An ongoing call

In my spiritual life, I am always waiting to be approached by others. This is largely a deliberate choice based on a belief that others will be better able than myself to judge my gifts, my potential, and my worth. But I have to acknowledge that it fits comfortably with my own underlying shyness and a sense, not so much of unworthiness as of inadequacy: an unwillingness born of an assumed – and possibly wholly imagined – disqualification which makes persistent attempts to manifest itself as a fear of finding myself out of my depth. I have no such fear or sense of inadequacy in any other area of my life, though the underlying shyness does reach into most corners.
But, having made a conscious decision to respond willingly if and when approached for some form of assistance or involvement, when somebody did ask me to do something, the request concerned what may have been the only task for which I felt completely unqualified and to which I felt unable to answer ‘Yes’. My immediate but unspoken response was the thought, “Dear Lord, are you doing this on purpose?” Of all the things I could have been asked, I had never anticipated the words, ‘Eucharistic Minister’.

I had to say that it was the one thing I really could not take on, explaining that I felt it to be essential that anyone receiving communion in a Catholic Church could correctly make the assumption that the person from whom they were receiving fully believed in the true presence of Christ in the bread or wine being offered. As that has always been something I have doubted and pondered (struggling with it ended long ago), I felt I was not the right person; and though the priest by whom I had been asked did not seem deterred, saying he frequently came across those doubts when talking to people about Catholicism, I had to insist that my conscience left no room for a change of mind. After a brief pause he asked, “What about reading?”

So, not only are there tugs that continue to draw me to people I know in one parish: people who already know me far better than anyone else, but I am also slowly but surely being drawn deeper into another community elsewhere. I have told myself for years that if and when I am asked to do something, I shall do it. But why did it have to restart with the one thing I would have to decline?

 
 

I have just searched my own blog for something completely unrelated to anything here, and was struck by the following words in one of the posts that came up (20.7.08 Loosely bound). ‘A sense of belonging is at the heart of the experience of being a Christian. The initial understanding of that fact – being part of a supportive group of similarly minded individuals, … down through parish and otherwise local communities, to small intimate groups of close spiritual friends – is valuable and valid, but the belonging goes further than that. … it ends where in fact it truly begins: within ourselves. When we find ourselves alone, without any form of human support from within that community, we still belong to it, and we must hope to become aware of the truth behind our collective sense of belonging: that each one of us belongs to Christ; He has claimed us as His own, not ‘en masse’ as what we see and feel as the Church, but individually: He has claimed you, and He has claimed me. We each belong to Him.’

I continue to enjoy the experience of finding my own words speaking back to me in this way, but though my first reaction was to feel the above would help me to resolve the choice which seemed to be formulating in my mind – even before I had become fully aware that a choice was involved – reading through those words again has dissolved not only the choice but even the thoughts and reasons behind my writing of this post. Looking back has distracted me from the train of thought which brought me here today, but in so doing I now feel that it has put me back on the right track. There is a choice which could be made; I could choose to be an exclusive and definite part of either one parish or the other, but perhaps that is not what I am being asked to do. Why should I not be equally seen and known in more than one place? Not through choosing to visit another church merely for a change of scene, or style, or preacher, or because of past connections, or convenient mass times when something clashes with one’s usual Sunday routine; not even through more persuasive effects such as some form of discontent or particular attraction; but through an awareness of belonging which is not restricted to the manmade and functional boundaries of parishes.

It is certainly not unusual to belong to, or to be involved in, more than one form of spiritual community today. As John Finney writes in his book ‘Emerging Evangelism’, this is an “important point which is likely to become more important with time. Many people are members of more than one community. It is possible to be a member of the Franciscan Third Order and also a member of the local church community. It is also already the case that many Christians look to their engagement with New Wine, Soul Survivor, a retreat centre or Walsingham as an important part of their spiritual life which goes alongside their membership of a local church.”

While not necessarily finding different facets of our spiritual (as well as social, psychological and emotional) needs catered for – as they may well be in combinations of involvement such as those mentioned above – through a lack of rigidity and exclusivity in our allegiance to a particular church or parish community, it does allow us to see ourselves more clearly as the essential individual building blocks of Christ’s Church. Nothing can alter or in any way dilute the fact that we are the Church. Those four words are some of the most important and relevant for every Christian today. ‘Church’ is the collective noun for a group of Christians: and for the worldwide body of all Christians. For as long as the varieties within Christianity remain expressions of fragmentation, divergence and disagreement, instead of the Spirit filled diversity which should be echoing the praise and worship of all man and womankind around the globe, Christian unity will continue to be a calling inseparable from our individual and collective calls to holiness. Quoting Archbishop Rowan Williams’ words, that church is “the community that happens when people meet the living Christ”, John Finney also points out that, ‘that should not be restricted to only one form of community, however hoary with history it may be.’

Recognizing ourselves as essential and equal parts of the body to which those calls are directed, is to know something powerful about ourselves. Each one of us is called to respond to that power from within: from within ourselves while within the Church. This is our calling; this is our place; this is our identity. We are not the docile, unquestioningly obedient and subservient space-fillers who are apparently essential to the Church’s continually increasing irrelevance in the eyes of so many of today’s people. We are essential as obedient, faithful and courageous members of the Church as it is meant to be: the Body of Christ. We follow, and are true to Christ. We should regard no other allegiance as being completely inflexible. We are God’s. We are not the priest’s, or the bishop’s, or the Pope’s. We are Christ’s. We are not the congregation’s, or the parish’s, or the diocese’s or the Church’s. We are a part of each of these tiers of community, no less and no more important than any other part. Without us these tiers, the community, and the Church itself does not exist.

Ultimately we are all there is. We are it. We are the Church. And that is not the terrifying thought that it may at first appear to be. We have only to see ourselves and the Church through the eyes and the mind of Christ. God’s Word is there for all to see, every day of our lives. And this is where we all need our priests to be the priests Christ is calling them to be. They are all included in that one all-encompassing ‘We’. They are not separated from it; they are not above it, or ahead of it. Nor are they at the centre of it by any appointment or form of recognition other than that received from God in their vocation; a calling confirmed and manifested through the respect, reverence, spiritual intimacy and true fellowship found in the needs of the people among whom they are called to minister.
 

 ‘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, as I see this, only have a function within a local community that recognizes 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.)

We are back at the beginning, to know that place in ways that were previously impossible. We are conscious once again of being among The Named, as we were when I first wrote those words (06.01.07 … for the journey). –

 

'You have called me by my name. I hear you Lord.'

Poor as I am

Any degree of belief in God is the beginning of an awareness of His existence. Any awareness of God’s existence is an open door to an experience of His presence. Any experience of God’s presence will draw us closer to an encounter with Him. An encounter is something real, something undeniable, and something that challenges in some way. It deepens the impression made on us by the experience, and marks us indelibly in a way that may not become fully apparent until long after.

Christmas, for the most part, has always been a wonderful story for me: a story conveying the reality which is often all but buried beneath colour, wholly artificial light, extravagance, commercialism, and the excesses of celebrations which, while still being loosely associated, no longer feel as though they are truly connected with it. It has always been that story, but the process of belief becoming awareness, developing into experience, and transforming into encounter – a process with which I have become familiar in other parts of the story of Jesus – has never really begun for me in this, the quiet beginning of the whole Christian experience, available not only to true followers of Christ, or even to those in the far wider circle of people who call themselves Christians, but for all mankind.

But this year something was different. As in previous years, emotional involvement with the gospel narrative rose with my watching of any depiction of the story, but the BBC’s four part Nativity in the week before Christmas managed to deepen my involvement and to heighten my emotional response beyond the usual level. The final part left me disturbed to a degree that did not diminish until it was squeezed out by everything else going on around me; a diminishment I resisted but which completed its progress after four or five days of trying to find the mental space to engage with what had disturbed me. I longed for that engagement. In my own experience, such disturbance has always preceded a meaningful encounter, and running from the disturbing force, or even making no attempt to focus on it rather than striving to meet with it, would be denying much that the last twenty years has laid on me as the truth of my relationship with a living presence: the presence of He whose birth is the reality of the Christmas story.

My sense of involvement and disturbance was further heightened during the carol singing which preceded ‘midnight’ mass. As I had entered the church, my dipped finger had found “water like a stone” in the frozen font outside the door; though that description only came when those words were sung in the first verse of ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’. But it was a question in that carol’s final verse that grasped me suddenly, firmly, and in a way that troubled me for those next few days. “What can I give Him, poor as I am?” The emotional involvement in the story increased further, and I was unable to shake the words from my mind. It happened to be my turn as Reader, and I kept the question at bay while at the lectern, but by the time I had to return there for the Bidding Prayers I could not deny the build-up of pressure within me; I knew I had to highlight those words for everyone else, not just for myself. I believe that all He wanted then, and still wants, is for us all to come to Him as ourselves: as who we really are; to shed all our masks, and pretences, and pride, and to approach Him as the persons we were made to be. Even as the new-born babe, He was, and is, longing for us to come to Him.

I had come to the church prepared for what I was expected to do, but perhaps I was a little too prepared. I had forgotten that we are not the ones who set the agenda; God’s agenda is the only one that matters. His presence as an infant had momentarily come as close to me as the companion who had walked with me years ago. It was a gentle encounter: a child to child encounter; it was a passing smile, as Joseph drew me closer to look on The Light in Mary’s arms rather than being content to hang back and simply believe that He was there. He had fleetingly enabled me to live the story through the eyes and the heart of the child who still lives in me.

Though sure I have been brought close to my answer, I continue to dwell on that question: –

“What can I give Him, poor as I am?”

Simple truth

'... the young woman is with child and will give birth to a son whom she will call Immanuel.' (Isaiah 7:14)

The Nativity story is a tale of beautiful simplicity.

Its beauty comes from the simplicity of the people involved, their family life, their homes, and of course the simplicity of Christ's place of birth. The simplicity of the story is in God's presence at the moment of conception, and in the beautiful secret concealed within Mary's womb. Something – on the face of it – completely beyond our comprehension, but simultaneously an event of the utmost simplicity. It appears to be, and is accepted as being beyond our understanding because in making our appreciation of the usual, normal and therefore obvious cause of a pregnancy a fixed and unalterable reality beyond which we are incapable of seeing, our minds have no place to go once they have wandered through the variations of that one and only cause.

Today's possible variations are a long way from the natural limits of two thousand years ago. In vitro fertilization has made the possibility of pregnancy a reality for couples otherwise unable to have children of their own; but sperm and ovum donation, and surrogate mothers, have taken assistance in this area into realms beyond the limits of the nurturing environment into which every newborn child has a right to be born. There always have been children born to single and unsupported mothers, and that will not change, but to be one half of a natural process which results in pregnancy is one thing; what is possible, allowed, and in many quarters unchallenged today, is quite another. These scientific abilities have made the possibility of a virgin birth seem unsurprising, and have opened doors for the gradually increasing acceptance of single individuals and "couples" of the same gender having a child seemingly conjured for them without any physical, emotional or spiritual intimacy being involved in the process. The media coverage given over the Christmas period to a high profile homosexual couple should have thrust the contrast of such situations with the pregnancy of Mary and the birth of her son into every thinking Christian person's mind.

CBS News reported Dr. Masood Khatamee, a fertility specialist and clinical professor at New York University, as saying, "The technology of reproductive medicine has approached the state where anything is possible for those that can afford it."

When we look back to Mary's pregnancy, so long before any of these possibilities, we have only two ways to make sense of the story. We either believe that Mary became pregnant through natural means, or we believe in 'The Virgin Birth'. There is nowhere else to go. For many, of course, disbelief is never focused on: it merely lies asleep in the undisturbed corners of our routines and our comfort zones; and it would never consciously become an acknowledgement of belief in a natural explanation: certainly not a declared belief.

Our knowledge holds us in locked jaws; and so long as we remain in its unchallenged grip we relinquish the wonder, the awareness, the responsibility and the power that were ours as men and women created to control, tame and care for our world and all that is in it.

But that same knowledge can be used to see things differently. Breaking through our knowledge-reinforced preconceptions is one of the things we all find most difficult to do, and while my own easy acceptance of the virgin birth might seem to disqualify me from understanding that difficulty, I am well aware that I am unable to believe something else which may present no problem for those around me.

A few basic facts are all I need to reinforce my own preconception: my own naturally occurring and readily accepted grasp of the situation immediately before that previously unimaginable, phenomenal moment of conception.

The human body consists of trillions of cells, and within the adult male body well over 100 million sperm cells are produced every day; trillions during a lifetime. Couple that with the fact that a sperm cell is the smallest of all the cells in the human body (and much of its volume is taken up by its means of propulsion rather than what is needed to fertilize the ovum), and what do we have if not an impressive way of demonstrating just how insignificant a thing is a single sperm cell. Not in its potential value or importance at conception (just one of those millions fertilizes the egg), but when regarded in the light of all the countless miracles that have gone to make up the collective miracle that is the human body within which that one microscopic cell is produced, as well as the miracle that creates that particular cell within it. Our problem with miracles is that we look for the unexpected, the exceptional, the striking, the phenomenal. We miss the miracles of our lives, our very existence, and of the whole of creation. If we believe in a God as Creator and sustainer of all things, how can we fail to believe that He could provide the supernatural equivalent of the almost non-existent contents of a sperm cell?

Everything else was there, ready, waiting; prepared from the moment when God first conceived the idea, long before His word of it was revealed to Israel through His prophets. When the time was right, Christ was conceived by the merest flicker of a thought. The quietest and apparently most insignificant of beginnings for the quietest and apparently most insignificant of births.

Scientific knowledge cannot distance me from my faith: it has always confirmed it. Without any such knowledge I would surely doubt, but the little I have is more than enough to set me firmly where I stand.

If God has not done this thing, then Christianity is nothing more than a foolish deception.

If God is incapable of such a thing, then He does not exist.

But He spoke; the Word was made flesh; Christ was born. The undoubted and beautiful simplicity of Truth: - God is with us.

Lighting up time

Three other people, regarded as friends for life, are equally essential to my spiritual stability as is the person to whom I have recently written. They have lived, and still do, within easy reach and within the same parish, though I no longer regularly attend the same church. One of them has always been the safest hands I know, but I have so far been unable to sum up the others in equally definite and all-encompassing ways. But – and it is a ‘but’ that has run through many years of my life – I have almost no contact whatsoever with any of them. That has always felt so wrong to me, but it has also seemed that it was meant to be, as there has never been any definite sign of my felt need for their company, support and reassurance being felt in the opposite direction.

Months ago I saw two of them at a talk on Cardinal Newman, where I spoke with one of them for a while, and was later greeted by the other. We too spoke, about a close family member who is no longer able to live at home. That news created an instant urge to be available if I should be needed at any time, and that has continued undiminished; but what struck me with even more force, and left me with forms of both joy and pain which also have stayed with me ever since, were her first three words on seeing me: - “We miss you.” In several ways those words enfolded me as the loveliest, and the most powerful thing anyone had said to me for a long time. But where, if anywhere, might they lead me? If I continue waiting for others to approach me with the questions I long for them to ask rather than making my thoughts known without invitation, I shall probably be standing in the same place this time next year. That would disappoint and even depress me; and I can already sense that the considerable concern arising from that situation would push me back deeper into the shell from which I have spent so long attempting to emerge.

The purity of purpose which constantly calls me back to them, is strangely sensed in a deepening awareness of the vulnerability into which Christ came as the new-born infant depicted in crib scenes in our homes and churches at this time of year. We are all being called to allow ourselves to become vulnerable in His presence, and through the untangling of my own words in the previous post as well as above, I have brought myself within earshot of His call to vulnerability in the presence of those who have led me to him. I am continually called to fellowship with Him through their own presence in my life: they have always clearly and consistently conveyed to me their bringing of Christ to any table around which we might meet. And yet, I still fear making any approach; even after being blessed by the potential invitation contained in those three words: "We miss you." If I am missed by those with whom I long to have more contact, what can possibly hold me back? I have searched through all that could have distanced them from me, and, while not knowing their thoughts and feelings, I am well aware of my own; there is nothing which would keep me from them. Nor should there be if all of us are the people I have taken us to be. I am therefore left with only the one possibility, and I am almost afraid to admit it even to myself. I am afraid of being rejected by them. I would sooner continue in the unsatisfactory state in which I find myself than discover, without doubt, that they do not wish me to approach them more closely and more frequently.

But now, on the eve of Christmas, the infant in the crib is before me again. Does He suggest that I should stay away from Him? That any of us should do anything other than approach even closer than we dare? Such questions should never need to be asked. He draws us ever closer to Himself, and purity of purpose will take us all the way to His side where we begin to share in the power of His innocence, and in the brilliance of His light as it pours forth into the world. Emmanuel: God with us. No less.

Do I really need anything more? In reality, no; but in my continuing frailty and uncertainty - yes. I need the support and discernment that I shall find only by moving in from the edge: by becoming a more visible and less isolated speck within His Church. I long for His presence in others as company on my journey, and I have taken a very long way round to the realization that in ending my previous post with, 'We have need of each other', I was striving - through the workings of His Spirit - to get that very message through to myself.

God is with us, and we bring His presence to life for each other in our coming together.

May Christmas be a time of peace and knowing, and of sharing in His light for each of us.

Timelessness

Since its inception, my Benedictine friendship has included long periods without any contact. That is true in general terms – with my lifelong connection with Stanbrook Abbey and the later influence of time spent at Douai – as well as with the particular friend on whom my thoughts are presently focussed. Whenever such periods come to an end I am always surprised, usually concerned, and frequently disturbed by the sudden realization of how long they have been. As months passed, receiving a note, a card or a short email would prick my conscience, though even without one of those prompts a discomfort would arise, and I would begin a series of gradually more persistent ‘reminders to self’ to arrange to meet with her. And still more time would slip away, until I finally got round to doing the simplest and easiest of things: picking up the telephone. We would speak briefly, and fix a date and time for meeting. When that time came our meeting and talking would feel as though we had seen each other only a few days earlier, and even that we were picking up the same conversation where we had left off. Afterwards I would always be left with a feeling of having been spiritually recharged or topped up in some way.

For too many years these meetings have been almost my only meaningful spiritual contact with anybody, and that has made the long absences both more remarkable and more troubling. And in writing of it I feel that I am either contradicting myself or denying some relevant but unrecognized truth. ‘Troubling’ is the word which has become my perplexity for today.
I am as puzzled as ever as to how these long gaps occur. It would be easy to add that I am also as puzzled as to why, but for the most part, my conscience has always experienced the how and the why as being pretty much the same thing: slightly different responses to my semi-automatic and recurring feelings of guilt and shame. The mild confusion over what is going on is prolonged and made more demanding of further thought by the fact that those feelings, while being real, immediate and more or less continuous, are themselves never more than mild. It is as though something grips me by the shoulder asking, “Why the guilt?” ... “For what do you feel ashamed?” ... “Do you not understand better than that by now?” At which point I inwardly cringe at being reminded of how long it is since first beginning to wonder what I am called to do ... and that is it; nothing more. I look around, and wherever I happen to be, I find myself standing as in the middle of nowhere, wondering why I am talking to myself. And the guilt subsides. The title, ‘Soliloquy at the Very Edge’, continues to suit much more than just the feel of writing here.

My lack of contact seems contrary to everything I feel and experience as wanting and needing, and yet, with the repetition of both the long absences and my declared amazement at their length, it is gradually becoming clearer that it is only one half of me that truly wants such friendships to involve more frequent contact. I can trace a trail of that apparent character-trait running through my life from almost as far back as I can remember, though it is only now that I am starting to fully take note of it. These days, I sense it as being connected with my apparently endless inability to discern what I am meant to be doing as part of God’s work in this world.
As has always been the case, once my mind is focussed on this particular friend it feels that I have never been away; though it is no longer a question of arranging a time to meet, as her community's relocation has now placed us many miles apart.
It has often struck me as strange that the lengthy gaps in our contact have always been an apparently contradictory source of peace for me. It must have much to do with the fact that our friendship is genuine; that we do not forget each other when we are not in contact, and that we know we share something of infinite importance. The timelessness of that ‘something’ has spread its peace into our friendship in such a way that whether present or absent to each other, that peace remains unchanged and unbreakable. And that is the overriding quality of the gift we have been given. Clearly it is not of this world.
Absence, it seems, does not so much make the heart grow fonder, as make no difference whatsoever to friendships built upon truths beyond merely human contact and trust and shared interests. Any insecurity or hesitation in an otherwise apparently perfect friendship, will almost certainly be caused by some impurity in the relationship. Not necessarily – as frequently coming to mind at once for many of us – impure as in forms of attraction that have distinct and unbefitting sexual overtones, or, perhaps more dangerously, indistinct and unadmitted undercurrents of a similar and equally inappropriate nature, but lacking the purity of purpose and shared desire to journey together towards the one goal that has meaning beyond the sensed confines of our lives.

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

Wherever and whenever the right persons meet together, He is there. I find that utterly undeniable. When people are constantly aware of His presence in their lives they do not need to declare that they meet in His name; nor do they need to consciously focus on making that a reality; the reality is there: it is impossible for them to meet in any other way. Nothing can get in the way of such a three cornered relationship precisely because it has all three of us. No doubt such friendships come into being, and thrive, and last, for the awesomely powerful reason that each person brings Christ to the table with them. And apparent differences between such friends – which may give rise to incredulity in others who find their friendship unfathomable – can be obliterated within the relationship by other shared but intangible factors.

John Henry Newman, in his sermon on Christian Sympathy, gives us a clear pointer to one contributory reason for this compatibility and close fellowship between particular Christians.

‘ ...whereas their sense of the heinousness of sin rises with their own purity, those who are holiest will speak of themselves in the same terms as impure persons use about themselves; so that Christians, though they really differ much, yet as regards the power of sympathising with each other will be found to be on a level. The one is not too high or the other too low. They have common ground; ...’

 
Wherever we may be on our own personal journeys, we can be unified beyond all expectations by the very fact that we are committed to our journeying. The paths we follow, though for the most part very much our own, traverse that common ground as they lead us to the Holy Ground on which we all long to stand. There is no way around it: its seemingly vast expanse has to be crossed; and to hope or attempt to travel beyond it without walking beside others for at least part of the crossing is to turn away from one of the central reasons for the existence of the community we have come to know as the Church.

Having progressed this far: having reached the point where we know we are among those who have been sent, we should also know that we have not been sent out alone.
 

'Then he summoned the Twelve and began to send them out in pairs, giving them authority over unclean spirits.' (Mark 6:7) ‘After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them out ahead of him in pairs, to all the towns and places he himself would be visiting.’ (Luke 10:1)

 

Both in time and out of it; when called to be God's provision for others, and when in need of His provision for ourselves; when together and when apart; we have need of each other.

 
 

...Thus are their names confirmed

In the early hours of yesterday morning I sent a lengthy email to a spiritual friend with whom I have not been in touch for more than a year; and during the day I had been preparing to post something here about such long gaps between contacts in my important friendships. That will now become my next post, as I have been washed over by a wave of confirmation resulting from a reply received late last night. This will probably be meaningless to anyone else as it is being posted for the same reason as last night’s short entry under the heading, ‘Wisdom & Prudence’: more as a 'reminder to self’ than anything else.

The words quoted are the first of a sequence of ‘O Antiphons’ as they are called, which began yesterday, 17^th December. I have been vaguely aware of them in the past, but they have only now really come to my attention through being referred to in the email I received last night. I had given my already mentioned friend some of the details about what I have been doing over the last year, and those details included the names I have given to two other important persons in my spiritual life in a lengthy writing project on which I have been working. Those names are Wisdom and Prudence, and the reply email expressed delight not only at having heard from me after so long, but with those details and a further reference to what I had called “a wisp of Wisdom” being received on the day that the ‘O Wisdom’ antiphon was used. (Unlike me, she knows the liturgy intimately and follows it closely.)

The information delighted me, as such an apparent coincidence of timing is precisely the kind of thing that has occurred at various times through my own journey, and is therefore running through my present writings. All that I have been doing over the last twenty four hours seems to have returned to me as a confirmation that my choice of names for two friends is not only right, but given a strangely unexpected seal of approval. And I am once again reminded that I am that beggar with his ‘smile in the mind’: - the one who is the real writer of every word I have penned over the last twelve months.

My Benedictine messenger is also to be found in the same mass of words; and, as a final rounding up of all the real, living and essential characters in that part of my life, today is the 45^th anniversary of my first meeting with ‘Providence’, who is not only in there too, but became one of the main reasons that I have anything at all to write about.

How could I possibly fail to acknowledge and appreciate such things!

Wisdom & Prudence ...

'O Sapientia, quæ ex ore Altissimi prodiisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiæ.'

'O Wisdom that comest out of the mouth of the Most High, that reachest from one end to another, and orderest all things mightily and sweetly, come to teach us the way of prudence!'

Distracted

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

However rarely I may consciously wish to be drawn from the realities of the world around me, and from the undeniable awareness of something beyond that physically sensed reality, I am, at times, as easily distracted from them as anyone else. Television, radio, music, and the accumulation of past and present interests safely tucked away but readily available on a hard drive, are able to distract me as easily and completely as ever; though thankfully not for long periods, and not to the complete exclusion of everything else. It is never long before I am drawn back, in far more powerful ways, to the thoughts and feelings which really do seem to make me tick: the ways of seeing the world and the power behind its very existence, that give my heart a reason to keep beating.

Disconnecting the computer to move it to another room during a redecorating session, felt like a major wrench while it was being done, but once unplugged, it remained out of action for a while and I got used to its absence. The simple actions of switching off and unplugging it also disconnected me from some of my routines and I found a different form of space in which to think about whatever needed thought. I had not been unplugged from my own power supply, but felt as though I had been put onto ‘standby’. My time was soon taken up by something else which, once started, became difficult to put down. That is ongoing, but it has acted as a reminder that I am frighteningly susceptible to distractions of one kind or another.

It has also made me aware that what I think of as distractions are not necessarily things which steer my trains of thought away from the areas on which I believe they should be focussed: whatever may seem important to me at the time. They are the bulky areas of thought which press gently from just beyond my normal limits of awareness, and which, under that almost imperceptible pressure, flow silently in to fill any empty space as soon as it is created.

The inner void is well known to me, as is the danger inherent in the inevitable fact that it will be filled by something, whether wanted or unwanted, good or bad, blessing or curse. I have previously written about distraction (20^th September 08), and on the infilling of God’s own presence as a form of emptiness within the void created by grief; a transformation of awareness from a hollow form of death to a restful and healing peace that precedes our recognition of His presence within our desolation. That is indeed a blessing; but in every situation, not only those in which we may fully recognize and comprehend our vulnerability, we are nonetheless vulnerable.

My separation from the computer resulted in periods spent on something else which still occupies large chunks of my available time. I had not been longing to find a gap of some sort in which I could make a start on it; it had not been waiting for the opportunity; it had seemingly come from nowhere as a means of filling the gap which had not previously been there. And it was from that realization that my present thoughts have come. I have always longed for space, for peace, for quiet, for emptiness, for solitude; but is that longing, at least partially, a cover for my fear of those very same things? Rather than using the newfound space to appreciate and deepen the space itself, I maintained my level of busyness by transferring my mental energies to something new which kept me from the space for which I was supposedly always longing. I am always telling myself that I should lay things aside and give more time to simply being with God. Why do I not? I tell myself that, in reality, I spend almost no time in prayer, and should do all I can to change that; that I should receive any space, when it comes, as a blessing granted specifically for that purpose. Why do I not?

Knowing that my longing for quiet and solitude are inseparable from my longing to spend time in God’s presence, and knowing from experience that there is nothing more beneficial to my own peace, contentment and wellbeing than spending time in silence and prayer, what is there that could possibly keep me from it when the opportunity arises? And an immediate effect of asking myself that question is, as it were, the lifting aside of a veil that has been obscuring the truth: the opportunity is there – and always has been there – all the time, not only when I discover a newly created space in which all things may be possible.

St Paul’s words in Romans 7:14-25, have been prodding at me since I began to unravel my thinking at the keyboard; and though they are written with specific reference to the effects of our sinful nature, they are providing me with new food for thought around similarities between that nature and sin itself, and the distractions to which I am referring. They are not sinful distractions, but they do at times steer my awareness away from spiritual matters, and from my awareness of God’s presence. Is that not the beginning of all sin?

There are many ways of picking and choosing our way through scriptures: both good and bad; and there are just as many ways of refusing to do so which can be no less misguided and even abusive towards what God had intended. In the present context, I find it helpful to read St Paul’s words adjusted to fit my circumstances, and I write them here in the knowledge that some may not approve, but also in the knowledge that any disapproval is born of an inability to see and to hear, and thus to understand the fullness of what we have been given through the word of God. These verses are absolutely true where sin is concerned, and I have not altered that truth. I have not read the words and decided they are not relevant to me, but rather, have found a way to delve deeper into understanding my own sinfulness by using the truth they contain to speak into a personal situation which at first glance would have no connection with St Paul’s words. I am open to any scriptural words to speak meaningfully to me. And who would dare to say that I have not been guided to read these words in this way?

‘We are well aware that the Law is spiritual: but I am a creature of flesh and blood; I am easily distracted and misled. I do not understand my own behaviour; I do not act as I mean to. While I am acting as I do not want to, I still acknowledge the Law as good, so it is not myself acting, but a power which works to distance me from God’s law. For though the will to do what is good is in me, the power to do it is not: the good thing I want to do, I rarely do; instead, I follow my distractions. But every time I do what I do not want to, then it is not myself acting, but that unrecognized power working against me and against all that is good. So I find this rule: that for me, where I want to do nothing but good, evil is close at my side. In my inmost self I dearly love God's law, but I see that acting on my mind and body there is a different law which battles against the law I long to keep in my mind. Who will rescue me from this situation? God – thanks be to him through Jesus Christ our Lord. So it is that I myself with my mind obey the law of God, but in my disordered nature I obey that which distracts me.’

Surely my distractions, though not in themselves sinful, are inseparable from my sinfulness and from that ‘different law which battles against’ God’s law. Without any doubt, at all times, ‘evil is close at my side’. My best way to remain aware of it, and to counter it, is to end as I began: to continue to maintain, to the best of my ability, an ongoing spiral of awareness of his presence in my life; and to strive continually to obey that simple, peaceful instruction: to –

“Be still, and know that I am God.”

All our yesterdays

‘... the vision is for its appointed time, it hastens towards its end and it will not lie; although it may take some time, wait for it, for come it certainly will before too long.’ (Habakkuk 2:3)

I have so many questions half-buried in my mind. Doing my best to ignore them is part of the process of fitting into the routine, the company, or the form of expression with which I have become comfortable.

This can appear to make some sort of sense in the day-to-day happenings of my life, but most of these questions need bringing to the surface occasionally; they will not go away of their own accord, and cannot be made to fade into insignificance without first being brought into the open and answered honestly.

I am not alone in this. Indeed, I would be surprised if any man or woman is without their own doubts, discomforts or discontents; and those who truly believe otherwise are in far greater danger and have already lost far more than they will ever be able to comprehend. I dare to say this, because I know some part of what I have lost, and am conscious of how little I understand, through always being aware of my own half-submerged questions.

Finding the honest answers is not a matter of forcing ourselves into submission, as it were; attempting to implant what we perceive as the expected answers: the ones proclaimed by others as the only possible ones available to right-thinking people. We should not allow ourselves to bury the questions so completely that we forget them, and nor should we remain aware of our doubts and difficulties of faith without acknowledging them and pondering them. It is through our calm consideration of them, not through an anguished building of barricades against them, that we come to see them as they truly are. They are not enemies to be feared, hidden away from, or fought against; some of the consequences of bringing them to the surface may indeed disturb our peace and equilibrium, but the consequences of thought are not the same as the questions themselves.

Trying to learn more about our particular areas of difficulty, in an attempt to understand what we really believe and what we value sufficiently to openly profess, frees us to continue our journey instead of shrinking into immobility and a form of invisibility that keeps us unnoticed and untroubled. How could we ever believe that a desert can bloom if we do not see it for ourselves? And how shall we see it for ourselves if we remain with our heads buried in the very sand from which the blossoming will come?

We may give some thought to aspects of our faith without ever moving on in our knowing of ourselves. The matter rises and falls in our consciousness, but is never met full on: we never confront it; and, as with getting to know other people, and relating closely to family and friends, we need to meet our doubts and concerns face to face that we may see them, recognize them, accept and understand them more fully.

What do I believe? Where does faith lead me? What is faith? Do I have faith?

Such inner questions may once have troubled me in some way, and, in the past, more specific aspects of such blueprints and horizon-scanning thoughts have certainly been kept to myself. A combination of fear and shame locked them away as inadmissible secrets. Others were not allowed to know of my doubting when, apparently, everyone around me believed without question. How wrong we can be; how wrong I was. How many years have been lost in that all-enveloping self-deception? And yet they are not lost; they are never lost – for any of us. That we continue to regard them as being so, is evidence of an ongoing failure to appreciate the fullness of our relationship with God; and the extent of His gifts, so freely given into our undeserving lives.

However long the period behind us, and however short the time ahead may appear to be, those years have been our preparation for the steps we are asked to make today.

Remembrance (3)

‘... everyone should be quick to listen ...’ (James 1:19)

Military orders, whether verbal or written, are to be obeyed. Any person regarding themselves as part of one of the world’s armed forces accepts that fact as a basic and essential part of their existence. Whether having to respond to the written command shown at the head of the previous post, by travelling alone for 1,200 miles across North Africa, or whether obeying a spoken order in Afghanistan today, the response must be the same. The instruction has to be heard, understood, incorporated into one’s mindset and acted upon.

An absolute belief in the ‘rightness’ of whatever one is called upon to do, will undoubtedly make one’s immediate obedient response more straightforward than when that belief is absent. But where there is no such personal conviction, its absence is overridden by the transference of all certainties into one’s faith in those whose orders are being followed.

Such obedience can lead to otherwise impossible results, but, as Remembrance Day never fails to remind us, it is, always has been, and always will be very costly. The ‘war to end all wars’ never had a chance of coming close to ending war as part of the human experience; the human race has not moved beyond its belief in it, its support for it, and in too many quarters, its hunger for it.

It has only been in recent days that I have been struck by the similarity of that response to the one required of us as Christians: as followers of Christ. We are always to be awake: alert, and ready to respond to any calling to do God’s will, whether in some far-reaching, life-changing aspect of His will for us and for the world, or in our day-to-day lives among our neighbours and friends, those with whom we work , and with whom we travel.

Just as my father’s travel orders were both command and authorization, so too our instructions from God give us the authority to do whatever He may assign to us. The very same words apply: ‘You are authorized ... to carry out an assigned mission.’ We only comprehend the implications of this when we not only hear, but understand His Word, and incorporate it into our own mindset.

‘Humbly welcome the Word which has been planted in you ...’ (James 1:21)

We should do only that which we have been authorised to do, not simply what may appeal in some way; but we do have the additional stage of discernment to go through. Where our calling and subsequent sending out come from is not always as obvious as it is for military personnel. We are constantly called by a power that would misguide us; that will do whatever it takes to keep us from putting into action any thoughts we may have of working for the advance of God’s Kingdom. We have the freedom to choose, but having discerned the source of the Word which has come to us, we should respond accordingly, either rejecting it, or acting on it with no more hesitation than would the soldier, sailor or airman.

God may make his will known to us through the presence of others in our lives, but just as General Eisenhower was in command of the invasion of Italy, so God’s command still comes from Him, not from the one who brings the message to us;

‘... you must do what the Word tells you and not just listen to it ...’ (James 1:22)

If it comes from a known and recognized source: from Allied Force Headquarters, or through the guidance or prompting of the Holy Spirit, we should not spend time thinking about it, talking about it, questioning it; we should respond to it. If it requires something of us, we should not hesitate; we should do it.

It is in our ability to discern God’s Word and to act upon it, that we become aware that all previous steps along our path have been leading us towards that ability. From realizing that we have been the Found, the Named, and the Touched, and each of the other imagined followers (see 6^th January 07 …for the journey) through to the Empowered, we now find that we have become the Directed. God has strengthened us and shown us the way; and in our willingness to act according to His direction we wordlessly proclaim, “I shall obey you Lord.”

And thus we find ourselves at what we once thought to be a destination, but which is now greeted joyfully as a new start-point for our continuing journey. When we began, it had seemed so very far away: out of reach even; but now the journey seems to have been so short. And that has made real for us the value of having companions along the way.

We have narrowed down our choices, and in finding the compass bearing we were made to follow, we have entered into the realm of true freedom. We have discerned and chosen, and have no desire for any other way; the narrow way is wide enough for all of us.

Dear Lord, we thank you for your presence in our lives; you have waited so long for us to fully turn to You.

I welcome the blessings and responsibilities which come with being counted as one of ‘The Sent’.

You have commanded and sent me.

Do with me what you will.

Remembrance (2)

In a way similar to that in which All Souls Day quietly comes into focus, and, after lingering for several days, drifts from my everyday awareness, Remembrance Day takes its place in the annual rhythm of my life. My awareness of it is shared with the country as a whole and with every individual in it, just as my acknowledgement of it is shared with the majority of the population; awareness of the day, after all, has become unavoidable, and conforming to the recognizable acknowledgement of it now appears to be almost compulsory. But what speaks of both my underlying valuing of it and of its effect on me, is my experience of the day. That experience is not a comfortable one.
This contrasts starkly with my relationship with All Souls Day, which is always comfortable and peaceful, and which, in spite of merely tip-toeing into my consciousness every year, is every bit as unavoidable for me. Since its introduction into my life, its low profile has anchored itself within me in a way that the visible face of Remembrance Day has not, does not, and probably will not.
All Souls has become a meaningful and undeniable link with something barely understood but tied in with my faith as much as with thoughts of life and death. Most people do not share my awareness of this day; it has not been made unavoidable. From most viewpoints it is all but invisible, and most people’s awareness around that time is likely to be based on Halloween; but nothing hides the occurrence and the presence of Remembrance Day when it comes round. Indeed it has become as the secular aspects of both Christmas and Easter: obvious to all long before the day itself.

.
The experience, as well as the day itself, has now slipped away and I am able to write this in a way that would not have been possible a few days ago. As soon as I had thought to write something here on the subject, I found myself struggling to put my thoughts into words. The answer was found in The Guardian editorial of November 7th, and the following link will take you to the relevant writing should you wish to read it. Far better that than for both of us to waste time on words that would not do the job nearly so well.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/07/remembrance-day-poppies-cenotaph

Quoting from the above, ‘One recent poll found that four-fifths of the population think the two-minute silence is “relevant to them”.
It is certainly relevant to me, but not through any experience of loss or grief associated with wars and conflict between peoples.

For everyone in Britain, Afghanistan is today’s constant reminder of the cost of involvement in war, but other than those who are directly involved in the conflict – military personnel and their families, and, to a lesser degree, their friends and neighbours – none of us really know that cost or truly find remembrance relevant as a result of what is happening in Afghanistan. The relevance comes from what is embedded in our own lives: remembrance is made real by conflicts which are already part of our own reality.
For those of us whose whole lives have been lived in peace, the sacrifices made and the risks taken in the cause of retaining and protecting that relatively secure and peaceful world are known to us only through reflections of history and through the memories of older family members. It is the Second World War that makes Remembrance Day relevant for me. For those who lived through it, civilians included, it is part of their own life story, and they may see all that has occurred since 1945 in the light of their own uncertainties during those preceding years. But having been born just after the war, I have no direct experience of it, no personal memory, no loss, no grief. Awareness of its importance in my own life is through consciousness of the important place it occupied in the lives of two people who did live through it: the soldier and the nurse who became my parents.
A few years ago, during this month of remembrance, a quiet but powerful chapter in my life, representative of the same half-century story of the local community as a whole, and indeed of the entire country, came to an end with the death of the last of my father’s siblings.

In March 1944 photographs of four soldiers, my father and his three brothers, appeared in a local newspaper article reporting on their whereabouts. They had all volunteered in 1940 and had gone their separate ways for the duration of the war. All four survived, though it was not until April 1946 that the last of them finally returned. I have often wondered how that must have felt to my grandparents: saying farewell to all four of them and not knowing if they would ever see them again; and then, having all four of them return safely home. Not only the brothers, but their parents too will have known and felt what remembrance was all about.

Every November, the poppies, the parades, the silences, the coverage of the Cenotaph and the Albert Hall: all these, built upon year by year through my parents’ thoughts, words, and quiet tears, have somehow made the war a defining part of my own life despite its having ended before I was born.
Yes, we will remember them. Not only those who died: those who never came home, but also those who did return; the men and women who lived on, and made the world that is ours today. Men like my father and his brothers: men who risked all for our sakes, and then rebuilt the security of home in their quiet lives.
One day, after the death of the last of the brothers, and as his executor, I came across his medals. He had done exactly the same as my Father. They had opened those small brown cardboard boxes, looked at the medals, and replaced them, the ribbons still unattached and folded. And there they stayed for the next fifty years. There they remain today; valued and evocative; safe in their boxes.
I also came across a small unimportant looking notebook among assorted bits and pieces; something which could so easily have been simply thrown away. It was several days before I picked it up again and opened it. It was ‘The Boys’ Diary’, as my Grandmother had called it at the top of the first page. Her handwritten record of every known move they made during the war, and every communication received from them, from the day the first one left home, to the day the last one returned, - a period of more than six years.
It is a wonderful fragment of truth from a troubled time; a time that finally came to an end for me when a surviving soldier’s ashes were placed in his parents’ grave and his generation was finally at rest. As with their return from war: all safely home, and together once more.

I remember, as a boy, watching my father close up his shop to take his place in the Remembrance Day parade, and marching through the town with the other men. I always wondered why he had no medals; everyone else seemed to. That was before my sense of awe and wonder when I first came across them. From those far off years right up to the end of his life, his face always looked different on Remembrance Day. Experiences undisclosed, faces only he could see, and names that I would never hear; all these he has somehow passed down to me. Together with that silent box and its contents, they join my awareness and appreciation of all that my parents gave to me and to my own siblings: foundations for the forming of my own very personal and very real experience of Remembrance Day and all that it should signify.
Yes. We will remember them.

At the dawning of each new day we shall remember them: all of them.
And may we who remain do as well for those who follow.

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Remembrance (1)

I was almost taken by surprise this morning when words from the radio nudged me from my lack of awareness. I am relieved to be able to use the word ‘almost’, as to have found that the day had slipped by without my recognition of it would have troubled me, though I would have struggled in vain to find a solid and acceptable reason for being so troubled by it; acceptable for anyone other than myself, that is. My own acceptance of my feelings is not based on anything particularly solid either, and nor are the feelings themselves, but they are undeniable, unforgettable, and form part of a sequence of memories that echo the early stages of my movement from wherever I once was to the place where I find myself today. All Souls is quietly come around. I failed to see or hear it coming, and in some strange way that troubles me. It is a day that has crept up on me before; announcing itself in whispers as though in explanation of why I have been drawn to a deeper thinking, and a wrestling with words as my only way of laying to rest the ghosts of unknown sorrows which hung their cloaks of grief about my shoulders. ‘... All Souls is quietly come around. He weeps upon the whispering ground, as warmth bleeds from his naked flesh to be lost in the sobbing wind. ...’ So read lines from the end of one of the first poems I ever tried to write. It was written, not so much because I wanted to write poetry, as because I needed to find a way to still the restless thoughts, and sounds, and voices that increasingly filled any empty space I managed to create within my mind. I seemed drawn to acknowledge and record the fact that I was filled with an awareness of something or someone forgotten: something reaching out for anyone with the faintest glimmer of recognition who may pause to ‘harken to the darkening of the memory in the sand’. A longing that searched for ‘just one to stop and wonder what it was he thought he heard; ... to sense the loss: to understand; to hear, to feel the pain, to pray and to remember.’ It was the writing of that poem that stilled the restless voices; and it was the realization, as the quiet returned after weeks without peace, that it was the closing of All Souls Day, which embedded the memory of that unrest within me. That was years ago, before my days of walking the sand with Jesus; but it was the same sand: it was the same Irish strand that would play its part in my awakening to His presence. Earlier today, I received news of another life ended; Raymond Taylor, a gentleman with whom I have been working, after more than sixty years of hunched and silent life, died today. All Souls is quietly come around, and now slips quietly away again having gathered him in its passing. May the souls of all who have passed this way, whether long ago, more recently, or during this very day, rest in peace. .