Misguided (1)

I am reminded once more that it can be difficult to define what we really think and believe.
My own needs include the writing out of thoughts before being able to fully unravel them and grasp the ideas behind them. I frequently need to do this to focus my ideas, values and convictions more effectively within my own mind before making any attempt to convey them to anyone else. This need meant that the uncertainties associated with starting to write here evaporated quickly as I began to find the process both enjoyable and fruitful: fruitful in that it enabled me to clarify and better interpret some of my own thinking, and, in having done that, to find myself becoming my own teacher and learning from myself. During this process the whole experience is a soliloquy for me, regardless of the fact that I try to frame my written words as though I am speaking to someone else. That other person of course is you, the reader, whoever and wherever you may be.
Once the thinking and writing are done, the checking and final adjustments are nothing to do with what goes on within me; putting the result into some sort of order, trying to make it read like reasonable English, and then making it available here, is done for you. It is done for anyone who happens across it, but in particular for those of you who keep coming back and who take the time to read thoughtfully. I like to think you do this because you value some of what you find here, and wish to find the intended meaning of what I have written. The most worthwhile reason for anyone doing this would be that something speaks directly to your own lives, finding similar strands in your own experience and helping to bring these vague and sometimes misunderstood threads into clearer focus and deeper understanding. This is certainly how I find myself growing through the thoughts and words of others whose insights and understanding I value. Knowing that you are out there somewhere, walking with me as unseen companions, is a blessing.
Soliloquy or not, knowing that I am not talking only to myself makes the whole experience doubly worthwhile. I thank you for that.

In spite of this, however, there are times when my uncertainty is not completely dispelled. Reading through my previous post a day after writing, I felt that my words towards the end were too negative and gave the impression that I had missed an important point about the role of the laity in the Church. But almost as soon as I began to think of altering them, I realized the problem was not so much what I had actually written, as the fact that I had not written enough to convey the entirety of my thoughts on the subject.
(This is one of the difficulties with limiting the length of any form of communication; the likelihood of failing to get one’s message across in the intended way is increased enormously. I am writing brief and semi-random pieces which I believe are probably as long as most people will be prepared to read. For many they are probably already too long.)

What is our place, as lay members of the Church, in the ongoing work of Christians to bring other people to Christ and to deepen the faith of those who are already following Jesus?
If those of us who are Roman Catholics believe it to be whatever the Church declares it to be, no more and no less, then the answer clearly lies in The Catechism of The Catholic Church, and in the various Vatican documents which have anything to say on the subject.
For those of us who are not Catholics, my own assumption is that the answer will be based upon whatever the teachings may be of the particular church or denomination, blended with the particular beliefs and interpretations of the individual; the result being a greater freedom to decide for oneself what should be done.
My assumption may be wrong; I have no particular knowledge or other reason for believing as I do, and I am well aware that this is precisely the kind of pre-formed background that leads to so many of our perceived differences and misinterpretations of attitudes and beliefs. What matters is that the Christian Church, the Church founded by Jesus Christ, be unified and conformed to His will. This can never be achieved by rigidly adhering to a set of rules and by trying to bring everyone else within the same restrictive obedience, and nor will it ever result from a freedom to scatter ourselves to the winds.

There is only one Guide, Teacher and Counsellor for all who hold themselves to be members of that Church.
It is the one we read of in St John’s gospel: the one Jesus asked the Father to give us: ‘another Paraclete to be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth whom the world can never accept since it neither sees nor knows him;’ (14:16,17). It is ‘... the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name ...’ (14:26).
Jesus told his Apostles, and us, that this would be the source of our understanding of the truth; ‘... when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth’ (16:13), and that what the Spirit teaches is the fullness of God’s Word to us: ‘... all he reveals to you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine;’ (16:14,15).
Being guided by the Holy Spirit is trusting in Christ’s promises; it is following in the footsteps of Jesus. And faithfully following our Lord is obedience to the Father.

As we are called to follow Christ we need to be guided by those whose lives have already been placed at the disposal of the Spirit, and it is here, in lack of discernment and in our over-reliance on other men and women, that Christianity has been undone. It has been pulled apart and is no longer the Church Jesus left us with. In our struggle to understand its truth, we have torn the seamless robe asunder with our differences and with our attempts to justify our own positions. All its threads are laid out and separate across the Earth, and we know that we must somehow put them all back together. This will remain an impossibility until every one of us accepts that we do not possess the whole truth, and that we have been listening to ourselves and to the convictions of others through our inability to discern the voice of truth.
The truth we seek can come only from the Spirit of Truth.

True Christianity today can be summed up as just one thing: being led by the Holy Spirit in all things. Without this leading we merely construct a shelter for our own needs rather than for the needs of the world, and we name our shelter “Church” with little idea of God’s plans for us.

Yes; Jesus wants His church back.
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Recognition (2)

‘The Apostles themselves, on whom the Church was founded, following in the footsteps of Christ, "preached the word of truth and begot churches." It is the duty of their successors to make this task endure so that the word of God may run and be glorified (2 Thessalonians 3:1) and the kingdom of God be proclaimed and established throughout the world.’ (Ad Gentes. Preface.)

The above is from the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on the Mission Activity of the Church, with its relevance to the spreading of the Gospel to all peoples on Earth, but would it not be wonderful enough today if our focus, our faith, our openness to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and our discernment were such that this could be applied to our own words and deeds in our own lands? In our own cities and parishes? Indeed, how can this be relied upon to happen in the wider world unless it is already happening on our doorsteps? And how can it become a reality here without it having first grown and blossomed within ourselves?
The quoted words of Saint Augustine make it sound so simple and so easy to achieve; they "preached the word of truth and begot churches." Today we have a world of different churches and denominations all begotten through the preaching, decisions and actions of men. Some are vibrant and growing, while others have their traditional church buildings with slowly decreasing numbers; some with enough of a community to still be regarded as a church, but what of those which do little more than echo to the sound of infrequent footsteps and shrink still further into their partially mummified rules, routines and spiritual outlook?

‘It is the duty of their successors to make this task endure’. It would be easy to accept that this duty has been passed on in its entirety to our bishops, and through them onto our priests, but the Church is changing, and, to some degree at least, our place within it has already changed. As lay members of the Church we should no longer be passively watching and listening to our priests while making no real effort to further our own advance or contribute to the spiritual health and vigour of the people around us.
It is our responsibility to share in the Holy Spirit’s work ‘to make this task endure’.
Can we really believe that, with the shortage of vocations to the priesthood, the laity is being asked to sit to one side twiddling thumbs or drumming fingers with a ‘Well, don’t look at me’, attitude? We must take our place as and when the Spirit calls us and guides us; without us Christ’s Church will not reveal ‘a vitality continuously renewed.'

It has been said before, but it needs to be repeated – and not just repeated, but acted upon – Jesus wants His Church back.
There are many ways in which we can work towards returning it into His hands, but they all derive from the one certain way the Church has for ensuring that it conforms to His will: being open to, listening, hearing, discerning and acting upon the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Much has happened during and since Vatican II, and the involvement of the laity that is essential to the life and the reality of Christ’s Church has been acknowledged and declared to be our duty. But to become involved to the extent to which I believe the Holy Spirit is leading us requires us to be bolder than many of us have been thus far.
Some of our priests are leading us and encouraging us toward this involvement in ways that speak loudly of their openness to the Spirit of God and their clarity of vision, while others are perhaps as unsure of the future as we are ourselves. In itself this does no harm, providing as it does, a less vigorous but no less fertile basis for growth in which priest and congregation can move forward together, growing into a more meaningful community in the process.
In the few places where harm is done, those who resist any meaningful lay involvement will eventually crumble, leaving little in the way of sound stones for repair work and future building. Until their time comes for being returned to dust, the less opportunity these men have for influencing younger priests and those considering a life within the Church, the better.
The ‘ What can I hand over?’ attitude is a declaration of control and takes little account of the gifts or the potential of the individual lay persons; and saying that ‘they will learn the delicate art of working together’ excludes the idea of the priest learning to work alongside the laity. It implies that all priests already have both this skill and the desire to use it. Both ways of thinking can be expressions of a determination to maintain the status quo, and, worryingly, both are taken from a talk on ‘The Parish’ given by a member of the clergy at an Archdiocese Study Day for Priests and Deacons within the last five years.
If there is a limiting factor in the involvement of the laity, we should expect it to be our own hesitation and reluctance to shoulder our share of the ministry, not the clergy’s unwillingness to share it with us.

‘Ministry is for all and those who are ordained have a special role and function. However, their ministry is validated and truly productive if they are affirmed and respected by those to whom and with whom they minister. Clergy ... only have a function within a local community that recognises their ministry and gifts and is willing to share that ministry with them. ... Whether we have a high or low view of ordination, the body of Christ gives to all who are members an identity, a calling and gifts to offer for the good of all.’
(Alan Abernethy. Fulfilment and Frustration.)

... on stepping-stones

While looking through Good News magazine pages for the article referred to in the previous post, I was reminded of something about which I wrote here two years ago: – somewhere within each of us there is a boundary we have set for ourselves. It is our limit for feelings of inadequacy or vulnerability in our relationship with God; we are prepared to approach Him this far but no further. With time the boundary hardens into a barrier, until one day something happens to make it crumble; a process that can eventually bring the whole structure down. As the wall disintegrates within us we are buffeted by our insecurity until we stand with nothing but rubble on all sides. We are held in the grip of the very fear that made us set our boundary in the first place: a fear of yielding too much of ourselves into the hands of God.

The word ‘rubble’ caught my eye in two articles in the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of the magazine.
Gerry Gallacher wrote, ‘There is a great deal of rubble - rubbish, hampering our rebuilding of Jesus’ Church. Things of the world hinder us and sap our strength: material possessions, status, money, fashion, ungodly or excessive entertainments. The enemy is very near and hides behind and within the rubble, from where he mounts attack. If we are engaged in this work we need to throw the “rubbish” away and put Jesus first in our lives.’
Fiona Hendy wrote, ‘The book of Nehemiah tells how the broken down walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt by families, stationed next to each other – everyone helping. In the beginning there was much rubble to clear in order to get started, and it seemed overwhelming. But they continued. The work was threatened time and again as the enemy tried different tactics to stop them: trickery, threats of violence, mockery … What does this mean for us? Many of us become overwhelmed by the state of the country, (and the Church!) or distracted by the amount of work to be done and the apparent strength and devious tactics of the enemy. But today’s trumpet call is: Focus everyone! Pay attention! Let’s start building. Never mind how much rubble you see, just clear it out of the way, keeping your eyes on the goal. Your part matters, however small. Start now!’

Having written that we must recognize, salvage and rebuild with the sound building blocks left from broken dreams, I am conscious of the way similar thoughts and themes crop up again as we follow what we usually take to be a linear course. Even if we are in fact following such a course, our progress is as though within a giant wheel that rolls slowly along our path with each step we take. The stages we have passed through were thought to have been left behind, but then we find ourselves in similar circumstances again, not repeating what has gone before but building upon the lessons previously learned with a deeper search, a closer walk and further insights.
It strikes me that walking my path is turning out to be remarkably like reading the Bible, in that whenever I believe I understand something my continuing search reveals ever deeper layers awaiting my discovery; what was once experienced as mind-opening or life-changing is later recognized as superficial and having brought me only a little closer to my goal.
The Bible contains more than enough spiritual food for a lifetime. Reading it once, however slowly, carefully, prayerfully, will never open all its truths to us. We have to travel with it and through it, allowing its pages to turn in the same way that the wheel of our experience turns as we tread our spiritual paths, bringing the cycles of learning and understanding, of revelation and knowing, round again in a pattern that fits our own degree of advancement and our capacity for a closer walk with God. It is this gradual process of deepening trust as the pages of our lives are turned that dispels our fear of getting too close and of being asked for more than we are prepared to give. As we place ourselves more willingly into His hands we see more clearly that the rubble around us can be forgotten once we have gathered the essential lessons learned from under the dust. These are the stones with which we are to continue building upon the rock of Christ, and it is this process of leaving the rubbish behind while rebuilding that moulds us to God’s will. It is what includes us among The Moulded: the apparent next stage among the group of twelve followers I suggested we could travel as two years ago. (06.01.07)

I say what appears to be the next stage, as all twelve (and all the other descriptions we may feel suit our circumstances) do not follow a linear sequence. They are all present and building and changing at one and the same time, while seeming to return at different times and at deeper levels as the wheel, and the pages, of our lives continue to turn.
We have only to face toward Jesus for this process to begin. We will become the persons we were born to be, shaped to His will, if we allow Him to enter, to dwell and to reign within us.
As Fiona Hendy has said, ‘Focus everyone! Pay attention! Let’s start building.’ If we focus on the things that really matter the rubble and the rubbish will, in effect, leave themselves behind while the stones we have salvaged become stepping-stones for our continued progress towards the building in which we are all called to take a part; the building of our commitment to Christ and His Church.
Carrying that which is of value from our past into our future is symbolically expressed in the following words quoted by F. W. Dillistone in his book, The Power of Symbols.

‘ ... the Oxford firm of Shepherd and Woodward, in their centenary year, have re-modelled the robe worn this morning by our honoured Chancellor. Four ladies, one of whom remembers working on the original garment in the 1920s, made an entirely new black gown with new lace, but carried over the virtually irreplaceable embellishments from the old one. ... To incorporate irreplaceable material from the past into brand-new present-day workmanship is to exemplify that ideal which the University has kept in mind for seven hundred years, and will surely always keep in mind: an originality grounded in tradition, a vitality continuously renewed.' (John Wain, Professor of Poetry, in his final speech at Encaenia in Oxford.)

Incorporating ‘irreplaceable material from the past into brand-new present-day workmanship’; this is what we are called to do in conforming our individual lives to God’s will. In working to that end we can generate a collective longing to achieve the same for Christ’s Church.
‘An originality grounded in tradition, a vitality continuously renewed.' Is this not what the world needs from us? – what the world wants us to be? Christ’s Church today would be exactly that if Jesus walked among us; it would be alive to the world as it is today, and our churches would be buzzing with people who are now searching and longing for something we are failing to give them.
In general, the Church does not demonstrate ‘a vitality continuously renewed’ and this can only be because we ourselves are not so renewed. We are the Church, and we are blessed with the constant presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Have we not heard Jesus telling about the Spirit in John’s Gospel? Have we heard but failed to understand? Or in understanding have we failed to believe?

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Fiona Hendy’s trumpet call, ‘Focus everyone! Pay attention! Let’s start building.’ carries some real weight.
I believe today’s one word of guidance from the Holy Spirit is the first one: - Focus. Until we can focus on the word itself we will not understand what it really means. When we do understand it, we shall be ready to focus on the Spirit, and that means opening ourselves to His guidance and to the gifts He brings. Then we shall begin to hear what is required of us.
Only then shall we be sure of what we are to build.

‘If the Lord does not build a house
in vain do its builders toil.
If the Lord does not guard a city
in vain does its guard keep watch.'
(Psalms 127:1)

Stepping out ...

We find ourselves at that point in time again, having stepped out of the old year and into the new. Another series of events has been laid upon the previous pattern of our lives, filed away under the tidy but otherwise meaningless heading of 2008, just as 2009 suddenly lies open before us.

Discernment is necessary if we are to evaluate our past experience in any meaningful way, and our discernment has to include an ability to sift through the wreckage of past dreams, to recognize the solid and the sound amid the crumbling and insubstantial debris at our feet, and to link those salvaged building blocks from our past one to the other in a framework that advances our knowledge of how we came to be the persons we are, and how we came to be in the place we occupy today.
Something will have occurred in the last twelve months that has altered our lives; it may have moved us forward, enlightened us, knocked us back a little – or drastically and brutally; it may have freed us, grieved us, swept us off our feet, or buried us in fear, or stress, or anxiety. We have all been through something that has contributed to the overall shape and texture of our lives. For some of us it will be obvious; for others less so. In some cases the relevance may evade us completely until later: perhaps during the coming year – possibly even beyond that. Even the devastating events in our lives bring something other than distress and pain, though the passage of time is essential for this awareness to be realized within our limited understanding.

My own lessons learned have been in the nature of teaching that I must always believe that my journey is worthwhile. I must not allow doubts as to my worth and my ability to discern the right path to prevent me from continuing my walk, my search and my attempts to encourage others to continue with theirs. Nothing has happened during the last year to cause me great distress, and I am conscious again of the trials others have been through while I have been blessed with the peace only my continued faith could bring.

The year has produced its share of horrific happenings around the world, some of which leave us wondering whether humanity has indeed raised itself from the tooth and claw of the animal world. We would normally believe this to be so, but there is so much evidence that appears to support a contrary belief. We must never allow ourselves to doubt the God given potential for good that is in each one of us as members of the human race.
Far less traumatic than the experiences of many people in other parts of the world, but devastating nonetheless, was the product of the unusually prolonged and heavy rainfall on one day in 2007 (see 22nd July ‘07 post). This last year has been one of recovery from that event for many people. Tewkesbury, a town I have lived within easy reach of since childhood, became known nationally through the consequences of the flooding that resulted from that day, and, not far away though less publicised, was the Christian community of The House of the Open Door at Childswickham (see 6th August 2007 post).
With all that has been endured – the rebuilding of lives, confidence and a sense of security, as well as of structures, requiring no less a part of that endurance than the destruction itself – I trust that God will grant all whose lives were so abruptly altered that day with a year of blessings after the long year of rebuilding and re-evaluation that was 2008.

The Sept/Oct 2008 edition of Good News magazine contained an article aptly entitled ‘The Lord Provides’ about these and other events at The House of the Open Door. As previously, may I suggest that it is worth a look. http://www.ccr.org.uk/archive/gn0809/g04.htm

As Bernie Hall says at the end of her article, ‘The Lord gives and the Lord takes away’.
May all whose experiences have led to their glass seeming half-empty and rapidly slipping away, recognize the blessings that will transform their glass into one that is half-full and showing the promise of becoming filled to the brim.
The Lord may at first appear to take away, but from the better viewpoint (and nothing betters hindsight for getting us there) the Lord gives and gives again. If we can but trust Him to the full we shall come to recognize the truth: that He is giving to us every day, come shine or rain: come drought or flood.
There are times when we are called to follow the stream and there are times when we must stand firm while it flows right through us. Community relies on each of us being able to persevere and grow through both experiences in the way that the HOD Community has done. As I raise my brimming glass to their faith and their future, I pray that the coming year may bring each of us a greater awareness of our blessings.

‘How blessed is anyone ...
who delights in the law of the Lord
and murmurs his law day and night.
Such a one is like a tree planted near streams;
it bears fruit in season
and its leaves never wither,
and every project succeeds.'
(Psalms 1:1-3)

He is born

“Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalms 46:10)

This call radiates from the crib in ways more easily grasped by the wonder-filled minds of the children we bring to it than by ourselves.

Regardless of our own beliefs and doubts, our picking and choosing, and our denominational differences, all Christians are united in both the magnitude and the simplicity of the event we celebrate today: the birth of Jesus.
The world has its own take on Christmas; we all know that; and in the moments when we are able to brush aside the indecency, the absurdity and the immorality of the commercial pressures behind the Christless clamour and glitter of the weeks over which the festivities are spread, we can all acknowledge the enjoyment that is part of the whole experience, but this is Christmas. It is nothing if not the celebration of Christ’s birth. This is where Christianity began; this is where the idea of Christian unity had not even been formulated because there was, and never had been, any disunity.

Within our hearts we can all return to that beautiful simplicity of togetherness in trust and belief over this Christmas period. We can return to our long-lost presence as children before the infant Jesus in His crib. We can simply be still: we can stop and listen: hearken, watch and pray. We can allow the Spirit of God to speak into our deepest selves.
This is where our future unity can begin; where our faith in Jesus Christ began.
There are ways in which we seem to be too far gone and too far apart for it to come about in any other way; and seeming to be forever apart quickly hardens into a firmly held but mistaken belief that this really is the case.

Let us follow Mary’s example of humility and abandonment into the hands of God.
She laid aside her anxieties and rested in a peace born of complete trust in Him.
When the angel Gabriel spoke to her, at first ‘She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean’ (Luke 1:29) but her acceptance resulted in altogether different feelings: ‘My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour;’(1:46,47)
Later, after The birth of Jesus, ‘she treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.’ (2:19)

We are called to put the same degree of trust in God’s provision for us; to place ourselves in His hands as completely as He placed Jesus into the hands of Mary.

‘I hold myself in quiet and silence,
like a little child in its mother’s arms,
like a little child, so I keep myself.'
(Psalms 131:2)

A joyful, peaceful and wonder-filled Christmas to everyone.

True words

For many people the modifying of language over time is an unobtrusive process, and may go completely unnoticed from one generation to another; some words recede from common usage until they are dropped altogether from normal conversation and the ideas originally conveyed fade into an infrequent checking of spelling and meaning in the pages of dictionaries. But for others the resultant changes in ideas and gradual drift away from essential truths is a matter for concern.
When considered together with a reduction in the future availability of some words – in many cases words which I and my family could not imagine our world being without – any discomfort we may have when honestly assessing our own interpretation of the veracity of words and passages in the Bible, becomes relevant to the frequently ungraspable realities of our own faith, and to the questionable reality of our own commitment to a particular denomination within the Church.
What is the Truth? Where is the Truth? How do we discern the Truth? More worrying still, how does the next generation recognize and understand the truth if words used in its conveyance are rarely used and little understood?

An article by Henry Porter, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/14/books-dictionary-culture in last Sunday's Observer newspaper (14.12.08) is worth a thoughtful read.

The words slipping away through our children’s fingers may not be relevant to their understanding of God’s Word but they are much needed in a world that should allow no reduction in the appreciation of the natural wonders around us. With so much conspiring to make life within a church community (as present members understand it) unattainable and seemingly of no significance, the natural world remains an essential link and an ever-open pathway for today’s young people to catch a glimpse of God in their own lives.

‘... the word ‘supernatural’ is scarcely respectable today. Is this because every generation needs a new vocabulary, needs to discard worn-out words and give language new life and strength? Very probably: but we should remember that certain words express certain ideas; if we change the words we may change the ideas too and so forget the truths that the words originally conveyed.’

(René Voillaume. Concerning Religious Life.)

My thoughts here are a continuation of an inner response to the ways women are frequently perceived, patronized and prohibited from fulfilling their potential within their Church. The apparent silence of women in the Bible should come as no surprise to us when we consider the context in which the scriptures were written, (the already quoted 1 Corinthians 14:33,34, makes this clear enough), but their silence then, though now seeming very loud, is far more readily understood than is the situation for the women of today.
Women are not expected to be silent today; in a quiet and unobtrusive way, Nancy reading to us is evidence of that. She may not be able to give her own ideas and insights into the passages she reads, but the fact that she can use her gift to the full, bringing out layers of God’s own meaning for those of us who listen, is more than just a beginning; it is a blessing. And it is not as though Nancy is the only one to be seen and heard; we have many women readers, and the sanctuary would look rather bare today if girls were still not allowed to become altar servers. The organizing, catechizing, leading of groups and maintaining the constant portrayal of what it means to be a Christian, would all be grossly diminished if women slipped away into the shadows and silence.

But, there is so much more. Some gifts, like Elizabeth’s welcoming smile, cannot be contained or hidden from view, but what is the real gift hidden in the depths of that welcome? Others, like another woman’s energy and commitment to social justice, poverty and peace, were clearer and active, but what if she had really been encouraged and allowed to lead? And then there are those who have played significant parts in my own journey; understated and calm; available and supportive; rarely seen, even less conversed with, but never forgotten. Beneath their obvious giftedness, whatever are the latent powers with which they have been blessed? I am not the only one to have sensed the Presence within them.

Such women are to be found in every parish throughout the world. The time will come for them to be heard and seen, to be known, proclaimed and experienced as equal in all ways. We know it will not happen today or tomorrow but it can be brought forward by ordinary Christian men: men like me, awakening the truths that sleep within us. It will take the gentle pressure of our collective awareness coupled with an insistence of the Holy Spirit’s guidance to spread the inner truth upwards through the tiers of pride, prestige and power. Every man should be prepared to strip away all layers of defence, assumed superiority, self-confidence and pride, not to stand aside in confusion, suppressed anger or disbelief, but to allow the Spirit of God to breathe in every heart and mind, and to discern what each of us truly believes. From this simple reality will grow the awareness of any changes needed to conform to the will of Christ for His Church.

How do I unravel the contradictions that are so much a part of what goes on within me? (Contradictions that must be apparent here.)
I believe the Bible to contain the Word of God, but do I believe it in the way others expect me to believe? And who are these others?
I know that I tend to pick and choose as much as anyone else; why does that admission not frighten me?
What is the Truth? Where is the Truth? How do I discern the Truth?
What is gospel? What is The Gospel?

Earlier this year, Patsy Rodenburg, a noted voice coach, was interviewed on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. (3.3.08)
Speaking about the contest between Hillary Clinton and Barach Obama for the Democratic Party nomination in the United States , she said, “I’m very fearful that at this moment a lot of people don’t want the truth, they want quality.”
Is this not one of the dangers in the Church today? We are brought back to the power of words for good or ill, and the phenomenal swaying power of words from the mouth of anyone with a gift for getting their message across to those who hear them. Truth can be hidden and lost in the apparent blessings of such quality, but it is reassuring when words from the Bible, no more and no less, when brought to life by a gifted reader should convey the Truth to me.

It is little wonder that it has taken so many years to acquire my inner certainties, but it is a source of peace that I know they will never be lost.

Dear Lord, I know what lives as truth within me;
Let me not be misguided by the dark corners of my self.
Lead me always, that I may do nothing contrary to Your will,
And let me speak no more on this without Your bidding.

Inner truth

It always takes me by surprise when some aspect of my faith: my belief or disbelief; my agreement or disagreement with what I believe to be the general understanding, if not the clearly defined teaching of the Church, comes unexpectedly into clearer focus.

Such is now the case as a result of feelings generated by my recent meeting with Nancy (previous post) and by the recollection of particular qualities in other women who have figured in my faith journey, contrasting abruptly with the following words of St Paul read while randomly dipping into the Bible a few days ago; words previously skimmed with a thoughtless disregard as I have never taken them to be relevant in today’s world. This time, however, the words spoke loudly and deliberately from the page. I have learned to be attentive at such times.

‘As in all the churches of God’s holy people, women are to remain quiet in the assemblies, since they have no permission to speak: theirs is a subordinate part, as the Law itself says.’ (1 Corinthians 14:33,34)

I cannot imagine how some of the Christian women I have met, have know, and know today, feel when they read or hear such words.
What I do know, without any shadow of doubt, is that whatever the official line of the Church of which I am a committed life-member, and whatever the stated beliefs of other individuals whose opinions I trust and value, such verses from scripture are not to be taken as God’s instruction to His people in today’s Church. The Christ who is risen and dwells among us today in the ever-present form of the Holy Spirit, as well as in the intangible but undeniable form of the timeless wanderer of Palestine, Jesus: the constant Companion who has trodden life’s paths with others as He once trod them with me, expects us to have matured in our understanding over the last two thousand years. We are human; we are men and women; all that has changed over the last two millennia is proof of our advance in ability and understanding, while the frightening advance of evil that is entwined in those changes is also proof of our weakness and inherent vulnerability. Jesus knows our potential and our weakness: He has been there through His being here as a man, in the world, among men and women. He understands us, men and women both. He knows us.
My faith – not the apparent black and white of what I am supposed to believe through having been told, but the beliefs born of my awareness of God’s presence in my life: His promptings, His touch, and the ever present teaching and direction of His Spirit through my conscience – tells me, teaches me, leads me, shows me where I must look for certainty, where doubt, and where I should not look for anything, placing all my trust in Him and every corner of my life completely in His hands. I feel that my certainties come from Him and my continuing doubts live because I do not hear Him well enough: they live because my weakness and my sinfulness also live.

My certainties include my appreciation of the contributions made by women in the Church, and I shall always be willing to speak with them and for them as they strive against attitudes which do not come from the mind of God.
Women today need not ‘remain quiet in the assemblies’, since they require no permission to speak: theirs is no longer a subordinate part. Those who insist on trying to maintain the validity of every word in the Bible for today’s world are not allowing the Spirit of God to speak into their hearts, minds and souls. Wherever their supposed guidance comes from, it is not from our paternal and maternal parent, our Father God; it is not from Jesus, and nor is it from the Holy Spirit, both of whom are extensions of the Father and do only as He wills.
Deep within myself I know this, and having acquired my certainty in ways that are undeniable, I believe I know this as we all should know it: as a human being, as a member of the human family, and as a member of Christ’s Church as He would have it be. In this context, it is purely coincidental that I am a man.
I am a member of Christ’s Church, listening and watching for His return after two thousand years of waiting, and I would hope that when He does return He will find all of us, women and men, standing beside each other as equals. Until we achieve that end within His Church we shall never be ready for the reality of Christian unity, and we shall not be prepared for the day of our Lord’s return.

Much has been said and written about St Paul’s attitude to women, and, misogynist or not, (I believe not), his words are unavoidably there as part of his beliefs and teachings. If we believe the Bible to contain only inspired writings which are to be received as the Word of God, we have no way of avoiding or excluding their presence from our spiritual lives unless we include ourselves (if we dare be that honest) among the innumerable members of what is, in effect, the largest Christian denomination of all: the selective, live by this rule, bend that one, ignore the other, suit myself, ‘pick-and-mix’ Christians. Though non-existent as a coherent and communicating body, with their numbers including those who would never admit to sharing much in their backgrounds, denominational territory and rigidly protected grasp on the truth, these self-proclaimed Christians, collectively, though inadvertently, constitute a vast but nebulous ecumenical movement. They are bringing members of the various groups closer to each other by dissolving the barriers, though the resulting paths which would allow access between persons are so convoluted that they will not be seen, let alone be found and successfully followed. The barriers still separate as do the towering hedges of a maze, but there is a way of getting to the other side of every barrier; in the maze we know it, however confusing it may be, while in our selective acceptance and rejection of scripture, of dogma and of expectations, we never recognize our enabling of a mutual accessibility. That recognition would send many of us scurrying back to the denominational corners we had never knowingly left, where our spiritual worlds would carry on the same; we would still pick and choose but with a greater certainty that ecumenism is a very unhealthy idea; it is not for us: it is not for me, for him or for her; it is not for real Christians: my sort of Christians: my denomination: my church.

In spite of this hidden undercurrent of increased compatibility, this is a widespread weakening of what it means to be a Christian, and is, in fact, no friend of Christian unity. It is a movement towards the further splintering of an already fragmented Christianity; a progressive spread of the effects of allowing individuals to decide for themselves in matters of faith, biblical interpretation and adherence or otherwise to church teaching. It is the faltering and weakening, but still destructive outcome of protest upon protest; of difference upon difference; of division upon division: the inevitable outcome of prolonged and expanding Protestantism. Unity is impossible in such circumstances, and ecumenism will never blossom without the Catholic Church. (One does not have to look far to find those who regard ecumenism as a Catholic plot which is slowly seducing members of Protestant churches and their derivatives into moving closer to the Roman Catholic Church; something they insist should be avoided at all costs by every non-Catholic: in their thinking, by every ‘real’ Christian.)

What is as meaningful today as when it was first written is not what Paul had to say about the place of women in the Palestinian world of two thousand years ago. It is everything else: all that our Lord has said, and continues to say through him in his letters to the early churches. The very fact that his teaching rings true for Christians in today’s very different world is witness to the inspired nature of his writings. Those brief passages based on what was to become relegated to the past through his own teaching as much as anyone else’s, can so easily be laid aside as belonging to the world Jesus came to change, to supersede and to redeem. The quotation I reacted to so strongly begins and ends with the reason for Paul’s inclusion of it in his letter: ‘As in all the churches of God’s holy people ... as the Law itself says.’
Jesus brought us into new territory: into a new world and a new covenant. The Law belongs to the old world; to Paul’s old world. The Law and the old covenant are behind us if only we will let go of them. And who is this ‘we’? One answer of course is the Jewish people with their adherence to the Law and to the old covenant, but within Christ’s Church it is for the most part people like me. Not every member of the human race: man, woman and child, but men like me. The entire responsibility for the unwarranted continuation of the subjugation of women within the Church rests with every man who has ever called himself Christian while occupying a place of influence within the body of Christ. The responsibility rests with me.
My regret and my sense of shame end here.

May the very last words of the Bible echo within the hearts of every man and woman long after each closing of the book.

‘May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all. Amen.’
(Revelation 22:21)

Voices

As St Paul wrote in the already quoted 1 Corinthians 12:4-6, ‘There are many different gifts ... there are many different ways of serving ... there are many different forms of activity ...’; all are needed and all are of value in the building of God’s Kingdom and His Church, as well as in the advancing of individual sanctity and faith in both those who give and those who receive. ‘... it is always the same Spirit ... the same Lord ... the same God who is at work in them all.’

As I stepped out of our local shop yesterday, I recognized a lady getting into her car and was at once compelled to speak to her.

I know Nancy and her husband by sight and by name, being members of the same parish and having frequently seen them in church over the years, but I do not know them as people, as individual persons, as characters: in reality, I do not known them at all.

I am ashamed to say that I do not recall having ever spoken to either of them before.
It is a long time since I first became aware of just how many people there are whom I recognize, can put a name to, see regularly either as neighbours or as members of a congregation, and yet do not know even superficially. It has always been a slightly troubling awareness: an ongoing discomfort: a matter of conscience. Occasionally it has been more than that, reaching a level where it has almost become a hurt. When such a moment has arisen, it has always been coupled with regret and repentance for not having spoken earlier to whomever the person may be; that person always being someone for whom I have had something to say which has remained unsaid. I have had the thought but it has remained sterile because my voice has not been heard.

I have held my tongue through a combination of reasons which seem to take their turn at surfacing into consciousness; a shyness at meeting new people; a reluctance to be the one to make the initial approach; a fear of opening a contact too far and generating an acquaintance I do not wish to maintain; a fear of being asked to do something, or of being asked to go further than I want to go; a fear of others getting to know me; a fear of others comparing what they find with what they had previously assumed or guessed at, and learning that I fail their expectations on almost all counts. Spread thinly but undeniably throughout this unexceptional and very human mix of hesitancy, insecurity and inadequacy, is another strand which I find less easy to accept.
For one who thinks himself (whatever other faults be admitted) neither proud nor arrogant, to have my instinctive inclination to hang back suddenly laid out before me as a form of pride is disturbing and potentially frightening. It presents the possibility of this being the other side of the flipped ‘humility’ coin, where, once it is in the air nobody quite knows how it is going to land, and even when it comes to rest those present will see different end results, leading to continued disagreement and argument. I recall someone’s immediate response to the word ‘humble’ being used in a discussion, not with reference to any person but simply as the relevant word: – “If you ever think you are humble then you are definitely not.” A misuse and inappropriate emphasis and understanding, as I interpreted it, of a valuable way of looking at humility readily found in books, talks and teachings. I can already hear her voice somewhere saying, “If you think you are not proud, then you definitely are.” For me, an unhelpful thought; and not a helpful voice.

But there are other voices speaking other words, and I thank God for them.
What compelled me to speak to Nancy was her voice: her exceptionally helpful voice. If I had not responded to the inner prompting, letting another opportunity slip away, or if I had done so but hesitated long enough to be just too late to catch her, this would have become another of those moments: a hurt that may have lingered for days. But it did not.
Nancy and her husband, although almost strangers to me – and themselves perhaps not even recognizing me as, unlike them, I have not done anything to make them aware of my presence – are memorable to me through the use of their gifts. Through utilizing their giftedness they are recognized and valued for something more than being naturally gifted in the sense of skilfully exercising a nurtured talent; they are valued as being gifted by God in a way that has enabled the natural talent to be directed towards a maturity expressed for the benefit of others: for edification rather than an empty uttering of words. They are both gifted lectionary readers.

When that word ‘edification’ comes to mind, I normally think of the hoped-for results of preaching and teaching; of words derived from the spiritual thoughts of the speaker. I may benefit spiritually from reading the Bible to myself, away from all sounds and distraction, but I do not usually find listening to others reading the epistles or the psalms edifying. The scriptures come to mind only because that is the one place where I know I have come across the word, and St Paul speaks of it at a time when none of the New Testament existed in the written form we so easily take for granted today. Every early advance of Christ’s Church was achieved through the spoken words of the apostles and their followers until such documents as Paul’s letters began to be read aloud.
In his letter to the church at Ephesus Paul says, ‘let your words be for the improvement of others, as occasion offers, and do good to your listeners;’ (4:29). Of this verse St John Chrysostom said, ‘That is to say, what edifies your neighbour, that only speak, not a word more. For to this end God gave you a mouth and a tongue, that you might give thanks to Him; that you might build up your neighbour.’ (Homily 14 on Ephesians.)

Every verse of the Bible has the power to edify us; the limitations are in ourselves, not in the Word of God.
We must search and listen for the words that will bring us to life; they are in there somewhere, but it takes more than our coming across them to make us recognize them as the ones we need. We may not know them when they are first found, but with God’s blessing in the form of the right person crossing our path, we can have them brought to life, not simply in themselves through skilful presentation, but within ourselves through a gifted interpretation.
This is what Nancy and her husband have done for me, and though I have thought it frequently, the years have passed without my uttering a word to either of them – until yesterday. In touching me anew with the meaning of the words they have read, they have blessed me and lead me deeper into that meaning; they have drawn me further into my relationship with the Word behind, beneath and between the words.

Hearing and listening attentively to what we hear, begins an absorption into the Presence that underlies the words on the page. The Holy Spirit, through the gifted reader, lifts the words from the page and lays them before our understanding as a gift: as pearls that are not to be idly cast before those without the ears to hear. We are the ones for whom that gift is given; we are the ones for whom the reader has been blessed with the gift of turning God’s Word in scripture into edification rather than words of merely superficial worth. Such ability is the fruit of two natural gifts combining to become a spiritual gift given for the benefit of all who hear; the ability to interpret the written word, and to convey the interpretation without loss and without distraction through an inspired utterance of the words.

My thanks to Nancy and her husband: yes. But more than this; thank you Lord for them: for bringing them to us; for Your gift to them, and for our ability to hear Your Word more clearly through them.
Nancy’s path crossed mine yesterday, as mine crossed hers, and I have at last said what should have been said long ago: the words I needed to utter have been spoken. Perhaps, unknown to me, Nancy also needed to hear me speak.

For that also, dear Lord, I thank you.
Amen

Expressions

‘Philosopher George Santayana once remarked, “Art critics talk about art. Artists talk about where you can buy good turpentine.” ... True artists do not spend much time on talks or thoughts. They prefer to be absorbed in the concrete and direct experience of beauty instead of working with its abstractions.’ (Kenneth S. Leong. The Zen Teachings of Jesus.)

True artists are filled with an ability to see at least one aspect of the world around them in ways that others find impossible, improbable, and generally imperceptible; at best, their recognition may be intermittent or fleeting, or otherwise constant but foggy. Not only are the artists among us blessed with this ability, but they have a corresponding will to bathe in it as an essential part of their lives: it is simply part of them; it forms the empty canvases, the uncut stones, the blank pages, the unsung notes and the un-danced steps among which they search and breathe, strive and dream.
What makes them artists in the minds of others is their desire to express themselves and to reveal to the world at least a glimpse of what they have seen: to those unable to see for themselves and to those who may see but are unable to express and condense their attraction into the skilfully worked end-products we call works of art. Artists live in a balance of two abilities: the ability to see (to hear and to feel) and the ability to express what they see, the two being linked and brought into ever closer harmony by their desire to unite the two and by their longing for others to share in the experience. They are filled to overflowing with whatever inspires them to produce their artistic creations. Their art is the expression of, and the product of their absorption.

Insofar as I do not regularly draw, or paint, or sculpt, or compose, or perform, I am not an artist; but there is a hidden part of me that knows well that I am an artist. I write a little, most of what I complete ending up among the pages I post here, but even without that, and with little if any other evidence to support my instinctive awareness, there is much in me that feels that I am an artist. I have always shied away from any realization of those feelings in purposeful forms of proclamation or action, but I have never avoided my natural tendency toward stillness and a quiet that allows entry to a more than superficial awareness of the natural world around me. That tendency has placed me at the disposal of a leading that takes me deeper into, rather than further out in, that world; toward something that beckons me even further into the beauty and the quiet of which so many seem unaware.
The artist is absorbed in a direct experience of beauty; I am absorbed in the Presence that underlies the tranquillity and harmony which enable the manifestation of beauty. The artist is driven to create an expression of his or her interpretation of the experience; I am compelled to express my awareness of the Presence. The artist strives to create a form that conveys the interpretation to his or her own satisfaction, while hoping that others will correctly interpret the work for themselves. I struggle to achieve similar ends with whatever I write, hoping to convey something of the underlying peace and truth – the Presence – in ways that are accessible to those who may read it, and in a form that speaks back to me.

When I began writing here, with consciousness overfilled and pressing with a sense of having something to say, but with no real idea of what it was I should speak of, I knew that attempts to unravel my thoughts would take me closer to wherever I was meant to be going. My very first words summed up my feeling at the time; - ‘Wherever this may lead, I hope it will lead both of us there: not just you, and not just me’ - and in knowing that those words still ring as true for me today, I find confirmation that I am heading in the right direction: ‘that quiet "Amen" to the sometimes doubted validity of our journey’ that we all need from time to time.
I wander along my path, trying not to move far from the edge beyond which I find an increasingly unfathomable but compelling attraction: an untouchable certainty somewhere out there in the mists of an eternal paradox. I hope I shall continue my walk until I have no more steps in me, and if my future overflowing happens to include the continuation of this trail of words scattered among my footsteps, I hope anyone picking them up will find something for themselves among them: a seed that may lodge and take root within their own prepared and fertile ground.
Just as artists must come to terms with the fact that many viewers of their work will not grasp the message they are conveying, so too I am aware that however I attempt to convey my thoughts in words, they will have little meaning for many who dip into them. I must trust that those who do grasp whatever I try to say will benefit in some way from what they find, and I must hope that those who do not will find the expressions of other writers and artists full of meaning for them. We must each follow our own leads, and for me, on these pages, that means writing in the only way I can: in the way that comes naturally to me.

Such thoughts raise within me the possibility of doing something I have not done before.
It is possible that the absence of any list of blogs I read, and the fact that there is no facility for posting comments at The Very Edge suggests that I was never likely to include here any reference to other blogs. However, I am aware that many who visit here will be looking for something I cannot give, or for the same theme but expressed in different, and for them more meaningful ways, and will benefit from such offerings if only they could find them. There are an awful lot of blogs out there, and once the choice has been narrowed down to more manageable numbers, it is still easy to believe that what you are searching for does not exist, or that the very words you need may have been written but you will never know it because you will never find them.
Anyone feeling compelled to write for others on spiritual matters is, at heart, an artist; some of course are a great deal more. We see, hear and feel something in a way that has simply become a part of us, and in a way we long to share with others. Our experiences differ but the Presence that gives rise to our fullness, and to our wish to communicate it to others, is the same: the same Spirit dwells within each of us.

‘There are many different gifts, but it is always the same Spirit; there are many different ways of serving, but it is always the same Lord. There are many different forms of activity, but in everybody it is the same God who is at work in them all.’ (1 Corinthians 12:4-6)

Any one of us can walk through an Art Gallery regarding some exhibits as rubbish, others as passable, and recognizing others as works of art, in each case judgement being based on our own tastes and sensibilities, not on what others might say. In the midst of all this variety it is the occasional vision from which we cannot easily tear ourselves away that makes us continue our search, longing for more. In our own ways, we who write in this wordy web are providing the same possibilities for all who wander the internet galleries. Those of us who are absorbed in our faith, following a lead and feeling compelled to share our spiritual imperatives, are here for a reason: we are to attempt the production, not of works of art, but of meaningful seed-sowing invitations to others to take their place, to trust and to persevere on their own spiritual paths toward the life God holds out to all mankind. Through our own absorption we hope to attract others, not to ourselves, but to the Presence in which we are absorbed. Each of us is writing for someone, somewhere.

I have recently been reminded of how diverse we all are in our spiritual lives, even when rooted in the same traditions; past experiences have been recalled where differences have become apparent between people who are outwardly the same; sharing the same faith, the same priests and other religious contacts, and the same parish communities and church buildings. But having spent time reading a blog that brought these things to mind, I recognized within it the same essential similarity underlying our differences that holds together the diversity of belief and interpretation within any spiritual community. We are following parallel paths, always seeking for ourselves but knowing that we are far enough into our journeys to feel the responsibility to hold our hands out to others whose paths we may cross. Every one of us needs a steadying hand at some time, whether as encouragement, consolation or in the unsteadiness of overwhelming joy.

If you should find that my offerings are not for you, I hope you will continue to search for the words you seek; it matters that you do.
They are out there somewhere, and you will know them when they are found.


Dear Lord, grant that my words among these pages may never be evidence of my foolishness. Grant that I may, as did Francesco Bernadone, ‘not so much seek to be understood as to understand.’

‘A fool takes no pleasure in understanding but only in airing an opinion.’
(Proverbs 18:2)

And called again

It is the reality of our being called that makes the difference: not only that we are indeed being called, but that the call itself is the voice of Truth. On hearing it our potential is shifted from one of goodness alone to goodness willingly submitted to the direction of the Holy Spirit. Our awareness of it is our reception of a deeper communication directly to ourselves from that Truth. It is a calling forth of the gifts we have been given; a calling forth, from beneath the worldly cloaks with which we have clothed ourselves, of the persons we were made to be.
Every one of us is called at some time to respond to the inner promptings and external signs that strive for recognition in our lives. Recognition is our first acknowledgement of having heard the call and of having known it for what it is: a call to respond and follow in ways already built into our individual traits of nature and character, whether through direct action, organization, proclamation, protection, guidance, teaching, mercy; as a minister in the Church, as a religious, or as laity. It is to recognize our gifts, or, if these are not yet discernable, to recognize our giftedness, and to become aware of the direction in which we are being pointed and led. It is to fall more closely into step with what we refer to as our vocation; something we may more clearly see in others than in ourselves.

'Where your talents and the needs of the world cross, there lies your vocation.'

(attributed to Aristotle.)

The needs of the world are many and diverse; those of communities frequently various and mingled, with priorities confused and sometimes unclear; those of individuals commonly all but undecipherable to everyone but themselves. The needs of the world and of large communities are manifest but are not plain for all to see. In this age of rapid and easily accessible communication we learn of desperate situations and disasters around the world almost as soon as they occur. We turn on the television, radio or computer and the news pours into our homes. In general, we are not able to remain unaware of the sufferings of others when these occur suddenly and on a large scale, but the reality of the suffering evades us, however much we may protest that we find it horrific, unbearable, unforgivable, evil, impossible to imagine ... However deeply we believe we feel it, the reality is imperceptible to the majority of mankind.

In our early history we had no knowledge of what occurred in other parts of the world because we were unaware of the existence of those places. As the extent of the world was discovered and revealed we found ourselves able to travel between known places on the Earth’s surface and to bring news and knowledge home with us. We learnt of distant happenings – news of wars, of conquests and of unimagined wonders rather than of the then inconsequential sufferings of distant peoples. What we did learn was recent history rather than current news: facts which may have been entirely swept away by the time we came to know them. Today we know – in the broadest sense – what is happening right now around the world. And closer to home – as close as one can get, where we have no better means of knowing the truth about our neighbours’ lives than did our ancestors in Old Testament times – what of our knowledge and our sympathies here? We live our insulated lives, minding our own business while others mind theirs, and for the most part never really getting to know the people who live within calling distance of us.
And here we are within reach of a call again; this one is the call of person to person: of man to man, of woman to woman. It is also the call of man to woman and woman to man, but there is so much in needs expressed between the genders that can divert us from an otherwise ‘super-natural’ call into a consciously natural empathy and distracting mutual attraction, that this is best, not excluded, but held aside to prevent the understanding being unnecessarily confused by the purely natural possibilities.

It is logical to assume that we are most closely anchored to our human existence in community by our relationships with those who live closest to us, and there are of course many instances where this is the case. But generally this is merely part of the scenery we prepare for the middle acts of whatever play we are presently acting in; it bears little resemblance to act I: scene I, where everyone is equally unknown and apparently alone, before the intrigues, relationships and gossips fill both our eager expectations and our spiritual voids. It is even further from the longed for reality of the final act, where nature and supernature combine in the fulfilment of our scarcely experienced and barely understood dreams. Apart from the few real and meaningful friendships we may have among our neighbours, we remain distant and unknown to each other. Our lives lack the necessary common denominator that will bring us together: the shared faith, complete with all the doubts and fears that we shrink from ever disclosing. And without real, truthful and loving contact with others we are forever withering at the end of the bough, in danger of dying back still further and being cut out and cast aside when the vine is assessed and pruned for the coming harvest.
We are not meant to be entirely alone in our spiritual search, nor during our journey, and we should not seek to remain alone when trying to respond to our call. This applies not only to the individual somewhat distant or reserved member of the laity, whether completely outside a church community or well within, but to the recognized pillars of such communities including, and in some cases especially, the ministers themselves. They, above all of us, have gone beyond the point of no return in their commitment to the responsibility that comes with their gifts and their recognized vocation.

'Once the hand is laid on the plough, no one who looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’

(Luke 9:62)

This was Jesus’ response to someone willing to follow Him but who wanted to say goodbye to his family first. A complete surrender to one’s vocation and a committed following of our Lord and submission to the guidance of the Holy Spirit requires a shelving of all previous priorities and commitments; a turning away from all that was previously held dear; not a literal forgetting of one’s family, but a recognition of the new and irreplaceable purpose of one’s life.
However total our commitment we remain human: we are women and men until the moment of our death, and as such we shall be forever distracted and tempted to waver from our course. Anyone working in line with their vocation is no longer sidelined by the schemes and falsehoods of Satan, and will be constantly attacked wherever their walls are weakest. All persons with power and influence within the Church, especially our priests, will be assailed by inflammations of their inbuilt tendencies; pride or greed, or the natural longing for companionship and understanding, love, and joy in the everyday experience of their human life in this beautiful world, the full appreciation of which can only be enjoyed when shared with others.

‘... you begin to consider what personal fulfilment you would secure in a home of your own, and all at once you seem to realise how much easier everything would be if you had the affection of a wife and the presence of children who would compel your steadfast attention. With this prospect in mind, which in the hour of temptation seems obvious, the contract binding you to our Lord looks empty, drab, too much of a burden, and without apparent result.’ (René Voillaume. Brothers of Men.)

George Herbert, amid thoughts of breaking free, began his poem, The Collar –

'I Struck the board, and cry’d, “No more.

I will abroad.”

The poem builds with a determination to say what he feels and to cast off the constraints of priesthood and obedience to something holding him back from experiencing all that life has to offer: something which has trapped him and restrained him by a tether once seeming so real but now felt to be mere imagination.
But then, in the final lines of the poem, he hears once more the gentle voice ... and in that moment faith, submission, and recognition of his vocation return to their place in his life.

Lord, May we never lose our ability to hear and respond to your call.

‘But as I rav’d and grew more fierce and wilde

At every word,

Me thoughts I heard one calling, "Childe":
And I reply’d, "My Lord".

Hearken !

Our preference for maintaining the status quo and our willingness to remain apart from one another stem from our failure to see ourselves as we really are.
We know we have our faults and have made mistakes along the way, but we have suppressed our regret and our remorse in order to minimize their effects on our ability to maintain our self-image. We may worry about how others see us, but how we see ourselves is of far greater importance; it is what enables us to project an air of self-sufficiency and confidence, and a well maintained self-image allows us to keep the constant pricking of conscience from weakening our resolve to stand firm. We conceal our essential aloofness beneath a superficial openness and friendly smiles on the face of the gregarious shell concealing our vulnerability. All feelings of weakness and humility are denied; our pride rules, and nothing must be allowed to bring us down.
Thus we are successfully restrained by our own imagination: by the envisaged unacceptable consequences of breaking out from our seclusion, and behind that restraint is a shadowy presence, as it were, contentedly drumming fingers on the list of wrongdoings we are unable to leave behind. Wisdom and Prudence have become unrecognizable. Our failure to see or feel the power that presses us deeper into the shadows, confirming our shame and our sinfulness, distorts any occasional appreciation of quiet solitude into a felt need for continued isolation. One of the most effective tools in keeping us from contributing to the building of God’s kingdom has halted us in our tracks. Satan has us securely bound; he has, as it were, taken us out of the game. For as long as we remain in this state he has no further need to concentrate on us; we keep ourselves inactive without any great trials or aggressive attacks from him. He knows we are incapable of standing against him. He is right, for we do not see our predicament for what it is: we have come close to believing in the image we project and we have no inkling of his involvement in our suppressed inner struggles. We have almost shut our conscience away deeply enough to make it inaudible: almost, but not quite; and we please him most by having almost completely forgotten that he exists.

Despite the difficulties involved in dragging ourselves out of these depths, great things can happen when we are in isolation. Of itself (and in this particular situation) the isolation is more likely to be a hindrance than a blessing, though The Holy Spirit can and does transform individual lives wherever and whenever God wills. What brings our solitary sorrowing to God’s feet with a longing for His touch is the radical dismantling of our self-image and our descent into a sense of utter lostness.
Hagar, abandoned in the desert with Ishmael, her son, heard ‘the angel of God’ calling to her: ‘What is wrong Hagar?’ he asked. ‘Do not be afraid, for God has heard the boy’s cry in his plight. Go and pick the boy up and hold him safe, for I shall make him into a great nation’ (Genesis 21:17,18).
Here we have the Bible’s portrayal of God’s first indication that Ishmael was dear to Him and would achieve great things. (See also 16:7-12 and 21:13, 19-21). The Qur’an also tells the story of Abraham, Ishmael and Issac, and though the differences one would expect to find in two entirely separate sources are evident, the story is essentially the same.
We are all called to that place at God’s feet, and whether we are within the Church, on the fringes of it, or outside it, we are called together; our paths, however separated and seemingly irreconcilable, are all heading in the same direction. Much of the troubled disagreement between us arises from the inevitable narrowing of the spaces between our paths as we move inexorably toward a distant convergence.

The descendents of Ishmael are spoken of first in a Vatican II document referring to those who are outside the Church but nevertheless sharing the same call:
‘...the plan of salvation ...includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohammedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind. Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is He who gives to all men life and breath and all things, and as Saviour wills that all men be saved. Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life. Whatever good or truth is found amongst them is looked upon by the Church as a preparation for the Gospel. She knows that it is given by Him who enlightens all men so that they may finally have life.’ (Lumen Gentium 16.)

Pope John Paul II has also referred to the breadth of inclusiveness that calls for the Church to enfold all of us, however far away or lost we believe ourselves to be.
‘... we need to look further and go further afield, knowing that "the wind blows where it wills," according to the image used by Jesus in his conversation with Nicodemus (John 3:8). The Second Vatican Council, centered primarily on the theme of the Church, reminds us of the Holy Spirit's activity also "outside the visible body of the Church." The council speaks precisely of "all people of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way. For, since Christ died for all, and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this Paschal Mystery." (Dominum et vivificantem 53)

Left entirely to our own devices, most of us lack the faith, the strength and the perseverance to turn our awareness of shame and sinfulness from the negative and wounding confirmation received from the powers that restrain us, into our own distressing but healing admissions in the sight of the One whose love and whose power will free us.
We need the increased faith and strength that comes from daring to merge our own vulnerability with the jumbled doubts and fears of others. Focussing our thoughts and our conversation on matters of faith, even if only with one other person, for an occasional few minutes when the opportunity arises is all that is needed to begin the process. There are times when we are already assembled with a common purpose and with our shared accumulations of beliefs and doubts only just beneath the surface. It takes just one of us to begin.
Let us communicate with each other beyond the ‘Hello’ and ‘Goodbye’, and the everyday chatter in car parks or over cups of tea and coffee. We all have the same Spirit within us, driving us towards a standing up and a speaking out, but all fear of the consequences dissolves in the completely unseen and private decision to allow our conscience to be heard. There is the voice, the touch, the impenetrable way cleared for our journey, and the path pointed out.
Our vocation already resides deep within us. Let us release it, that we may hear it and understand.
‘Hearken’ is an old word but the urgency of its meaning lives on.

‘In the end the notion that someone was “calling” me won’t make one bit of difference. Unless it is the truth.’
(Paula D’Arcy. Where The Wind Begins.)

Within limits

We have come so far and yet we have barely begun.
That occasional thought: that random awareness, regardless of our levels of understanding or realization of its meaning, or its value to our awakening consciousness, is something of which we all have an inbuilt need. As a species we have become a truly global phenomenon – as we were meant to be – but in spite of our easily acquired impressions that we are at the height of our powers, we have only recently begun to awaken to our place within the vastness of creation; indeed we have only just begun to appreciate the vastness itself. We are born to become not merely global but a universal phenomenon.

Within the sum total of our knowledge, mankind is remarkable; and as our knowledge continues to expand into the presently unimaginable, we shall reveal to ourselves that we are forever remarkable. Ultimately we shall reach a point where we can progress no further without an astonished and humbling acknowledgement that we have need of revelation from beyond ourselves. The final and complete knowledge of our existence can only be revealed to us from beyond our limitations.
The glory of mankind is seen by many as being that we are without limitations: that we have no limit other than our own capacity for perseverance, our desire to know, our adventurous spirit and our daring. The fact that we perceive no boundaries to our place and our belonging is one of the wonders of the human race, but today, as from the very beginning, our presumptuousness overrides the central powerhouse of our consciousness: the seed of our remarkable presence within Earth’s creative bloom: the heart of our phenomenal existence within eternity’s whispers. It overrides conscience.

The wisdom that first conveyed mankind’s reach beyond the stability and safety of his limitations in the story of the Garden of Eden, is still expressed and ignored today. That garden with its one faint echo of something else, something more, something beyond, something illicit but irresistible – what harm can it do? The first vague thought that led to a dwelling on the possibility, the probability and then the seeming inevitability of the hand reaching out; that first touch; the daring to pluck the fruit from its bough; the apple held, desired, retained and possessed – that single bite; the juice, the taste, the knowing. The apple: the apple of the tree: the tree of the knowledge: the knowledge of that which was not to be part of mankind’s relationship with creation and Creator. The knowledge of having gone beyond; of having gone awry; of having attempted to bypass the life-support system with which we had been blessed, by a guessed at short-cut to knowing what we had no reason to ever imagine, let alone experience as a downgraded form of existence. The knowledge of having separated ourselves from our natural integrity and from our supernatural unity. Mankind has been misfiring ever since.

Each one of us lives through this same situation every day, hidden in the realities of our own individual lives with their unseen ebb and flow of virtues and vice; their tangle of confused sorrow and tears, comfort and joy; the give and take of day-to-day loves, hates, injustices and hesitations over our own desires and cares, and the needs of others. And throughout the entire ongoing mêlée, the conscience is either brushed aside, or its discomforting prompts are felt and cringed at only until buried deep beneath the piles of muffling exterior sounds we pile upon them.

Any idea that we differ from the people around us: that we are not like them: that we are better than them – as believed the Pharisee at prayer, ‘I thank you, God, that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like everyone else ...’ (Luke 18:11) – must be banished as soon as it surfaces. We are the sinner we see in others, and it is our separation that allows us to ignore the reflection of ourselves that confronts us every day in other people’s weaknesses. Our continued willingness, even preference, to remain apart is our way of ensuring that we do not have to confront our hidden shame. We fear the unavoidable meeting with our conscience that we sense to be part and parcel of our moving closer to one another, and if our well constructed barriers begin to weaken we dare not risk that meeting; we know we shall be unable to stand in the inevitable light without breaking utterly. Deep within, we know well that we have not built our lives upon rock, and we want no part of anything that hints at reminding us, let alone something that shows the promise of transformation with all the self-recognition that would entail.

‘Some people have put conscience aside and wrecked their faith in consequence.’ (1 Timothy 1:19)

The truth about ourselves is partly buried by our desire to maintain our image, not necessarily projected, but quietly slotted into place over time by our being regularly seen and superficially known by those around us. We fear accusations of hypocrisy even if we find ourselves unable to imagine being hypocrites; we sense that others will quickly fill that gap, and if we have any particular regrets or unforgettable reasons for feelings of shame, we fear these being brought into the open and we remain inconspicuous, on the fringes of the Church, or even completely outside the Christian community. Having found fault in our lives people will find it easy to doubt everything we say; how can our faith and our gifts be recognized and bear fruit in such a situation? Even without such debilitating concerns the deep-seated need to maintain one’s image can still extend the silence, even among long-standing church members.

It needs all of us to build a worthwhile community: those whose experience and gifts demand that they take their share of responsibility, those who need their support, and all those between the two who shun responsibility but feel no particular need for anything from others. Needed as much as these are all those on the fringes and beyond who are looking in and wondering whether they could, whether they should, and whether they dare.

‘No believer can stand back and say “I have nothing to contribute”.’ (David Pytches. Come Holy Spirit.)

A powerful sense of belonging should underpin all family life. The Church is both family and home, and we should all feel the welcome and the belonging that should thrive within her folds; there are no limitations to either of these.
If their edges are clearly defined there is much work to be done.

If there is no belonging, then Christ is not in it; it is not the Church.

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Belonging

It is reasonable to assume that many people rarely experience belonging in ways that make them feel and believe that they really do belong. Most of us are held in an all-pervading form of comfort which runs through our lives, seeming to sustain and support our general acceptance of ourselves and others in the world at large. While this maintains a baseline of confidence in our worth and in our right to claim our share of whatever the world has to offer, it also provides a contradictory means of dissolving that acceptance into an unnoticed and unrealized lack of awareness. This is where we are; we are used to being here; everything here is familiar to us; this is where we belong. We think no further than this. For as long as there is nothing to jolt us out of our comfortable numbness, we fail to even register that we have no sense of belonging. This pseudo-sense of home and of collective safety is born of our worldly existence as social beings; we live and we function in groups, as do many other creatures; as do sheep.
This is why the question rarely arises in our minds; without something to trigger an awakening, we do not even understand what belonging is: we have no way of knowing what it means and how it feels to belong. We really are sheep, and we will not be able to appreciate the food available to us until we have been rounded up from the hillsides and gathered into the safety of the fold.
How can any of us truly belong if we do not feel it? Basing our assessment of truth in our own lives solely on feelings is usually regarded as a distinctly unreliable means of progressing, but, more than anything else, belonging is a feeling, and it is generated through the deepening of our relationships with each other. More than this, it is a powerful antidote for those powers quietly working to maintain our disinterest and our separation, not only from each other, but from any awareness of our relationship with God.

‘The Christians describe (God) as one “without whom Nothing is strong”. And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man’s best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off.’ (C. S. Lewis. The Screwtape Letters.)

In almost every occupation, interest, social group or activity, we can be regarded as belonging in a variety of ways and at different levels, both by ourselves and by others. Some of these have real meaning, while others are accepted as being mere tokens allowing easy access to superficial memberships of what is already open to all. We have our club-cards with which to gain points or other ‘benefits’ at the supermarket checkouts and from countless other stores and groups. Such examples do bring measurable benefits but not anything we can really believe to be worthwhile. What they successfully do, and what they are designed to do, is encourage us to return rather than take our custom and our ‘membership’ elsewhere.

I do not know of any churches which offer club-cards, though I have little doubt that they exist. It takes only a small shift in focus and in the intentions of those who organize such things, to change a genuine desire to develop effective outreach programmes and to help others, into an almost incestuous self-supporting system that offers discounts and other inducements, and access to such things as financial and legal services operated by members of the church. This gradually builds and strengthens an ‘in house’ attitude to a wide variety of things not directly connected with the work of the church; at least, not connected with what the church’s work should be.

It can quickly deteriorate further into a reflection of the business and marketing world in which it has grown, aiming for continual growth and regarding ‘membership’ numbers and their level of financial contribution as the most important measures of success.
It must be said that many such churches can and do also generate a real sense of belonging through their effective use of interpersonal skills, fellowship and following up after new contacts have been made, but, in some, the structure and the forces underlying the welcome and the wish to retain can stamp the entire enterprise with a marketing strategy label.

This is what belonging to a church can be: a lively experience and a sense of belonging similar to that which could be found in any other happy social gathering; but what makes for belonging in the Christian community sense is beyond all this. It can be missing from churches similar to the outline above just as it can be absent from those seeming to be unchangeable in their hushed and apparently irrelevant greyness. This does not only relate to particular churches of whatever denomination, but can be the sum total of our ‘belonging’ to The Church, to Christ’s Church complete with its guiding and enabling power of the Holy Spirit. This is being in touch with the Church without being touched by it. And being no more than in touch with it becomes a habit; we drift into a soporific void slowly losing all touch with God, His Word and His Church.
C. S. Lewis’s Devil continues, ‘... the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from (his God). It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts, ...’ (The Screwtape Letters.)

How can those of us who are within the Church attract, welcome, befriend and encourage those who may think to approach us from outside, when the only ones appearing to ask meaningful questions, who are journeying and seeking the answers, are those who hesitantly arrive at our door? It is essential that Christians be awakened from their sleep, and, with many of us unable or unwilling to rouse ourselves, those who are already awake must persistently strive to awaken others.
The words of Jesus to Peter when foretelling his denials of knowing Him, and his subsequent grief, repentance and return to strength, demonstrate both the recovery and growth to maturity required of us, and the fall from our own self-assurance that is frequently necessary before we are able to recognize the need for that fall and recovery in our arrival at real conviction.

“Look, Satan has got his wish to sift you all like wheat; but I have prayed for you, ... that your faith may not fail, and once you have recovered, you in your turn must strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31,32)

In general terms, those who regard themselves as being part of the Church: those who are known and recognized as members of their own particular church congregations, parish communities and faith groups, have either arrived at a level of conviction –like Peter– that carries the responsibility to ‘strengthen’ their fellow members, or unknowingly make up the body of untouched Christians to whom I have been referring: those who need the support and encouragement of the ones who have already been enlivened by God’s touch. But the Church reaches beyond these apparently clear but non-existent boundaries to include real but seemingly invisible men and women. It includes everyone who entertains the thought that the Church may hold the answers, the safety, the acceptance and the spiritual home they seek. Every person presently out of touch with the Church, searching and possibly longing for contact and inclusion, and who sees enough in their limited external view of the Church to believe it may have the answers, is of immense importance to the life of the Church – and this has nothing to do with head counts. As individuals they have no less worth in the mind of God than any person with an established and visible place within the Church. Would that we could believe the same about our own views of membership and belonging.
If, as you read this, you recognize yourself as one who is outside the Church but aware of an inner calling to approach, however faint that call may be, be aware also, that your moving in from beyond the outer edge of Christian faith to the possibility of welcome and growth within it, is not only an answering of your own calling, but is necessary to the spiritual strength and wellbeing of those already within the Church. Your arrival, and your expression of a need to discover and to know, has the potential to awaken dormant hearts and minds; you can bring a badly needed jolt from an unexpected direction. We have need of you to walk with us every bit as much as you may need us during parts of your journey.

The world saw nothing remarkable or worthy about the people Jesus called to be His Apostles, but He knew them: He knew the men they had been born to become. He had need of them; He called, and they followed.

Becoming aware of being called or touched makes us members of the wider Church, belonging to a large but mostly unseen group of companions, Christ’s followers, sharing in the journey and having the potential to support one another. (January 2007 posts: ‘Companionship for the journey.’) Even hanging back as a half-hidden follower of His followers, rather than of Jesus Himself, finds us all on the same hillside; in following these other people we are already following our Lord before consciously acknowledging recognition of Him. All that is needed to gain access to the food, the shelter and the safety we all need, and that He alone has made available to us, is to respond fully to the call; to come right into the fold with His closer followers: to step into the light and take our place within His Church.

‘And at once they left their nets and followed him.’ (Matthew 4:20)