting. It is all part of the trees’ survival technique; in fact it is very much part of being a tree. Without it most of them would have been uprooted, split or shattered long before reaching the splendour of maturity. But in my watching I have been searching for something I want to see again. It is something that captivated me and registered at a very deep level within me. It is an essential part of what Canada has sent home with me, and is also one of the subtle ways in which those mountains and forests beckon me to return.
Whenever the wind blows, wherever I see tall trees, and every night as I drift toward sleep and find myself standing amid those silent giants, looking heavenward once more, I am caressed and blessed with the memory of a fascination which I would have missed had I not already been looking long and deep into the distant treetops above me. I have failed to find it since returning home quite simply because it is not here. It is only as memory that I have the experience running through me every day.

It is the reason for my more concentrated watching: it is the swaying back and forth of trees in the wind.

So ordinary? So obvious? So unremarkable? No.
It could so easily have remained unnoticed because it was not what I had expected. Hindsight has reduced the surprise and provided the logical explanation, but it was only through looking up for long enough that their rhythm was seen at all. Everything in me expected a certain speed of movement if the wind was having any such effect, or no apparent movement if the trees were somehow sheltered by each other, but they were moving, and the amount of sway was considerable. My sense of wonder resulted from the seemingly out of step speed with which they moved from side to side. It was so beautifully relaxed and slow, with a noticeable delay at the end of each flexing of the trunk. Knowing that these trees were more than double the height of any I was used to seeing had not prepared me for the spellbound feeling that their movement conjured within me. Here was nature’s own poetry being pencilled against the sky, and it was not long before Thoreau’s famous words began to blend into the experience:
‘If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.’ (Walden. Henry David Thoreau).

I fell further into unison with the unheard beat to which they matched their praise, and gradually got left further behind – in all things. My feelings of being filled to the brim were regenerated; I was recharged and reawakened: life flowed around me and through me, and the flame within my heart burned a little more brightly. I could have lingered there for a long, long time.

In wind and rain, and in the stillness, may I always find time to stand in awe with You, my God.
You have stilled me and calmed me. I am full to the brim Lord.

In that one experience of the simplicity which is the pulse within all things, I revisited many of the markers placed beside my path. I did not consciously turn to look back; I had no wish, nor any need, to recall or give thought to the places, the people, or the events that had played a part in bringing me to this day, to this point in my journey and my life. But I was swiftly carried, as it were, past them all; the strangers who had arrived in my life at the very moments they were needed: God’s provision: disciples who had responded to whatever prompting they may have received; and the places to which I had been drawn ... and back to that empty Irish beach, in lashing winds and in silence and stillness. The separateness of these things is becoming less clear. It is being replaced by a new awareness of all such touches, words, moments, prayers and emotions being strands woven inseparably into the same tapestry. And the tapestry, in all its apparent complexity, is at once an expression of the simplicity of God’s communication with us, and a pointer to the tangles we create by holding on to the separate strands as we move through this life. Perplexity is born of complexity. We make simplicity complicated; we turn harmony into discord; we shred truth into unrecognizable fragments – more separate strands – and remain unconcerned when they are blown away like chaff on the breeze.
All our asking is for one single gift. All our searching is but one single quest. All our knocking is on one single door. Our whole journey is but one single step. Our whole life is a call for one single response.
Serenity is born of simplicity. It is as that slow rhythmical movement of towering trees in the wind. It is a mutual awareness: God’s awareness of us and our awareness of God’s Presence - ‘The man and his wife heard the sound of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day …’ (Genesis 3:8)
He is there, but we so often have no eyes with which to see. He calls us but we lack the ears to hear. But then, when something heightens our receptivity, like Mary Magdalene, our grief, our loneliness, our searching and our longing bring us closer to Him, and we hear Him: He calls us by name. In that moment we know Him for who He is. “Mary!” ... “Master!” (John 20:16)
It was that call and response that drifted in time with the treetops high above me. In the one pause His utterance of my name, and then the slow swing to the opposite extreme where, in that motionless calm, He waits for a response ... and then, with my breath and the wind sighing as one, “Master!” ... “ My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28)

The one gift, the one quest, the single step and our total response, are all wrapped in the folds of that intimate recognition of each other. They too are etched in the skies by trees moving between the touch of God’s two hands: – everything, but everything, is contained within and between those two points.

“Follow me.”
... and a single word from the heart: ...
“Yes!”

Moving on

The Benedictine nuns of Stanbrook Abbey leave for their new home in Yorkshire today.
It is the culmination of years of deliberation, preparation, apprehension and anticipation, and the reality of their departure will be difficult to grasp for those who have known them and who have benefited from their presence within the landscape of Worcestershire. We have always known them to be there, and whether we had contact with them or not, the simple fact of their presence has been a source of peace and strength for all who have lived within reach of the Abbey. It was there, as a child, that my own Christian roots were planted, and it was from there that I set out on my journey.
We shall all regret their leaving, particularly those who have made close friends there, but beyond this expected reaction to the human separation involved, some – including those who have never set foot inside the gate – may feel the change as a withdrawal of an important part of the structure upon which they have habitually hung their religious routines and their experience of prayer and faith. The contemplative quiet which has always formed a partial backdrop to their lives will now become an emptiness; the beauty of silence will give way to the hollow lack of all that made it beautiful. The buildings will remain; outwardly everything will look the same, but these people’s homes and hearts will no longer be blessed every day by the unchanging consolation of the community’s presence.
But this is a selfish and superficial way of thinking. We need to pause for a moment; to shake ourselves a little in an attempt to see the situation as it is, not as we feel it to be, and to appreciate how the departure may feel to those who really are involved: the individual members of the community.

All that we fear to lose – other than the physical closeness of friends – cannot be lost.
If our relationship with Stanbrook has only ever been on a basis of personal relationships or as a convenient place to hear mass, without having (either already present or acquired through contact with Stanbrook) any life within ourselves that has felt truly at home there, our feared loss is a merely imaginary loss. The feelings will dissolve in the cares and activities of everyday life and will be gone within a week.
If such life does dwell within us, then the feeling of being home when at Stanbrook has never really differed from the feeling that accompanies us wherever we may be. Friendships, and the collective consciousness and prayer of the community have, of course, focussed our awareness of it whenever we have visited, but it is the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives that makes us feel at peace and at home. So long as we walk with our Lord, having Him and knowing Him as our friend, we are always close to home. It was Christ in us meeting Christ in our friends at Stanbrook that heightened our awareness so much. It is this that we really fear to lose. But, again, this should not be lost. If it is, it is through our own fault.
This is why our meeting with others is so important. We are alive, and we carry the Spirit of God within us; in this way we are self-sustaining, but when we meet in any meaningful way we become more than the sum of our individual parts.

‘For where two or three meet in my name, I am there among them.’ (Matthew 18:20)

The community is its own living and breathing home, but we all need a place of rest; a haven in which to undo the sandal straps from the tired feet of our friends; a place in which to confidently unburden ourselves and where others can safely share their burdens with us; somewhere to gather in hope and expectation.
For Stanbrook that place is now in Yorkshire. Our Lady of Consolation awaits them there.

Let us wish our friends and the community not only God’s speed, but God’s peace, God’s direction and God’s empowerment in the new place to which they have been called; and let us open ourselves to whatever He wills for us in their absence.
Today is the feast of the Ascension; the commemoration of Christ’s ascension to Heaven. This was the last time He was seen by the apostles: His final departure. His last recorded words to them were, “And now I am sending upon you what the Father has promised. Stay in the city, then, until you are clothed with the power from on high.” (Luke 24:49)
When Jesus had left them, they ‘went back to Jerusalem full of joy’ (24:52), and ten day’s later, on the feast of Pentecost, the disciples received the Holy Spirit while gathered together in ‘the upper room’. The Christian Church was born.

We too must be joyful in the departure of our friends, and hopeful in the promise of God’s Spirit among us and within us.
In ten days time, all of us, wherever we may be, should aim to gather in our equivalent of the upper room. It will be Pentecost.

May the Stanbrook community be truly blessed with a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit that will ignite what God has prepared for them, and may we also be enlightened and empowered to take our places in the building of God’s Kingdom.

Stepping through

I have been home again for some time but focusing on writing here has not been among my thoughts until now. Indeed, the passage of time has not influenced my will to focus in that way, and I am sure that any attempt to do so before now would have resulted in failure. It was not meant to be: the time was not right.
I happily take that as being a healthy sign of unconfused priorities; that I write here at all must not be taken as an essential part of my life. However important it may feel to me at times, and however much it assists me in the discovery and clarification of my own thoughts when writing what I hope may be of help to someone else, it must never become an end in itself. I am frequently being reminded by the world around me as well as by the ever present awareness of the Spirit within me, that there is always something else, as yet unsuspected and unseen, beyond our present vantage point. Whatever I have been through, and am going through now, is teaching me and preparing me for something in my future. It may be something I am called upon to do tomorrow, or I may have to wait until the day before I die – not forgetting the possibility of those two being one and the same – but however much I still feel that I am meant to be writing here, I am increasingly aware that this is not the final answer to my long-running question, “What is it that You require of me?”

All that has been roused within me during my time away is underscored with the same searching, longing, deeply internal Presence and sense of fellowship, peace and wonder that has accompanied me for so long. It is the same Presence that walked that other western shore with me: the empty strand in Ireland. Now, as then, I am able to shout from a mountain top, “Christ is risen!” as His Holy Spirit continues trying to get through to me. I have been reminded once more that He is leading me on to something else.

I trust that I shall know it, and shall know what is asked of me when I arrive.

I have seen and experienced so little of what British Columbia offers, and yet, in spite of having been necessarily based on the edge of a city (Vancouver) where my reason for going was to be found, the brief ventures made into forests and mountains have stirred me in ways I had to some extent anticipated, but which have brought home yet again the immense gulf between learning about something - imagining it, thinking about it, believing we understand and appreciate it - and having first-hand knowledge of it: actually experiencing it.
The degree to which I have been shaken, rather than merely stirred, stripped me even further of my limited ability to communicate my feelings. If what I found and felt had been simply a place, a landscape, a space, a people, another part of the world that could provide a worthwhile destination for visits in the future, then I could have written something about it soon after returning home. No doubt I would have done so had my writing here been primarily to do with such things. But my time away was always unlikely to focus on such aspects of time and place. And the pleasure derived from my meeting with others gathered there was beyond anything I would attempt to write about here, though that pleasure was wrapped in the ever felt presence of God, and therefore became an undeniable part of my ongoing soliloquy.

I was one of seven people who had arranged to meet there. Seven is a beautiful number with its inbuilt pointers to creation itself and the day of rest, to the extent to which our forgiveness should extend, and particularly as a symbol of perfection and wholeness. But the beauty of seven – the wholeness of our group – blossomed while we were there and became a fruitful wonder through the addition of another person: someone of whom I had heard but had never met. Parting from much loved friends always has its difficulties but saying goodbye to this eighth member of our group, only a few days after first meeting, was unexpectedly painful. There was no anticipation of the emotions that were to rise within me, but it was barely possible to hide the sudden filling up that overtook me when we were all saying our goodbyes. Thank you Lord for making me aware once more that there are such people in this world, and thank you for awakening me through the reality of their presence in my own life and in the lives of all members of our group.
The experience has beautifully confirmed my reasons for always wanting to keep an empty chair at any small group meeting, however select, or formal, or otherwise; whatever the reason for the meeting and however ‘confidential’ the intended agenda may be. None of us must ever close ourselves off so completely that we believe our present circles of friendship, fellowship and trust to be unassailably complete. We sometimes long to be protected from the unexpected, the unscheduled, the apparently badly timed interruption, particularly from strangers whose needs cannot be anticipated, and who may distract us from whatever else seems important to us at that moment. Every one of us has a ministry within God’s plan, and we must never believe that people interrupt it or intrude upon it. Whatever our particular calling or gift may be, the underlying and universal truth is that ‘people are our ministry’. When we hear those words we must not assume that they are being spoken to others and not to ourselves: to priests and pastors but not to the laity: to him or to her, but not to me.

I made it to Heathrow; I boarded the plane, stepping through the open door; and in doing so my last written words became a form of personal prophecy.
The stirrings I heard and felt were of other breezes, in other trees, and they stirred me deeply. The waves from that other previously unseen ocean gently lapping upon my shore, placed me at the very edge once more – though somehow differently.

I was far from home but I knew that I was home. My home – so long as I have my Lord walking with me – is wherever I may be.
The stirrings and guidance already within my heart were given a deeper and broader meaning by the extension of a longing I have always had for the western edge of things; the western edge of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and the western edge of Ireland. I am still trying to unravel what the Lord has given to me, and asked of me, in my experience of the western edge of another continent. He has spoken to me once more; I have no doubt of that.

Bear with me Jesus, while my meagre capacity for understanding catches up and tries to grasp your message to me. You have been so patient with me for so very long; I yearn for clarity and certainty, but until You decide the time is right for my stepping to wherever you would have me be, grant me the knowledge that my quiet waiting is according to your will.

I sped away on the wings of the dawn, and dwelt awhile beyond the ocean,
but even there your hand guided me, your right hand held me fast.

Dear Lord,
never loosen your grip on my life.