On looking up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moving on

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stepping through

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dear Lord,
never loosen your grip on my life.

The open door (3)

The question (looking ahead) of whether or not to turn up for a talk, or (looking back) whether or not I should have turned up for it, has become an example of the moments of which I have been writing. It has become a mental notch on my stick: a proverbial knot on the cord which is my belt. It has the makings of becoming a definite marker beside my footprints in the sand, and, if I follow it through, and if it bears fruit, it may become a clearly visible milestone among the more durable imprints of my passing.

Since my failure to attend the talk at the Malvern Evangelical Church, I have found their website, and have been listening to some of the past sermons available there. This has drawn me still further towards a conviction that I should at least visit them for one of their services. The recorded sermons have provided me with something for which I have been longing for a long time, but which I have been unable to access easily; namely preaching and teaching that blesses me with both affirmation and inspiration, and is not bound by liturgical constraints, traditional forms, and hierarchical aspects of dominance and non-equality. They have conveyed an unspoken but inherent welcome to my place in their midst, and in the fellowship of other Christians of all denominations. It is a fellowship born of discipleship and community: two of the gifts conceived in the Word of God, and made available through the essential lack of any Godless hype and hysteria, and dubious financial aspects of so much tele-evangelism style preaching.

I happily place here a link to their website http://www.mecmalvern.org.uk

Nothing big, nothing flash, nothing false, nothing proud. Something simple, straightforward, honest and true. Something which offers what we all want and need: the power, and the quiet; the relevance and the intimacy of the Word of God touching our own lives and hearts. Though I have yet to set foot inside the building, I also suggest that if you live anywhere near Malvern, and are searching for somewhere where you may safely and fruitfully dare to admit to your persistent longing to learn about Jesus and all that He offers to us, this may be the place you are looking for.
Certainly I do not mean to deter anyone from approaching any other churches, least of all Roman Catholic ones. I am a Catholic, and nothing will ever alter that fact, but I am very conscious of the gulf that appears to exist between so many ‘traditional’ style churches – of whatever denomination – and the everyday twenty-first century lives of the majority of people in our Western World. My longing is for you to develop a living relationship with the reality of Jesus in your life: for you to become a Christian in more than name, and to discover for yourself the life-changing effects of that relationship. When your life has been transformed; that is the time (if there is to be such a time) to give thought to the differences and the relative truths of the many denominations. Hopefully it will also become a time when you are aware of the long-running agony and shame which is our lack of Christian unity.

My instincts, and my limited experience, suggest that the jewels are more likely to be found in a form that can be clenched tightly in the unyielding grasp of a faith-filled hand, than as something glaring, and too large to enable friends to be recognized within the same room. Here, almost on my doorstep, having been there all the time but having now been brought to my attention for reasons unknown, is what may well be one of those jewels. I pray that it may be so for anyone who finds themselves led there for the first time. Perhaps we shall meet there.

I may already have delayed for too long to give or receive whatever was available on that particular day. There may have been something specific for me; a touch, a word, a meeting, a realization, a revelation. Or there may have been something similar which I was to bring as God’s provision for somebody else. But the moment has come and gone. I hesitated and I delayed; I feared and I failed.
But the door has not closed. The cold draughts of doubt and shunned responsibility have blown it towards closing a couple of times, but Jesus has placed himself in the doorway, holding it open; waiting.
He will do the same for you, but in this instance He waits for me. He holds it open for me. He will remain there for as long as it takes, for me.
Oh, my dear Friend: my Love: my Lord; You know me so very well !

I am going to be away from here again for a while; physically this time.
In a few days I shall be doing something very unusual for me; I hope to be boarding a plane to the west coast of Canada.

But nobody will hold the door open for me while I think about it. Nobody will wait for me. I shall either respond to the moment without delay, and be transported to an unknown place, unknown people, and forms of beauty and truth which are new to me, or I shall find myself left behind, wondering what might have been. If I step through that door, the stirrings I shall hear and feel will be of other breezes, in other trees; the waves, which may gently lap or wildly crash upon my shore, will be from another ocean: one I had never previously thought to see.
But the stirrings and guidance already within my heart can never be left behind. – I thank you, God, for that.

‘If I speed away on the wings of the dawn,
if I dwell beyond the ocean,
even there your hand will be guiding me,
your right hand holding me fast.’
(Psalms 139:9-10)

The open door (2)

It is not possible to speak or think of matters related to the initial opening of spiritual doors without returning to one’s own experiences. This may seem to result from the confusion or the emotional turmoil that we went through; or from the impact made by the person, the words, the place, or the incident that became the central point of our particular moment. It may be that our milestone was placed at a point where there was no sudden and all consuming moment, but rather, the recognition of our own awareness having been raised fully into our consciousness for the first time. Of all possible reasons for our own memories being stirred by these thoughts, this quiet raising of awareness is closer to the truth than most. It is not the feeling we associate with our experience that has the true meaning for us; it is the fact that our consciousness was raised to a new level: that we were, in some way, touched by the very presence we were seeking: that we recognized the opening of the door before us.

My own journey into a meaningful spiritual life began, in general terms, in the same way that it begins for each of us; by being in the right place at the right time, and by being with the right people at the right time. My memory always leads me to suggest that the latter was the important factor in my own life, but the passage of time – while not preventing or even reducing the strength of that initial reaction – has enabled me to know that the two aspects of the moment, and of the subsequent months, and even years, are in fact inseparable. In a way that was completely out of character, I responded to something that led me into the presence of the right people. Without them, I would not have arrived at the place in which I now find myself, and I am sure I would not have progressed so far in my journey towards becoming the person God wills me to be.
– (And this is the point at which I stopped writing when last sitting here unravelling my thoughts.)

I have been away from here for five weeks; not physically, but mentally, intellectually, and spiritually. It was not a planned absence, and did not arise out of boredom, or any feelings of staleness, lack of enthusiasm, or futility. Writing here has become fruitful and enjoyable, and the vital feeling that runs through me at times when putting words together is in no way diminished.
Today though, I am being drawn differently into the significance of what I am doing, and I find that I am in fact writing to myself.
I am astonished that so much time has passed since last posting anything here, but I am not concerned by that fact. In my first few weeks of hesitant and self-conscious writing, I did feel that I must keep posting no matter what; but I am no longer gripped by such unnecessary aims manifesting themselves as needs, generated as they are by a competitive aspect of the bloggers’ world which manages to infiltrate the thinking of many of its contributors.
However, having been absent for a while, I do feel the need to write and post something to confirm that I am still here, still brim full, and still quietly overflowing.
But something is different. I had to read through the end of my last post to find where I was when I left off, particularly as I had already started writing its continuation as ‘part 2’ of the same title. In doing so, I was confronted with my own words as partial answers to questions that have been troubling me for only the last forty eight hours. This at once raises the question of timing – in me at least – and leaves me wondering once more about coincidence. What is, and what is not significant? In this instance, is that all it is? Or am I being led to a better understanding of my confusion and my lack of confidence in my own sense of direction? The recently arisen questions have created within me what feels like a form of failure, born of what appears to be an unwarranted timidity.

Over the last few weeks – a period roughly corresponding to the time I have not given thought to writing here – I have had consistent but unobtrusive thoughts of visiting a local church to which I have never been before. The Malvern Evangelical Church (MEC) has been known to me for as long as I have had a real, living faith: for as long as I have been able to truly claim Jesus as my friend. Over the years I have driven past it every now and then, and when I have, it has always raised a flicker of interest: the hint of a question. There has always been a vague, “one day, maybe I shall pop in ...” response, but I have only been as far as the locked door when looking for notices: - once many years ago, and once only a week ago when looking for information on a talk due to be given there.
Having heard about a series of Lent talks arranged by Churches Together in Malvern, and hoping this week’s may offer something of more significance for me than ‘(Saint) Paul the Man’ at a church ten miles away, I sought and found a notice in the local Catholic church. Two of the four talks had already gone, but the third was in three days. The venue? The MEC.
This struck me immediately as being more than coincidence, and, as though having an inbuilt compensation for the possibility that I may not go if uninspired by the subject of the talk, the subject – ‘Bedside Manna’ – was indeed of real interest.

For the next three days I was in no doubt; I was going to the MEC for that talk. The mild apprehension at meeting new people, and at being on foreign soil, so to speak, was brushed aside. I was going; I was looking forward to it; I was quietly excited by the prospect.
I spent the day of the talk in the garden, rescuing more trees from thirty years of ivy growth, and in the visual grasp of the beautifully shaped tree I had given its freedom nearly two years ago. (4th & 5th July 2007. Talk of trees … and of a tree)
It was only as I started to keep an eye on the time, at the end of the afternoon, that I became gradually less sure about what I was going to do. My eagerness slowly ebbed away until, when the time came for me to go indoors to get ready, I was left with uncertainties and the knowledge that I would not be going. The admission itself is almost frightening, but what I felt was a low-key version of fear: a fear of being seen; of becoming known; of being drawn into something which I may want, and even need, but which I may not be able to follow through.
The feeling of failure shadows me because I now regret having not gone. I had sensed that I was being drawn there for a good reason; whether connected with the talk or the venue, or both, (or neither) matters not. But I failed to respond in the way that all my instincts told me I would. I still have those feelings. I am being drawn; I am being called to move forward; and I have horrified myself with my failure to respond in the way I thought I would find so utterly simple. It should be that simple.

Having read through those posts from July 2007, I find so much there that is now speaking back to me. Have I progressed at all since then?
And what of the open door? It was open then. It is still open now. Knowing that to be so confirms my failure.
Turning the last words of my previous post back on myself: - He understands me: He knows me through and through. He is still waiting for me. No matter what, He is always awaiting my return. No matter what, the door, once opened, always remains open.
How can I be so aware of these things, and yet suddenly find myself frozen in my tracks?

‘It is God who, for his own generous purpose, gives you the intention and the powers to act.’
(Philippians 2:13)

The open door (1)

‘Look, I have opened in front of you a door that no one will be able to close’
(Revelation 3:8)

Those words have returned to me more than once in recent days; quietly and comfortably, and with a gentle reinforcement of thoughts that had seemed somewhat scattered and unconnected, but which are now recognized as being part of the same underlying truth. Trains of thought, even those intermittent ones that progress slowly and steadily through the years, occasionally give me a flicker of light by which I recognize both their interconnectedness and the fact that I had, for a while, lost my awareness of an unforgettable fact; that the door once opened for me remains open. Always.
I quoted the same words at the end of an earlier post (08 Sept. 08 Door ajar) and find myself thinking back to the clearly marked time in my life when that door first seemed to be open before me.

It is almost always impossible to accurately identify a particular moment, or event, as the start-point of a meaningful spiritual journey.
The awakening of a living faith, and the birth of a previously inconceivable longing to dwell within that newfound wakefulness, becomes apparent only when we have, to some extent, already raised ourselves above the general and seemingly inescapable way of seeing, experiencing, and interpreting the life in which we have been living.
If we are conscious, however vaguely, of an interest that is more than merely superficial: a questioning, a wondering, a recurring wish to find out where a sense of there being something else touching our life may lead, we are already lifting our head above the worldly crowds around us. We have already moved beyond our start-point. Somewhere behind us, lost amid the numerous hints and touches that have been nurturing the tender growth within us, there will be someone or something that tipped our inner-self over the very edge of our initial self-discovery, bringing about the germination of the seed within. But even this unrecognizable point is not the real beginning of the journey we have already embarked upon. We set out first from a place somewhere between our initial realization of infantile joy at the ‘first light’ with which we began our life, and the time when our childhood development matured sufficiently for us to known, albeit unconsciously, that we had not entirely lost that light among the shades into which we had inevitably grown.
But all this vagueness is of little interest to us; and there is no conscious way in which any of it will ever matter to us , however real our early growth has been, and however much we may later realize how necessary to our realized potential every part of it has been. It is the moment we consciously experience as changing our way of seeing ourselves and the world around us that really matters; it is the moment we recognize as significant that does in fact become significant. It is the moment we experience deeply, and think back to constantly, that becomes our unmovable marker in space and time. However clearly we may later see that this is not our true start-point, we will never lose the sense of its having been the beginning of something important, something immense, and something previously unimaginable.

Whether this moment has already occurred, or whether you are still searching for the way of thinking, of believing, and of trusting that will lead you into a situation that becomes that moment for you, an awareness of the availability of whatever you seek awaits you, enlarging and deepening with the perseverance inspired in you by that moment. Is it truth you seek? Is it peace you crave? Is it faith you long for? Are you in desperate need of someone you can trust? Do you yearn for a safe haven? Do you weep for lack of love? Through grief? Through pain? Through lifelong suffering? Through loneliness? Are you numbed by lingering memories of loss, abuse, abandonment, remorse, or futility? Or are you energised, awakened, joyful? Even thrilled by a sense of growing closer to something undefined but holding out the promise of fulfilment and meaning?
Having lifted ourselves sufficiently by our pondering and wondering, something unexpected will either have occurred, or will occur when the time is right. Something which may grow warmly within us, catch us momentarily unawares, or takes us completely by surprise; a something which may later become fixed in our mind as the vital moment: the start-point of our journey. A thought, a person, a scene, spoken or written words, a sensation; whatever it may be, we come to regard this moment as a milestone in our life.
However unconsciously, and for however long we may have been stepping towards the experience of that moment, when it comes it is apparently unheralded, it is new, and it is life-changing. It is a point of departure for us: a flash of realization that gives no answers, but graces us with an awareness of the validity of our seeking and questioning. It leaves us knowing, not so much that we do not know the answers, but that every one of our questions has its answer waiting to become known to us. Having consciously placed a marker at that point in our life, it becomes that milestone; and having called it by that name, it becomes a significant and useful reference point from which to venture further into the new life that grows within us.

Any experience taken on board in this way truly is a milestone for us, but, in time, our increasing awareness, as well as opening the way and clearing the paths before us, will, as it were, seep slowly back into our memory of events and particular moments prior to that milestone. We begin to recall other events, people, places, words: moments which hindsight – in the light of our milestone experience – now shows to have been relevant. Previously unrecognized points begin to suggest the path that led us to our more conscious awakening, and this hazy but nonetheless real tracing of its course in the past, reinforces the significance of our milestone event. That reinforcement further strengthens our belief in the value of whatever may lie ahead. We no longer entertain thoughts about whether or not to continue; we are on our way, and however far we may wander from the path at times – and there will be such times – our faith journey will continue throughout our life. What we make of it, and to what extent we allow ourselves to respond to God’s presence in our life, is up to us. His longing for each one of us never ends, and his closeness will never diminish regardless of the ebb and flow of our enthusiasm.
Once we have acknowledged His presence by placing that milestone on our path, we can never lose the consequences of that moment: we can never lose Him. And, in the unlikely event that we should ever lose our trust in Him to the extent that we would even wish to try, we shall never be able to shake Him off. However far we may stray from the path of obedience, goodness, and love, we must never shrink into a hard shell of guilt, regret, or remorse, or feel that we can never be forgiven for something, however dreadful it may seem to have been.
He understands us: He knows us through and through. He is waiting for us.

No matter what, He is always awaiting our return.
ALWAYS.

No matter what, the door, once opened, always remains open.
ALWAYS.

Beyond words

Some words can be unhelpful to self-proclaimed and recognized Christians, as well as to those outside the Church who are searching for the underlying simplicity of faith obscured by such words. That a specific word may carry exactly the meaning being sought is, of course, potentially helpful. However, the precision of a specific meaning is frequently incomprehensible without some pre-existing awareness of the reality behind the meaning gained through one’s own experience. It sounds absurd, but the meaning is cloaked by the very existence of a word intended to convey it.
A living faith is what we all need. A living faith is what we should be longing to see in the lives of others around us, not for them alone but because this brings about the generation of meaningful community with its constant provision of support and encouragement. Every one of us is in need of this support in one form or another, but if there is nobody nearby with a faith that has come to life, how is that life to be even spoken of in ways that may begin to drag existing Christians out of their habitual lethargy, and inspire outsiders to come a little closer?

Words from the quotation used at the end of the previous post keep returning to me: ‘Concentrate on what has been assigned you’.
This is what each of us should be doing, and whether or not we think we know where we are going, what we are meant to be doing, and how we are meant to be doing it, it is far too easy to direct our energies in totally futile ways. We strive toward some ill-defined end which presents itself as needing our efforts and our focus, but which saps our strength and our enthusiasm, without achieving anything other than confusion, frustration and disillusionment. The experience leaves us dulled, and our faith begins to resemble a cardboard cut-out rather than the vibrant presence upon which we had been hoping to build. Joy drains away, and it becomes easier not to bother. We leave it all behind for a while as we seek to brighten our lives again through some unrelated, unhelpful, or even distinctly unholy activity or entertainment.
If we are somewhere out near the edge looking in, all this may have occurred through our tentative attempts to find out more, and through a willingness to move closer to the anticipated warmth in the hope that it was being generated by truth . Perversely, our attempts may have floundered, not through doubt, or feelings of being unworthy, out of place, or too conspicuous, but on the incomprehensibility of words.
However welcome we are made to feel on a human level, we may feel spiritually excluded by two assumptions, both of which are false. Firstly, that grasping the meaning of words we do not really understand is necessary to our belonging, and to our becoming a recognized and accepted part of Christ’s Church. Secondly, that the people who otherwise make us feel so welcome, do themselves fully understand these words.

The echoing of those words, ‘concentrate on what has been assigned you’, began after a few days of trying to put something together for this post. I found it almost impossible to focus my thoughts in a way that produced anything coherent; I was unable to concentrate despite my efforts to do so. The several disjointed directions in which I began writing all became dead-ends, until I began to read those words in the way I am now doing. Here is the full quotation again.

‘Do not try to understand things that are too difficult for you,
or try to discover what is beyond your powers.
Concentrate on what has been assigned you,
you have no need to worry over mysteries.’
(Ecclesiasticus 3:21-22)

I had been following my own thoughts and ideas to such an extent that I had left no room for any form of guidance. If I had been directed towards something I would probably have remained unaware, and I find that an appalling thought. What enables me to say that I may have failed to recognize any prompting, is that I woke up to the fact that I had failed to notice my loss of self-control. I had lost all awareness of my own limitations, and, although without any active contribution from or to my pride, I had lost whatever humility I may have had. I had been trying to understand things that were too difficult for me, and trying to discover what was beyond my powers. I had not restricted my concentration to what had been assigned me, and, instead, had wasted time and energy worrying over mysteries.
I had not been doing what I had managed to do over a long period with ‘Redemption’, that is, laying aside my meagre understanding without delving into the problems that seemed to arise from it; waiting while its gradual growth branched within my increasing maturity, and came into leaf with the combined experience of my human and spiritual life.

And those same lines will speak to each of us if we read them, not from wherever we would like to be, or from wherever we think we ought to be, but from the place where we really are. If we can lay our self-image aside in simple hope and trust, we can step beyond the many non-existent hurdles that appear to get in our way, hold us back, or push us from the path. It is another form of allowing ourselves to stand at the very edge so that we can go beyond it. It only ever becomes a place of fear when we shudder at the thought of it, and vow never to venture too near. The edge itself is of no real consequence; what we seek is always beyond. Difficult words are of no consequence for the same reason; what they attempt to convey, and what we seek, is always beyond.

A recent letter from a friend included the following: -
‘I now wonder how anyone, inside or outside the Church, can relate to such alien and esoteric language that so much of the church uses on a daily basis. I can’t for the most part detach my early first steps and beginning of faith within certain traditions, but at the same time I now have completely changed my opinion and wonder how anyone is supposed to find or even discuss God and His Church when it is wrapped up in language such as “supplication” and “repose of the soul” which I heard in a service only the other day.’

In reality there is no barrier in these things, and certainly not in the mere words, but so long as they contribute to feelings of exclusion and a form of what could be regarded as inverse heresy (confusion and distraction within the Church over matters well understood by anyone with a real relationship with Christ), they will not only continue to appear and feel like barriers, but may be the outer signs of a very real absence of spiritual life – real, living, and Spirit filled faith – within the Church. We must hope that any truth in this possibility is more likely to be applicable to particular local churches rather than Christ’s Church in general.
We must not allow these already problematic words to gain a form of power over us by our submission to whatever intimidation they seem to create within us.

If something seems to be beyond your understanding, let it go; do not allow it to divert you from the truths which have already been assigned to you. There is no barrier between you and those truths.
There is no barrier between you and Jesus. Follow Him, as did His first disciples. Trust Him. See where He leads.

‘Jesus turned round, saw them following and said, “What do you want?”
They answered, “Rabbi” – which means Teacher – “where do you live?”
He replied, “Come and see;”
so they went and saw where He lived, and stayed with Him that day.’
(John 1:38,39)

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The Catholic in me (6)

We are all part of the manifestation of Christ’s Church as it is today. We are the Body of Christ: we are the Christian Church. By ‘we’ I do not mean only those of us who are seen to be members of a church community or congregation, regardless of denomination, but also those who are beyond the easily recognized boundaries of mutual belief and compliance; everyone who has the slightest degree of faith or interest in Jesus and why so many follow Him.
Whatever our point of view and however unassailable we believe the particular pinnacle upon which we stand, we remain united by that fact in spite of having lost sight of the truth that underpins it. Clearly we are not the one body our Lord prayed that we should be (John 17:20-23). Equally clearly, we are not united in the ways we ourselves know we should be, even if many of us do keep that knowledge suppressed within our own consciousness and out of sight of others.

I am a Catholic, but I do not cling to every little thing thought to be Catholic or believed to be so by others within the Church. Still less do I cling to those things which, in the eyes of many outside the Catholic Church, are mistakenly seen as being part of the essential beliefs, worship and conduct of Catholics and thus part of what being a Roman Catholic is all about.
Some of these observed actions and attitudes are based upon teachings of the Church, but much of the understanding of that teaching, as well as the appreciation of the extent and limits of that teaching, have become diffused among the unsurprising attractions and devotions that seem to be embedded among so many of the world’s Catholic faithful. The distortions involved in some of these forms of individual devotion and peripheral belief are, in reality, far less significant than they appear to be, particularly when it is borne in mind that the apparent significance is as seen by those who are not Roman Catholics. There is no way of avoiding the fact that all such observers, but for the divisions and separations of the last five hundred years, would otherwise have been Catholic or not Christian at all. However much in need of reform the Church may then have been, and if, as I believe, the Reformation was not just inevitable but essential, and not just essential but Spirit led, the eventual results of the turmoil were not inspired by the Spirit of God. The splits, further divisions and fragmentation of the Church were brought about through strength of human feeling, not through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Much that gave rise to that irrepressible strength of feeling was inspired by the Spirit, but, then as now, the individuals most able to discern the Spirit’s presence and leading were unable to prevent themselves running ahead with their own feelings and assessments of truth, losing track of the Spirit’s guidance in the process.
We easily fail to understand or misunderstand even those who share our denominational allegiance and church community, and who are therefore thought to share our beliefs and our values, but failing to comprehend the thoughts, beliefs and actions of those who do not share our background, routines and mindset seems to come naturally to all of us; it appears to be part of the human condition.

Somewhere here is the heart of what Jesus came to change in us, in our lives and in the world. The continuation of God’s presence among us in the form of His Spirit works towards the ultimate aim of uniting the whole world in recognition and appreciation of God as reality for us all. Unity is at the centre of all Christ desires for and from mankind.

Here I find myself struggling not to use one of the many words that can lose the attention of the reader or listener. Jesus is our Redeemer. But what does that mean? What is redemption?
There are so many words used by Christians that are distinctly unhelpful to themselves as well as to those who are on the fringes of the crowd, looking and listening but not yet sure enough to follow Jesus. Some are rarely heard or read in any other context, but others are relatively normal words which have a similarly distancing effect by being used in unusual ways. In other words, the Christian context itself causes confusion and a sort of ‘lost in translation’ vagueness even when the more esoteric words are avoided.

I believe this holds many devout Christians back in their journeys towards a living faith as opposed to the learned and habitual routine which may contain little understanding of what we are meant to contribute to Christ’s Church and what He wills that we derive from being members of it.

Jesus came to redeem the world; we have heard it so often but what on earth does it mean? Literally, what on Earth does it mean?
Trying to understand without anchoring that understanding in the world in which we live will lead us nowhere; at least it will not lead us to the correct interpretation of what Christ has done for us, and that is what matters. If we do not appreciate mankind’s need of God’s influence in our lives we remain oblivious to our most essential needs and to our potential both as individuals and as a community.
My own understanding of ‘redemption’ has come slowly, through the gradual unfolding of my own awareness of myself as someone loved by God and in some way important to His plan, not for my own life but for His Church and for the redemption of all mankind. And yet I would still hesitate to define the word. I still regard it as one of many that have the ability to confuse, to distance and to confound the very people I long to bring in from the fringes – from the very edge - closer to Jesus and into the intimate vulnerability that allows the Spirit of God to grasp and transform lives.
I well remember being asked by someone who played an essential part in my journey to a real living faith, ‘Do you feel redeemed?’ At the time I was unable to say that I did; I did not feel anything. But even if I had been aware of some sort of feeling, I could not have answered ‘Yes’, as I did not really understand the question; I did not really understand the word. Why? Because it is one that cannot be understood by being superficially aware of the meaning: by having a vague idea of what it means based on its occurrence in church writings and teachings, and on an automatic absorption of things Christian which may have begun as a child. It seems that it remains a word the meaning of which I may never grasp sufficiently to enable me to use it with confidence. Despite being comfortable with reading and hearing the word, it remains one I rarely use.
But – and it is a big but – dwelling on this and recalling the asking of the question has clarified an awareness for me.
Many years have passed, but the continued presence of the Holy Spirit in my life and my slow progress towards a fuller appreciation of what Jesus has done for me have brought me to a place where I can quietly but joyfully answer, ‘Yes ..., I feel redeemed.’

I am redeemed, and I know it through the experience of living a life within the unity that is redemption: the redemption and the unity which are at the heart of Christ’s gift to mankind.
Perhaps my continued difficulty with using the word is not so much due to a lack of understanding, as to the fact that I understand only too well. The enormity of what has been done for me makes me cringe inwardly at my sinfulness, my lack of humility, love and compassion. I, unfaithful and insignificant as I am, have been redeemed!

The combination of a sometimes anguished conscience overlain with constant joy perpetuates my feeling of personal redemption. It is part of what binds me to the Catholic Church, but it is also a major part of what prevents me from finding any contradiction in my will to bring others closer to Christ without necessarily leading them into Catholicism. We must each do that which we are called to do: no more and no less; beyond that we must allow the Holy Spirit the freedom of our lives, and be blown wherever He wills.

‘Do not try to understand things that are too difficult for you,
or try to discover what is beyond your powers.
Concentrate on what has been assigned you,
you have no need to worry over mysteries.’
(Ecclesiasticus 3:21-22)

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Disunity

We are now in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, and this year marks one hundred years of its being celebrated in the way it is today.
I am not instinctively stirred by days, events, gatherings or pronouncements designated for the commemoration, celebration or remembrance of something, however worthy of note the particular focus may be. It is not that I do not value or appreciate whatever may be the centre of attention, but that I derive most benefit from, and am best able to give of myself to something when I do so as a result of following my own leadings and promptings rather than the directions of any organized authority or organization.
I may find myself led to contradict those words by my actions, but when that occurs it will be because I am so led or prompted or drawn to respond by something other than the instructions or beckoning of men.

Christian unity, however, is an aim which should become unavoidable for every one of us, and though it is a long time since I attended an ecumenical service during this week, I am always drawn to an awareness of the immense sense of need for such unity in individuals throughout the Christian world. It is a need that goes far deeper than any expression of it coming from particular church hierarchies or groups of churches already striving to work together. It is an increasingly dull ache that is building within the hearts of so many of us, beginning to feel like emotional pain: a form of grief. It can bring us to a point where we feel as though something within us is going to crack, leaving us dissolving into silence and tears. It can take us and shake us, either beautifully or painfully, in the same way that beauty of sight or sound, of word or thought can make us more complete and whole by momentarily seeming to fragment us.

I recently came across something written by Fr. Tom Norris in 2002, which not only deserves re-reading and needs to be thought about again today, but also sits well with my own undirected but unquenchable desire for unity. Rather than attempt putting my own words together in a far less meaningful way, I reproduce his thoughts here. They convey something we all need to hear.


‘The Saviour of the world and the Lord of history has left us as his final testament, “May they all be one” (Jn 17:21 ). He wants our unity, he desires it, has suffered and prayed for it. Whoever shares that desire is close to his heart and he calls them blessed. The deepest desire of his Heart and the imperative of unity rhyme.
The fact of the Reformation profoundly marks the second half of the second millennium. Up until then the Church in the West was one. At the time of the Reformation, within half a century in fact, this unity was greatly damaged. Why did the Holy Spirit permit all these divisions? This raises the question of causes. There are two possible answers to this question. The first is the more negative one. It would see in these divisions the bitter fruit of sins committed by Christians. It seems quite clear from our vantage point that there was a major failure at the time to live in that mutual love which is the pearl of the Gospel (Jn 13:34; 15:12).

That is the negative answer. There is also a positive answer to our question as to why the Holy Spirit did permit these divisions and their legacy.
'Could it not be that these divisions have also been a path continually leading the Church to discover the untold wealth contained in Christ's Gospel and in the redemption accomplished by Christ? Perhaps all this wealth would not have come to light otherwise..."(John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Jonathan Cape: London 1994, 153).
The HOLY SPIRIT suggests the positive answer. He is capable of bringing forth good even from evil, from human failure and human weakness.

In the revelation of God communicated to humankind there is an embarrassment of riches. St Paul speaks of “the unfathomable riches of Christ” (Eph 3:8), and asks his communities to pray that he may be able to make known these riches to others (Eph 6:19 -20). The different ecclesial communities since the Reformation have highlighted different elements of the 'unfathomable riches of Christ.' This is a patent fact.

The examples stand out. The Lutheran Church highlighted the Word of God: that Word which, though heaven and earth were to pass away, would never pass away. The Anglican Church highlighted the idea of communion, of unity in diversity. The Presbyterian Church highlighted the presence of the crucified and risen Jesus in the midst of those gathered in his name (Mt 18:20), as well as the baptismal dignity that makes each lay person a ‘royal priest.’ The Methodist Church highlighted from the unfathomable riches of Christ the Gospel as a way, a method leading to holiness, just as the first Christians in the Acts of the Apostles were called "followers of the Way."(Acts 9:2; 18:25 ,26;19:9,23;22:4; 24:14,22) The Catholic Church highlighted the Sacraments and the apostolic structure of the Gospel without neglecting the other dimensions.

This, however, cannot be a justification for the divisions that continue do deepen and even proliferate. The time must come for the love that unites us to be manifested. Many signs lead us to believe that that very time is now with us in a special way. The ecumenical movement can be interpreted as a potent sign of its arrival. A reunited Church would have to be reunited in terms of one Faith or Doctrine, one set of Sacraments with the Eucharist at its core, and one Apostolic Structure.

Such a reunited Church, however, would retain the emphasis of the Lutheran Church on the Word, it would retain the emphasis and experience of the Anglican Church on communion, the emphasis and four hundred years old experience of the Presbyterian Church of the equal baptismal dignity of all believers, and the Methodist Church's pursuit of a way of holiness. What has been lived by the various ecclesial communities could not be lost and would not be lost in such a Church. And such a vibrant Church, where the riches of the Lord's Gospel are lived out and so manifest, would be so beautiful as to be irresistible. It would become a home for the whole of humanity.’

(From ‘A fresh Perspective on the Disunity of Christians?’ © Fr. Tom Norris, 2002. St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Co. Kildare.)


There is only one Body of Christ: one Christian Church; we are it.
Wherever we stand, we are and always have been united, though clearly not as our Lord would wish.
Our problem (and how clearly it has been shown to be both a problem and of our own making) is that we allow differences of opinion to become causes of separation, separation to become distance, and distance to become ingrained in our hearts and minds. We feel ourselves to be far apart and therefore different; unalterably so. We allow this to become the reality for us, and the one central truth which we all share and which is far greater than the differences between us – that we are all followers of Jesus Christ – seems to be forgotten.
Of course, it is easy for me to jot down a few thoughts as though oblivious to the considerable work needed to unravel all our knotted and tangled differences and causes of separation, but then, these are merely words on a blog page.
I admit to being simplistic, but if I prompt further thought in only one or two people it will have been worthwhile.

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Misguided (2)

Our lack of conviction in our beliefs has two potentially dangerous consequences for our spiritual wellbeing and peace.
The first, is that in our seeking of a greater certainty we may too easily be led by others; the second, that we will omit to seek the insights and guidance of others completely and pay no heed to any unsought support when it is offered, attempting instead to fix beliefs more firmly by dwelling solely on our own experience.
The danger in the first is that, through our lack of discernment, we shall allow ourselves to be led by the wrong people.
In the second, our inability to understand just how little experience we really have makes inner solitude itself dangerous.
We should not attempt to rely on trying to learn from ourselves alone until we have a great deal of experience behind us, and until that experience – of good and bad, success and failure, of sinfulness and of grace – enables us to form a central certainty amid our doubts. This is the certainty that what little we do have to hold onto is built on firm foundations. It becomes an anchor for our further seeking; for the possibly lengthy period of our continued sense of not having found a safe anchorage. It enables us to weather the storms, temptations and distractions that will seem to draw us away from our search by portraying it as unnecessarily distressing and even debilitating; restrictive and futile. It maintains our link with the rock upon which we have secured our core of certainty, and, so long as we hold onto that, however much we are buffeted and swept about by the currents that strive to tear us free, we shall be brought to the security of the harbour by the wind of the Holy Spirit blowing constantly in our lives.

I have walked my own path in this way of formless doubt and slowly reducing confusion for years, and it is only recently that I have stepped into a more settled awareness of my own self and my place within the all encompassing breath of the Spirit. I believe my own danger during those years has rarely been listening to the wrong people; it has been keeping too much to myself, both in the sense of not revealing my thoughts and feelings to others, and in that I have rarely had any meaningful contact with other Christians: contact that is perhaps usually referred to as fellowship.
When looking back over the pattern of my spiritual life, all the stages seem to fall into place leaving me with the contented alertness that accompanies my steps today. I know my story is not yet complete, but I am no longer apprehensive about where it may be leading me. Again, it is only recently that I have found myself riding on these calm waters. I believe it is because, at last, after nearly twenty years of mostly single-handed sailing with a never-diminishing sense of having never sailed before, I have experienced enough, and understood well enough about that experience to learn from it. I have reached a point where, for the first time, I am able to judge myself well enough to learn the real lessons hidden in my experience; this is what I mean when saying that I am able to learn from myself.

One of the lessons learned is about my long period of having few real connections with other Christians who may have been able to contribute to my progress. I have long been aware of this as a series of blank pages in what has otherwise been a deeply engrossing story of journeying and discovery, and have been troubled by the contradiction presented by this and my awareness of the need for all Christians to belong to a group of believers, however small, and thus become visible as part of Christ’s Church.
However great our need for the support of others, we still have gifts to bring to those around us; and however much we have to give, we can still feel a need, however infrequent, for human input from outside our own experience. None of this will bring us closer to the safe anchorage we seek, however, unless the guiding light for our own vulnerability and strength is the same one guiding those to whom we look for guidance and encouragement. Only if the ultimate guide for all of us is the Holy Spirit shall we find ourselves, not merely becalmed and lost in one of spirituality’s many backwaters, but empowered and joyful in the living peace that is Christ’s presence among and within us.
The few human guides I have had have been the right ones; in that I have been truly blessed, and without the amount of solitary time and space the Lord has granted me over the years I doubt that I would be the person I am today. Hindsight tells me that He led me into the spiritual environment and ways of nurturing that would match the human nature He gave to me. I have learned that, as with each of us, He intends to draw out the best from me.

In a talk entitled ‘Sailing in the Spirit’ (Gloucester. Nov 2007), Roy Hendy of The House of The Open Door Community prayed, “Lord, inspire your people to set sail.”
I echo his words. How can we expect to catch the breeze if we do not lay our fears and apprehension aside, hoisting our sail with a longing that it be filled to bursting with the breath of the Spirit.
The ways in which the Spirit will lead may not conform to the ways planned and laid out for us by men, but ultimately, as the Church’s only guide, we must learn to understand and act upon His leading. In doing so we shall never be misguided.

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)