Looking back (5)

‘Once the hand is laid on the plough, no one who looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’
(Luke 9:62) .

In the verses of Luke’s gospel preceding these words, a willingness to follow Jesus and to help in the spreading of His message is shown to be only part of His call to us. When Jesus says “Follow me”, He asks us to commit to Him at once, having no regard for the interruption of other concerns and relationships. We all have something that would keep us back from the fullness of that response: something resulting in a form of ‘Just let me finish this first’. The above words of Jesus were spoken in response to the, “first let me go and say good-bye to my people at home”, of one apparently willing follower.
It is a matter of priorities. Looking back to whatever may divert us from this priority is a sure sign of a lack of real commitment, but looking back to the cause of an inner heaviness which makes our committed following feel like an assault course, may be necessary to enable us to grasp the plough more firmly. And that firm grasp is essential if the plough is to turn the soil and not skid lightly over the surface of the stony and sun-baked ground. As soon as our hand is laid on the plough we are expected to hold firm; even the strongest team of oxen, the best tackle, and the sharpest and heaviest of ploughshares will not plough the furrows without the strength and the focussed commitment of the one who walks behind: the one whose hands control the team and the blade.

If that which we seek to follow is Truth and Light, and if our awareness and comprehension of it barely touches the surface of its fullness, then we must expect to be blinded, at the very least momentarily, by attempting to look directly at the source of the light. In seeking to follow we constantly turn towards that light, struggling to find and recognize some form in the brilliance before us. Thus, inevitably, we are blinded. But this is the route we are called to take; this is what faith is all about. Do we really imagine that we can clearly see, interpret, and correctly comprehend that which does not merely generate the light but is that Light?
Whenever we look directly ahead, the light is far too bright for us to see that which we hope to approach, but so long as we continue on our path toward the light’s source we are advancing toward the fulfilment of our deepest desire, and gradually distancing ourselves from the more easily recognized and more immediately satiable desires of the world in which we find ourselves.

In looking back we see our past in the full light of that which blazes ahead of us, and our sight recovers from the blinding. We may recognize this, and speak of it, as seeing our past in the light of experience and more recently acquired wisdom, but the danger is that in the process we remain unaware that we have turned away from our goal. The greatest perceptible illumination is when looking back. We have all wished we could have had the benefits brought by hindsight before we had made some decision, or acted, or spoken, but thoughtful reflection on past events can bring a deeper and more significant understanding of our lives and of our relationship with others.

While the greatest illumination is found when looking back, the greatest clarity in our living of each day is found in looking sideways. In this way we can see the nature of our desires and distractions more clearly as they are defined by the contrast of light and shade: the shadows cast by the light of truth falling upon them enable us to see their true form more easily, even at a distance. In this way we can see those things we refuse to carry with us but which return time and again to drain our faith, our hope and our self-belief of all vitality: the hurts and troubles, the faults and failures, the lies, deceptions, malice and pride; all that we block out or pretend not to notice; all that gives rise to conflict within ourselves and a constantly tormented conscience; all that contributes to the inner heaviness we must try to dispel. These all travel a parallel path, not pulling us off course but always there, enticing us to bring them closer: tempting us to pick them up and carry them once more. Their presence keeps us from walking as we should, though we do not lose our sense of direction by looking towards them or dwelling on them as they always travel in the same direction as ourselves. They are still with us in this way for one reason only: because we keep them there. We have not left them behind.

If we walk towards the light we are walking right, but the struggles we try to hold at bay remain as part of us, and, as such, keep pace with us as we walk, travelling parallel to our own route. Their continued presence gives them an unrelenting power in our lives, and it is this power that makes our progress so difficult. We stumble, as it were, through the heather, the tussocks and mossy humps, slipping into peat hags and constantly struggling to move ahead. We tire easily, we twist ankles and wrench our knees, our backs ache and our hands are scratched and sore from trying to stay upright on such un-trodden ground. For that is exactly what it is.
Our various faults and hang-ups from the past do not shadow us as we walk along our path; rather, we have been driven to take a course parallel to our intended path in an attempt to avoid the baggage we have been unable to shed completely. We still face towards the light but we have to fight every step of the way. Our baggage is on the path we should be treading; un-shouldered but still fixed in our minds as unavoidable and unforgettable. We have stepped off the path in a futile attempt to escape from it.

The path we should be on, however narrow, steep, or precariously perched across peaks and ridges, is a clearly defined path, and however much it may appear to be cluttered and overgrown because of our own inner stumbling-blocks, it will be an easier journey if we rejoin it instead of battling through the undergrowth to the side of it. We have to return to our memories of past failures, claim them as our own, and then, rather than attempt to leave them behind by our own strength, hand them over to God Himself that He may completely separate us from them.

Always, the call is to keep our sight and our every inclination directed towards the light, however little we may comprehend that which lies before us. Every turning away from the light is a form of turning back, but there are times when we cannot unburden ourselves completely without turning round to sever the links with aspects of our past.

‘Every day we decide whether or not to risk searching for the person God created, and the dream with which that person was imbued. Our monsters are whoever or whatever attempts to dissuade us from this course. ... They are the faces and circumstances which say that the dream will never be. – And whether or not to trust and pursue the dream is the soul’s dilemma.’ (Paula D’Arcy. Where The Wind Begins.)

Looking back (4)

However odd the idea may seem, re-reading some of the passages produced here since starting to record my thoughts in this way, has told me much that I did not really know even when writing those words. Much about myself, that is: about my own thinking, beliefs, hopes and fears, my potential (where it does exist) and my lack of it (where it does not), my ongoing journey, my sense of direction, and about the gifts I have received. It has also helped to clarify some of the things which hold me back and which perpetuate my recurring sense of marking time; not of being isolated, lost or stranded, as I have no sense of being left behind, but drifting along with the rest of the world without any certainty as to where I am meant to be within it, and pausing whenever I find those things for which, I believe, all the world should pause. It is the failure of the rest of the world to pause with me which generates the illusion of marking time. And it is my reasons for pausing, and the thoughts arising from those reasons, which provide most of the words that eventually find a home among these pages.

When the words that stand as the title for this blog –‘Soliloquy at The Very Edge’ – first settled into place, I knew that I would be talking to myself in the sense that I would be pondering and weighing my thoughts as I sought to make some sort of sense on the page, but I had not anticipated talking to myself in a way that would make me both student of the teacher, and that same teacher of myself as the student. That this has occurred has provided me with further food for thought, and, while writing this, yet another unanticipated moment when I must pause to consider the implications of that fact.

‘Soliloquy’. It had never struck me before that it is a beautiful word; a word that I should have been ranking with one of my already mentioned favourite words – ‘perplexity’. I have always appreciated it; it has always lodged in my mind as something applicable to me: something with which I am comfortable and from which I am unlikely ever to separate myself, but suddenly there is a new way of interpreting or understanding the idea of talking to oneself. It is not simply giving some form of utterance to one’s thoughts, but teaching oneself. At this moment I am not writing because of something that has already happened, however recent; this is taking shape within me as I write and is driving me toward the suggestion that my reason for being here is not quite as I have thought until now.
Soliloquy is not only a form of talking specifically to oneself, but of speaking without addressing any one else. Inevitably, much of what I have written, while being born of words uttered within myself, has been directed to you the reader; it has been spoken to no particular or specified person but has nevertheless been spoken directly to you, whoever you may be. Without an intention to speak to you in some way I would never have begun to write here at all, but the thoughts into which I now find myself led suggest that perhaps that is not the main aim of the prompting that brought me here.
Could it be that it is the real Teacher within me, the Holy Spirit of God, who, being unable to get through to me in more direct ways, prompts my willingness to go through a more laborious unravelling of thoughts and words? Does the Spirit lead me through this process, not so much that my thoughts may aid or support others, but rather that the process may clarify for me the identity of their source – differentiating between The Spirit and my own wayward ideas – thus more effectively enabling me to recognize His leading, and more meaningfully to reach out to those same others in the future?

Once again I have been drawn completely away from whatever I had been thinking to write about in this post, but failure to go with the leading, wherever it may take me, would undermine all that I have tried to do here. I had set out to continue with the theme of 'looking back', and have been shown that such a theme can indeed have beneficial effects in our future. Anything lacking such effects is mere futility.
Perhaps the important message I need to convey is that looking back, to the right things and in the right way, can enlighten each of us in our search for the path into our future by revealing aspects of our past as having been parts of that same path. It is not the words I write here that have any worth; it is the places to which they may prompt you to go, and which will speak to you as an individual and unique child of God.

‘Do you hear?

Long ago I prepared this,

from days of old I actually planned it,

now I carry it out:’

(Isaiah 37:26)

It seems that ‘looking back’, as a theme, will now run to five posts. I had not anticipated that, but then that is a large part of our world-bound problem; we think we can plot our course into the future when we should be casting ourselves completely on the guidance of the Spirit, sent by God through the reality of Jesus Christ for precisely that purpose. I can have no idea what the Spirit may say to you or where He might lead you, but may He speak loud and clear to you, and may you hear, understand, and respond to His presence in your life.
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Looking back (3)

‘But wretched are they, with their hopes set on dead things,
... useless stone, carved by some hand long ago.’
(Wisdom 13:10)

Years ago, on a quiet summer evening I walked along the beach in the west of Ireland where I was to experience what would begin making sense of what had been happening to me; something about which I have already written.
I had already walked to the far end of the strand, and had spent a while pondering my behaviour with regard to a stone which I had once picked up there, had made my own, and had then given away. That stone turned into something more than it should have been. It always remained the stone that it was, but in my mind it became a special stone: a stone among stones. Of course I did not worship it or pray to it; I placed no hope in it, and I still saw it only as a stone, but I became attached to it, and the attachment came about as a result of my having worked on it.
I had ground it flat, cut a cross in it, and put notches around the edge for the stations of the cross. It was done quickly and roughly; in no way was it a work of art. Perhaps in one sense it was, but it was not fashioned in a way that resulted in pride, or even a particular pleasure with the result. It was not made to be shown to others, and, in fact, was not made for any reason other than that the natural shape of the stone lent itself to it. The idea came, and I acted on it. But once I had seen it in its new form I thought I could wear it around my neck, and having drilled though it for that purpose, that is what I did for a while when in Ireland. One of the old people there said I should have the priest bless it when he next came to the village, but that thought reminded me that it was in fact nothing but a stone. And why would I want a priest to bless it, if not to assist me in turning it into something else? Into what? Something with which to become familiar and comfortable? To grow fond of? Because it had been blessed, something to be relied on and to be prayed with? Into what, if not an idol?

Because it only existed in that form through the work of my own hands, I could not accept that the stone could become anything more than it was, and yet, that same stone still meant enough to me to become a gift given when I felt that a very real thank you was needed. With hindsight, I think I worked on it and wore it as a way of expressing the fact that something had changed: that I had somehow allowed Jesus to make His home in me, and, though unable to break out of my natural reserve, I needed to make that fact known to the world around me. It was for this same reason that I had an icthus, fish symbol on my car for the next few years.
It seemed as though the stone, even when I first picked it up, was meant to become that gift; to become a symbol, the changes and movements of which would mark out the path for the removal of the stones within me. It became significant because of what was going on within me at that time, and giving it away was my way of trying to tell the person I most needed to tell: the person whose friendship had given rise to my awareness that it would be much harder to let go of friendship once found, than it would be to throw the stone back into the sea.

Almost as soon as I had parted with it I missed it dreadfully. (Looking back at it now, the whole episode seems more like a form of madness than anything else.) That sense of need – which had not existed at all before – resulted in my making myself a similar but much smaller stone from another piece gathered from the same spot; the same dark green marble, ground flat, cut with a cross and twelve notches round the rim. I carried this everywhere with me for weeks, holding it in my hand in my pocket or inside my glove when the winter days were particularly cold, somehow finding it an aid to prayer and a link with the person to whom I had given the first stone. I felt so utterly low and empty at that time that I continually needed that person's support, and I always felt that it was there even though we rarely met or spoke at all.
Some months later, while in the Abbey Church at Douai, I decided to finally break away from this substitute stone I had been carrying. In doing so I knew that I would also be leaving behind its connection with the first stone with all the associated confusions, as well as my reliance on that one particular friend and my felt need for continued support.
I had been praying at the side altar where the Blessed Sacrament was kept, (a place in which I had never rested before), and when I left I placed the stone on the altar. I worried a little that its presence there might offend whoever found it, but I also hoped that maybe that person would keep it, and one day learn how and why it had come to be there. As soon as I had done this I became aware of just how worthless a gift the first stone had been. It was a nothing upon which my mind had placed some sort of non-existent value, and for that reason, and because I was becoming increasingly embarrassed by the fact that I had given it, I began to want its return. I asked for it once but was told, with a smile, that I could not have it back. I have never seen it again.

I wanted it returned, not for myself to keep, but to take it to the place from whence it came: to throw it back to the sea at the far end of that beach. Realising at last that this too was placing a foolish significance on the stone, I asked a mutual friend to try to obtain it, and to take it to West Cork with her when she went, there to throw it into the sea for me. A long way from the place where it had been found, but it was Ireland, and at least it would have been dealt with. That did not happen either.
And all this had been forgotten until I first began writing about my visits to that beach.

I still pick up stones, and I may shape others in the future, but their simple reality will not be confused; they will remain what they are, just as all the useless things with which we surround ourselves remain forever useless.

They will be merely ‘useless stone, carved by some hand long ago.’
This was a time since when the words of Ecclesiastes 3:5 have never been the same.

'A time for throwing stones away, a time for gathering them;'
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Looking back (2)

‘Central to study is the acquisition of a memory. Yet this is not so that we may know many facts. We study the past so as to discover the seeds of an unimaginable future.' (Timothy Radcliffe OP. Sing a New Song.)

It is not only the bad occurrences that need experiencing only once to create their lifelong effects; our lives can be, and should be, changed utterly by the influence of God’s presence in receptive hearts, all forms of which are aspects of His making His home within us. Through His look, His touch, His word, His light, His strength, His protection, His direction, His forgiveness; through the fulfilment of every need we may have, He calls us to become wholly His. When His provision includes specific forms of human support, the experience is made more than a purely personal spiritual milestone by being firmly anchored in the physical realities of our lives. It leaves us with the knowledge – however incompletely we may interpret it – that whatever has happened within us is not meant to wholly separate us from the world in which we live, but has a bearing on our willingness to contribute to the conforming of mankind to God’s will, and on our ability to influence the workings of our world in some way.

I do not look back as frequently as once I did, and I no longer make any conscious decision to do so, but parts of my experience over a relatively short period, while having receded from their prominent position in my mind, still live as meaningful turning points in my life. They will not release me from the grip in which they first held me in spite of all peripheral attachments and emotions having been laid to rest years ago. Their continued prominence in my life, coupled with the ever increasing certainty that all that has resulted from blessings received at that time did, and still does, move me forward in the direction God wills for me, has not only made the marker into a milestone, but has turned the milestone into something even more significant. It has almost become a monument: one of the rocks upon which I have been rebuilt. Using the idea of a monument – even the mere use of the word – at once brings to mind the unwanted suggestion of misplaced significance, and even hints at a form of idolatry, but there is nothing to be doubted in what I experienced, in what I recall, and in the power still emanating from the memories of that time. Even the thoughts involved in my writing about it now are somehow part of my present rather than of my past; I have not called them up by looking back and searching for them. They have brought themselves forward with the passage of time, maintaining their undiluted presence within my day-to-day life and continually merging more completely with the awareness of God’s presence in my life, which began with those now rather distant events.
The milestone had been something I could locate and return to whenever I wished; something in the past; it became a monument when it was no longer necessary to look back and reflect to link it to the present day, but became part of the present, clearly visible without having to even glance back in time. Dwelling on such ever-present and maturing realities will not immobilize and confine us, nor leave us indifferent and unconcerned if we judge their source aright. They will teach us, enable us, and play a confirming role in our quest for freedom.

The freedom we seek includes being freed from the grip of all unreal, unwanted and unholy memories and their associated distractions and attachments: from all that can be discerned as not having come from God. Quite unlike the memories some people have of their ‘worst of times’, but also not of God, are some of those peripheral happenings which become entwined with an awareness of the central Truth and Power of Goodness in our lives, and then embedded in the remembered feeling of the experience. These can be unrecognizable and inseparable from the underlying truth during their manifestation, and even after some considerable time, when their lack of worth has been recognized, they can remain as part of the experience from which we are just not willing to break away. In time, and with perseverance, our recognition becomes acknowledgement of their true place in the mosaic of memories, and our ability to refine our assessment and memory of events grows in keeping with our increasing spiritual maturity.

After my own spiritual awakening, it was a long time before I could fully separate the fruit of my experience from the superficial and superfluous blanket with which I had unwittingly cloaked it. I have been reminded of the stages in that process by a recent visit to Douai Abbey.
It is some time since I last called in there; the place where I spent my last five years of schooling, and the monastery from which had come the Benedictine monks who had served as my parish priests for so long; (though the last in that Benedictine provision was a much loved member of the Downside community).
The opportunity arose when driving home alone from London, and now that Stanbrook has moved out of easy reach to Yorkshire, the thought that Douai may provide me with a focussed space for prayer and the quiet pondering of questions, brought me to the Abbey doors once more. There was also the chance that I may have seen the monk who had been my parish priest during that immensely important stage of my journey, and whose words had set the whole process in motion.

The small amount of looking back I did while there was a quiet flicking through pages that formed much of that worthless blanket under which I had half-hidden the wonderful reality of what had happened to me, and the whole train of thought was begun when I wondered what may have happened to something I had left there years ago. Had someone found it? If so, was it one of the monks? - a lay parishoner who may have been cleaning the church? – a visitor? And having found it, had they retained it or had they thrown it away? What happened to it does not matter; the important thing is that it is gone from my life, but I felt that if the finder had kept it, or had at least wondered where it had come from and why it was there, I would like him or her to hear the story behind it.
But, in thinking that, as in my writing about it now, I also wonder whether I am once more making both the object and the story behind it significant in ways that will draw me away from the truth and the grace received at that time. The one way to negate these potential distractions must be to lay them open for all to see. It would be so easy for some people to simply ask about it, but I continue to hold back in so many ways. What I can do however, is briefly tell the story here. Something may come of it, though it will not matter one way or the other, as the distraction will probably fade into oblivion with the telling.

And that, after all, is where it belongs.
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Looking back (1)

‘No need to remember past events,
no need to think about what was done before.
Look, I am doing something new,
now it emerges; can you not see it?’
(Isaiah 43:18-19)

Depending on the particular focus of our attention, dwelling on the past will do one of three things; it will teach us and help to liberate us, immobilize and confine us, or place us in a indeterminate state where our attention tips the balance neither one way nor the other. Just as the Israelites had found it much easier to think back to their crossing of the sea and the destruction of the pursuing Egyptian army than to appreciate what God was doing for them in the present, we can wallow in memories of past events in our own lives rather than being open to the reality and the demands of today. We all have markers we have set beside our path when something significant has occurred, and some of these may well have become major milestones for us: Whether they are life changing moments or long running situations, we may feel unable to lay them aside. Good or bad, they may have become anchored within us as seemingly undeniable parts of the persons we have since become. We could say that they have made a home in us.
It is one thing when such unforgettable fixed points seem to guide us and encourage us to go forward in ways which bring increasing levels of peace and integrity, but quite another when they trap us in the continuing grasp of past pains, fears, failures, or abuses. We only need to endure a single experience of being abused (in any way), of being falsely accused, of being hated, of being deserted, of having our dreams shattered, of being publicly shamed, or of falling deeply into sinful behaviour for which we are unable to forgive ourselves, to realize that God is not the only visitor with an ability to find a home within our hearts and minds.
Our memories of such things can take up an inordinate amount of time and energy by their continual presence and by their tendency to block all attempts to leave them behind. They do not readily share our inner space with the living and transforming presence of Goodness; the two do not occupy separate niches while allowing each other to go their own way; each seeks to fill us completely. The one would hold us in the grip of memories and their subsequent debilitating and immobilizing effects, thus preventing us from opening ourselves to the changes God wants to work in us; the other would heal, strengthen and enable us through the gift of freedom: through freeing us from the heavy burdens we have been carrying for so long.

“Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

So said Jesus. The old covenant was built on ‘the Law’ and the Jews were overburdened by the many details it contained and by the observances needed to fulfil its requirements. Jesus had come to change all that. Following Him is easy, and once we have truly committed ourselves to Him, we will find our own burdens – whatever form they may have taken – slipping from our shoulders until they are eventually laid aside.

But these memories, taking up so much of our time and mental energy, and forming part of the structure upon which we have built our self-image and our assessment of our own worth, may not be of hardships, regrets and loss; they may indeed be of the very worst, but may also include what we regard as the very best of experiences. Even those which have since proved themselves to have been grace-filled times – steering us, or moving us, or lifting us in whatever way it may have been – can be held onto as a powerful memory rather than being left behind through the living of the gifts received in those moments. It is the gift which is powerful, and it is the living of the gift (our making appropriate use of it) which brings that power to bear in our own lives and in the lives of others.
Memories can have a powerful hold over us but in themselves they have no power at all. We are incapable of overriding their influence by our own efforts, but freedom will come when we no longer stand before them alone: when we have allowed our Liberator to make His home in us.

“We ought ... with a wise discretion, to analyse the thoughts which arise in our hearts, tracking out their origin and cause and author in the first instance, that we may be able to consider how we ought to yield ourselves to them ...” (John Cassian. Conferences 1:20)

‘... it matters that we know that the power of defeat is in our own hearts, and that our disbelieving self, not circumstances, is the enemy. ... it matters that we give power to our dreams, arms and legs to our love, wings to our wonder, so that they will become the significant part of us.’ (Paula D’Arcy. Where The Wind Begins.)
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Homemakers

“And we shall come to him and make a home in him.”
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Ending my previous post with those words from John’s gospel (14:23) has given rise to a gradual reawakening; something to which I am becoming accustomed as I more fully accept my slowness of thought and my inability to see and understand what is frequently right in front of me. The smallest of shifts in perception can sometimes bring food for thought or insight beyond all possible expectation, and such a shift can numb our day-to-day awareness while we linger in the need to ask and seek answers to questions that are very real but remain for the most part unformulated.

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Over the last few days my consciousness of a long-running uncertainty has increased. An intimation regarding my apparent ability to stand motionless in the middle of nowhere while believing I am on the right path and “pressing on” to the end, has brought old doubts to mind once more. Aspects of my tendency to hold back, to linger in the background, to wait and see, have surfaced again, but any discomfort resulting from lack of achievement and what feels like the wasting of valuable time, has been balanced by an undiminished reassurance derived from the still persisting belief that my waiting is in obedience to my Lord’s specific will for me. It is a conviction that has fed and sustained me for years, but the doubts wandering through my accustomed stability at times such as this, spread unease through previously unruffled regions of thought. The mind thus stirred rouses emotion in the heart, and such emotion bares the soul to whispers, both healing and destructive.

This is not a predisposition, and it is neither desire nor vague inclination (whether temptation or mere curiosity). Its beginnings were buried in the unsuspected development of friendship during the only time I have ever fully acknowledged and admitted a need for support from others. That support was provided in ways that seemed effortless and made available without any conscious decision from the providers. It simply came, as it were, as part of the package God had prepared for me, and it lasted only as long as He willed. My own feelings at the time included what I experienced as a great need for its continuance but the support was withdrawn at the very time I felt most in need of it. Once gone, the active friendship and fellowship also slipped away until, with my return to a more solitary existence, contact was almost completely lost.

“And we shall come to him and make a home in him.”
What a wonderful statement that is. What a phenomenal idea, and what an awesome possibility.
Why would I have wished for a continuation of that newly discovered form of human friendship when the unquenchable companionship of Jesus, the undeniable guidance of the Spirit of God, and the unfathomable creative and parental love of God were already mine, and residing within me? The answer to that question is quite simply because I could only become aware of the living presence within me through the attraction felt for Christ dwelling within those with whom I came into meaningful contact. The process began with God’s provision of the right persons in the right places at the right times, and the person most needed to be present at the right time and place was myself. It seems that He had every eventuality covered, and looking back to the sequence of events over the early stages of my experience, it is impossible for me to accept that I would have remained in place without my guided responses to His direction and the prearranged provision that awaited me.
Without those persons and the particular words spoken at crucial times, I would not be writing here today; no doubt I would still love solitude and quiet, but perhaps I would never have become aware of the truth in those words, “And we shall come to him and make a home in him.”

It is awareness of that truth which feeds the longing and the wonder that hold me at the very edge of things: at the edge of my faith, the edge of my understanding, and at the extreme limits of my meagre capabilities, confidence, and courage. It is that same awareness which constantly tells me not to yearn for the closeness of friendship found when my faith was first brought to life, but to look beyond those who still attract my attention, partly through the memory of past experiences with them and partly through the lingering sense that those same people still have an important part to play in my spiritual journey. I have been blessed with all that I need: God’s grace is indeed enough for me in any situation, and I am called to leave all such attachments behind, focussing instead on the fringes of my comfort zone; to search the distant horizon.

Christ’s Church is not confined within any man-made or visible boundaries; it reaches to the farthest point at which there is someone daring to whisper, “God ... are you there?”
The Father constantly searches the horizon, not only for the returning son – 'While he was still a long way off, his father saw him ...’ (Luke 15:20) – but for every man, woman and child with the faintest glimmer of light and hope in their heart. That glimmer is the undying ember of the ‘first light’ with which we were all born: the spiritual homing-device which links us with our Creator and our ultimate destiny, even when we give Him barely a passing thought.
Our focussing on the possibility, and then on the reality of God’s existence and His presence in our lives, is more than an awakening; it is our coming home to Him as adopted sons and daughters. It enables Him to come home to us, and His coming – His dwelling within us – brings us into the fullness of life as human beings; set apart from the rest of creation, though part of it, and born of the processes that will lead inexorably to the completion of God’s plan for mankind.
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To dwell within

“Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”
(Matthew 10:40)

There is always something new waiting for us a little further along the path we follow: some new angle on an old story; a new understanding of something of which we thought we already had a full grasp; a reminder of something we should never have forgotten; a renewed awareness of what our conscience has been telling us all the time. It may be some totally new and amazing revelation, or an unanticipated change of direction, but more often than not it is something which goes deeper rather than further: something which illuminates the multilayered nature of our spiritual life rather than the distance travelled during our living of it. It causes our spiritual knowledge and belief to be more clearly seen as being based upon truths viewed from only one viewpoint; what is already there is more fully revealed, and our inner response includes a salutary realization that we should have been able to recognize earlier the very thing of which we have now been made aware.
But believing that we should have grasped it earlier may be another part of our misplaced confidence in our own abilities. We are not as bright as we had thought; we are not as advanced in our understanding as we had believed. We are not only being given a new viewpoint, the particular newness of knowledge about something, but are being reminded of an underlying constant that always restricts our ability to see the more complete picture. It is not only carelessness, complacency and compromise that prevent our seeing more clearly; the brighter light shines within humility: it is our pride that blinds us. Couple our pride with our busyness, and with our failure to live in a minute-to-minute realization of the relevance of the spiritual to every moment of our lives, and we have our own individual reasons for stopping and waiting and praying somewhere close to the edge of our seemingly reliable and complete spiritual life. We have our own comprehension of why Jesus spoke so often in parables: multilayered stories in which everyone can find an understanding in keeping with their own lives, and with their own spiritual and intellectual capacities.

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Whenever such a moment arises it can bring about a quiet adjustment to our thinking and to our sense of direction, and a deeper appreciation both of where we are in relation to others, and of what we are doing or failing to do in those relationships. It is an unobtrusive prompting: a gentle nudge that may steer us to an awareness we need but which we are in danger of missing.
I found myself in one of those moments recently; a trio of feelings blended into one grace-filled reality: it was humbling, it was an awakening, and it elicited praise and thanksgiving for having been awakened. With my usual slowness, I saw the potential in the situation that had arisen only several minutes after the event, though I now believe that delayed recognition to have been an important part of what happened.

The moment occurred at the end of a conversation with two Jehovah’s Witnesses who had called at my home. One of them has been here twice before, and we had talked for quite a while on those occasions. When there are no pressing matters to prevent it, I am happy to talk with anyone who has God on their mind, and I believe we all enjoyed our discussions. I was happy to see her return again, this time with someone who had not been here before.
The conversation became discussion; the discussion became persuasion, and the persuasion gradually became more forceful. I was interested in their way of talking to me, and it seemed increasingly likely that the lady who was new to me had been brought along to ratchet up the approach: to apply a greater pressure which became a clear message that I was not on the right path.

“Why do you continue to be part of an organization (the Catholic Church) which so clearly is not teaching you the truth?”
I had suggested in previous conversations that perhaps they should be spending time with those who have no awareness of God rather than with me, and I repeated this again. The response was a definite no, and it seemed that my willingness to give time to them and listen to them had been taken as a sign of potential willingness to join them. I am well aware that every such visit, to my home or that of anyone else, is the first stage of a definite and preset agenda. My willingness to talk with them is a natural expression of my belief that people can never begin to understand each other if they are not willing to hear each other’s spiritual stories first-hand. This is how we can reach the point where we may really begin to talk to each other, whoever we are.
I found a disturbing rigidity to the Witnesses’ approach once the initial niceties have been dealt with, and especially when repeated meetings and the passage of time have created a degree of friendly relationship. It seems that progress can only be made in one predetermined direction, that being the one for which they seem to have been programmed and “sent forth”. The ladies I have been talking with are cheerful and pleasant, but when they felt the need to focus on what they had come for they showed signs of being under considerable pressure, both from without and within: pressure from others in the organisation to get out there and spread their carefully confined beliefs, and pressure from themselves to conform to those requirements, perhaps in order to maintain their standing within their own local and wider organisation. These pressures were manifested as a form of pressure on me, the person being visited, and are no doubt at least part of the reason why some people are not particularly welcoming towards them. There is little scope in this approach for hearing the stories of those they visit.

This most recent visit lasted for one and a half hours – standing in the garden all the while once we had walked around it – and while I believe they had been sent forth, as it were, not by God the Father: Yahweh: Jehovah; not by Jesus Christ, nor by the Holy Spirit, but by men within their organisation who maintain the rigidity of their unalterable agenda, I had been enabled simply to be there to listen and talk with them. Towards the end of their visit one of them mentioned St Paul’s experience on the Damascus road; an unexpected move away from most of what had gone before. I responded by saying that my own small experience was enough for me, and briefly described my being emptied and gradually refilled, the effect this had on me, and the following experience of walking with Jesus who became my constant companion. I explained that it was my ongoing relationship with Him and my awareness of the Holy Spirit in my life that had made me who I am today; that had filled me to overflowing and placed me somewhere in the stream of God’s eternal presence.
I had said this simply because it seemed right at the time, and it was only afterwards that I realized I had been speaking of something which – if I understand correctly – is not part of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ experience. It was the only time there seemed no real pressure to interrupt, to override, to correct or counter what I was saying.
Having said that I would know what to do by the prompting I received, by the recognition of things that were more than mere coincidences, and, if I was going wrong, by my conscience, I was asked, “Have you considered that this may be such a moment? That our being here may be more than a coincidence?” That was a good thought with which to leave me: one that fitted well with my way of thinking; and my attention being focussed on that possibility resulted in my giving no answer.

Having asked me to say a prayer for them, they left with the intention of returning later in the summer.

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I am now sure they had meant me to pray for God to reveal to me His purpose in sending them here, but I had not heard their request in that way. I told them I would of course pray for them, and would have done so anyway after they had gone. Having been asked (as I thought) I almost prayed for them there and then.
But that is for when the time is right: for when they return. It will be part of what God wants me to give them: part of the reason for their visits: part of God’s purpose in sending them to me. He wants them to have a living relationship with the risen Jesus, the Son, and to be guided by His Spirit; through that relationship they will have a previously unimagined relationship with the Father, the very same Jehovah for whom they are so eager and willing to witness. In short, they will have life in all its fullness.

I had not recognized the potential in the situation until after they had gone, and that was how God willed it. Without that delay I may have moved on, I may have prayed for them with them, and they may not have returned. The time was not right. I was held back, and the situation has been given time to mature. Instead of simply not being displeased to see them when they return, I am now eagerly awaiting that day.

May something new be here for them when they return, and may our next meeting become one of those moments for them: something deeper, something brighter, something more complete: a new awareness and understanding.

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“...and we shall come to him and make a home in him.”
(John 14:23)

Small beginnings

"I have great faith in a seed ...
Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders."
(The Succession of Forest Trees. Henry David Thoreau)

The requirement to position ourselves between God and the people of the world as a means of access, reaching both towards God and towards all who will turn their lives in His direction, arises in many different forms. However it presents itself, it calls on those who have been blessed with the relevant gifts, to enliven the beckoning and the pointing out of the way; to make real the prospect of experiencing God’s touch in previously unapproachable areas of life. These areas are frequently regarded as inaccessible through being outside the limits or structures we have built around our faith, or through past determination to resist all those gentle but persistent inner calls to surrender to the beginnings of faith. They may have resulted from deprivation, abuse, grief, anger, fear or shame: from anything, long-running or centred on a single moment, that caused us to shut ourselves off from some part of the world around us, and in doing so, from part of ourselves. All such ‘no go’ areas share the same essential prison cell: they are caused by, they perpetuate, and they reinforce broken relationships. But, even when, or if, all other persons involved in the root cause of any such boarded-up area are discounted, it still remains as the pain and the separation of more than one relationship. One’s relationship with God is not yet restored, and every day is a continuation of a broken relationship with oneself.

That is what the whole process is about; that is why Jesus came. That is why our ongoing separations (political, economic, and ethnic, as well as religious and individual) are the greatest barrier to the coming of God’s Kingdom. We are not in Eden, and nor are we meant to be. We are meant to be back in a full and living relationship with God and with each other, complete with all the qualities the coming of the Kingdom of God demands, in this world as it exists and as we have made it today. It is our world, and it is our home.
In correct relationship with our inner selves, with each other, and with God through the Holy Spirit, that Kingdom can be brought into everyone’s sight. Eden was where we began, and it is behind us; but we are the ones who can bring about the changes needed to transform this world into another garden worthy of that name.
We have within us the beginnings of all that is needed: the gift of faith which, coupled with the work of the Holy Spirit, enables us to realize our vast potential. At the very least we carry the seed un-germinated, waiting to be awoken by others who have already taken their place as stepping stones for us. It is the mustard seed of which Jesus spoke.

........................................................................................ .‘................................... ...........................'The kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the biggest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air can come and shelter in its branches.’ (Matthew 13:31-32)

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In Old Testament times God was securely in His Temple, set apart from ordinary people like ourselves, but part of the work Jesus accomplished in making all things new was enabling us to carry God within ourselves. I have always found it an unhelpful description, but I use it here nevertheless as it is literally the right expression: it expresses the truth: it expresses the reality of each person’s importance and worth in the eyes of God: the ‘special’ status, not of a few isolated and exceptional individuals, but of every person on the face of the earth.
Through baptism, we are able to become Temples of the Holy Spirit. God is no longer inaccessible, shut away in His Temple; and He is not shut securely in today’s church buildings for when we deign to visit; we have Him locked safe within ourselves. It is His life within us that wells up, fills to the brim and overflows into the world around us. His intention is that every one of us should become filled with the Holy Spirit, aware of our gifts, and empowered as part of a continuing journey towards becoming the daughters and sons the Father made us to be.

In hope

Life can be quite unnerving at times. I well remember that it was not always like that, but then, I had no real inkling of the things which now focus and occupy my attention.
Somewhere, sometime, somehow, something happened. I am sure it was not something I am now supposed to dwell upon, and I hear echoing in my mind the words of someone who, years ago, was essential to my journey in faith, telling me that my continued writing about and dwelling upon some of my experiences was only perpetuating the unrest I appeared to be enduring at that time.
In that respect, things do not appear to have changed much. I still write. I still ponder. I still use this process as a means to unravel the tangles within my mind, and now of course, I have even become used to doing it in a less private way through writing here at ‘the very edge’: a place to which, in one way or another, I have always been and to which I am likely always to return.
That I should ever have begun to broaden the reach of my soliloquizing in this way rather than keeping my thoughts very much to myself still surprises me, but it also makes me smile, as I have always been in need of something that would drag me out of myself: something to draw me from a solitude deeper than could be known when only looked on from a point well back from the edge.

In this case, the edge is that fine line separating the ordinary, normal, natural and every-day interaction between people, from the rare and intimate, inter-natural, spiritual, and almost entirely un-shareable opening of one person to another. We should hope to achieve and maintain this as part of our relationship with Jesus, but, other than in the form of a deep longing, this relationship with another living person, however close the friendship, remains almost untouchable.
This fine line is somewhat similar to the memory of the long-removed veil in the Temple; torn apart, all separation destroyed, yet in our minds still the closest we can get. We dare not approach that which had always been deemed unapproachable, and we find no reason to even consider trying to move into a place always deemed inaccessible. We have trouble enough with coming closer to God, but even when this hurdle has been placed behind us, we are still unable to step beyond a similar line with other people who have done likewise. Our fear of a real opening up, and of becoming truly and fully known by another is almost insurmountable.

It is part of what we lost in Eden. It is an aspect of our inability to return to that garden where there were no edges, no fine lines, no veils, no forms of demarcation whatever (except for that one tree); a place where man, and woman, and God, all shared and walked the same intimate paths of truth and trust.

It is the knowing that we are deeply unknowable, even to our friends, that makes time spent at the edge inseparable from solitude. In the company of others, and even in the company of a single particularly close spiritual other, we are kept back from the very edge by our fear of what lies immediately beyond the lip. We know that breath blows constantly over it, and breath gives power to speech. We fear that any utterance may not be only from The Holy Spirit, but a subsequent breaking of our own silence: our own breath moving over our lips suddenly giving rise to words spoken to another. It does not happen because we are unable to take ourselves that close to the edge when in the company of anyone other than God.
At times it may feel that we can return to Eden in our solitude. We can walk with God in the cool of the day, but we can be drawn into remaining there too long, becoming more isolated from others and thus further from where we are meant to be. Yes, we are each called to be in a close relationship with God, but we are not meant to remain in isolation. However it may feel, it is this isolation that should tell us we are not in Eden. In Eden we would be both in the presence of God and in the company of others.

The Lord God said, “It is not right that man should be alone...” (Genesis 2:18)

This is where we are today in the world as we now know it; not in Eden but as close as we can get to it. We were made to be in the company of others, and the only veil that remains un-torn is the one that keeps us out of Eden: the one that keeps us fundamentally apart.

There is only one faint glimmer on the horizon; for the few who can see it, it represents a seemingly insurmountable problem, but the fact that they see it at all is a beginning: a distant hope for all mankind. Our increasing environmental awareness is one superficial aspect of this hope, despite its being born of necessity and being one of today’s acceptable forms of global selfishness. The deeper consciousness of hope is in the minds of those few who may be able to begin the laborious process of one-by-one transformation through going beyond the very lip of their fear in the spiritual light of another’s gaze.

‘Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be, blest.’
(Alexander Pope. Essay on Man.)

Life can be quite unnerving at times.
It is meant to be. It is our natures’ way of telling us, not that we have got something wrong, but that we are on the verge of getting something right: that we have approached a little closer to that place where we sense the possibility of our breath giving rise to utterance. Something will break if that happens; it may well be us, but on the other side all fears will fall away. Christ in the one will become One with Christ in the other.
Those same words of John Henry Newman need quoting again:
........................................................................................................... ‘Perhaps the reason why the standard of holiness among us is so low, why our attainments are so poor, our view of the truth so dim, our belief so unreal, our general notions so artificial and external is this, that we dare not trust each other with the secret of our hearts. We have each the same secret, and we keep it to ourselves, and we fear that, as a cause of estrangement, which really would be a bond of union. We do not probe the wounds of our nature thoroughly; we do not lay the foundation of our religious profession in the ground of our inner man; we make clean the outside of things; we are amiable and friendly to each other in words and deeds, but our love is not enlarged, our bowels of affection are straitened, and we fear to let the intercourse begin at the root; and, in consequence, our religion, viewed as a social system is hollow. The presence of Christ is not in it.’ (Christian Sympathy. Parochial and Plain Sermons)

Inseparable

In leading us toward all that is good, prayer tends us toward a receptiveness of what is already available.
However infrequent I might feel my praying to be, in knowing that I have, in one way or another, repeated that one word from the heart, “Yes”, a few times in each day, I know that I have not failed to pray.
It is so simple and so effortless, but so utterly complete: - ‘Yes Lord. Your will be done’; and it is in following Him that the underlying joy is raised to consciousness where it soothes through even the worst of days. It runs through us, blending with God’s love, to quietly flow into the world around us.

‘Any joy that does not overflow from our souls and help other men to rejoice in God does not come to us from God.’

(Ruth Burrows. Guidelines for Mystical Prayer.)

I have been brought back once more to the question of fullness: being filled to the brim.
When I began writing here my sense of fullness and overflowing was so powerful that I was sure it was something peculiar to me; something particular given to me for a particular purpose and for a particular season. I had no thought of it coming to an end, but while feeling that it would remain for a long time, I could not be sure of its permanence. It was that strength of feeling that set me in motion on these pages. If I was not already doing this, I would not have any thought of starting it today.

But this is not a gift particular to me.
It had felt that way only because the sensation and accompanying level of understanding seemed so far beyond any previous experience. Growing accustomed to the ongoing wakefulness has enabled me to see that although the light within is indeed brighter than before, the dimmer switch, as it were, has only been turned up by the smallest of touches. The repetition of such adjustments as this – adjustments from excitement and a misplaced sense of awe, to actual truth and a more sober acceptance of reality – in response to small steps taken throughout life, gradually brings an awareness of our absolute incapacity to comprehend God, to see Him in the blinding radiance of His Glory, and to even begin to approach Him other than through the guidance, the teaching and the direction of His Holy Spirit.
My sense of fullness and overflowing readies me, enables me, empowers me to do whatever God may have me do, but it is not a precursor to some great calling or action. It is an awakening brought about by having been called and touched by God, and its realization is the inevitable consequence of knowing that I have been woken, and have dared to answer “Yes”.

Many things in our spiritual lives last only for a certain length of time: for a season; they fulfil a need and are gone. Whether experienced as positive or negative, they move us as God wills and then leave us. But other touches become permanent parts of us. They are part of our Lord’s will for us to tear down every veil that people still try to hang between themselves and God’s presence.

‘... he has destroyed the veil which used to veil all peoples, the pall enveloping all nations’ (Isaiah 25:7)

‘Jesus ... breathed his last. And the veil of the Sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. (Mark 15:37-38)

These life-bringing gifts are available to us all, meant for us all, and necessary to the binding together of all of us into one body. They are gifts freely given to all who knowingly stand in God’s sight. They are blessings that fall on all who position themselves beneath God’s hand. They are cloaks of security and strength placed around the shoulders of all who breathe in the Spirit of God, and who allow His Spirit to breathe in them. They do not denote a particular significance of purpose; they are not individual signposts for those who lack direction; still less are they grounds for any sense of achievement, congratulation, self-satisfaction, or elevated self-worth.
What they are is awesome in its simplicity. They are the material from which all our tents should be woven if we are ever to know unity and security in the deserts of the world: in those places where we are called to position ourselves where the veil of the Temple in Jerusalem once hung: positioned between God and the people, not as a separation, but as a means of access, reaching out in both directions, towards God and towards all who turn their face towards Him. Jesus has made us inseparable.

That is where the fullness and the overflowing truly find their purpose. Each of us becomes a channel for God’s love; we are in that eternal stream and we stand ready to point the way, to reassure and encourage, to support the weary, and to help the fallen to regain their foothold. We become stepping-stones for those who fear to enter the water.
But essentially we are there for each other, and so long as we maintain that strength of commitment and availability within our own encampment, we shall be there for every stranger who seeks the way. And strangers there will be. Some will come from the unlikeliest of quarters and we must be ready for them. The Holy Spirit is at work, not only within the recognizable boundaries of Christ’s Church, but throughout all the peoples of the world. It is the work of the Spirit abroad coupled with the work we allow Him to do through ourselves that will transform the whole of mankind; and along that road lies the redemption of the whole world.
Can we even begin to imagine what would follow if the People of the Old Covenant became fully aware that their Messiah had already come, and, en masse, they began to respond to His call to follow Him? It is not a fool’s suggestion, unless that fool be a fool for Christ. Who else, throughout their history, has been aware of and guided by (sometimes) the Spirit of God? Whose scriptures, scribed before the birth of Christ and proclaiming His future coming, do we revere as being the word of God? And what links the millions of Christians, Jews and Muslims of today’s world if it is not Abraham, the man we all think of as our father in faith? Be assured, however far away it may appear to be at times, the day will come. The day will come!
That is why we are called to take our place, not just anywhere, but wherever we are called to be. For most of us it will be where we already are; for some it will be in the remotest corners of our world; but for all of us, wherever we are in geographical terms, it is to be as an invitation, a welcome, a reassurance, and as a friend and follower of Christ to all who are yet to overflow with love for Him.

My fullness is not for a season; it is now a part of me. It is God’s freely given awareness of the potential of His touch and His power working in and through His people. It holds me in the gift of a knowledge that I am in the endless stream of His love. It is that stream which fills me to overflowing. Once fully in that stream, we become a part of the flow, and the stream broadens and deepens as we carry God’s word and His touch into the world around us.

All that is in me now recognizes that God wants me filled to overflowing, not for a season, but for the whole of my life. It is my life.

It is where He wants us all to be, not as a particular gift, but as a normal and natural consequence of our faith and of our obedience to Him.

God’s gift to me is not so much that He has made me brim full, and still less that I have the feelings of peace and calm that accompany it; it is that He has enabled me to understand that such fullness and overflowing is what awaits all of us. It is merely the essential start-point for the next stage of our obedience to His will.

Jesus is looking straight at us, and He continues to say those same words, “Come, follow me.”
It is a rare occurrence for me, but I have need of company, of guidance and support.
Come,
let us walk together.

Breath of life

What is this Holy Spirit we hear about? Do we really know?

If we already regard ourselves as Christians, we surely carry an awareness with us all the time; we may speak of the Spirit among ourselves but do we, at any meaningful level, know the reality of which we speak? Do we have anything more than the often heard, the learned, the comfortable and assumed to be true hand-me-down stories of our childhood and those immensely influential years? They will undoubtedly have left us with memorable and cosy images of Jesus, but the Holy Spirit?

I am sure I am not alone in having spent forty years without any real sense of spiritual guidance, or comfort, or wonder, or gift in all that I heard or experienced; and that is with my life being built on a continuous and ever-present Christian upbringing and background. There was always a sense of receiving a gift in the bewilderingly beautiful and peace-bringing glory that was the natural world around me. In one way or another it has been my unquenchable source of excitement and joy throughout my life; but the Holy Spirit remained a lifeless part of what I sat through and heard about year after year.

Somewhere along the way, between the point at which I recognized a major change in my whole Spiritual life and a less discernible point somewhere in my more recent past, The Holy Spirit seemed to leap into life. Of course, it was my own awareness that had changed: it was me that leapt into life, and when I landed it was in a place without my accustomed barriers, and where the Spirit was given access to my heart and my mind, and more. Something deep within me was both consumed and impregnated by the Holy Spirit. Something which, if it could only express its feelings of interminable longing, and love, and peace, and joy, would also be enabled to kindle the flames of spiritual desire in others and thus burst into the realms of fulfilment. I can find no other word for it: it is my soul.
Soul: another word whose meaning sometimes seems to get lost among Christianity’s fluctuating and debilitating uncertainties. Such uncertainty should not exist, but however firmly we think we believe, we remain unsure about something. We are ‘believers’, but we doubt. We have faith, but not all the time. We know, but we question. What we lack is certainty; what we long for is certainty, but certainty is the one thing we cannot have. We can come closer to it than we may imagine possible through the realized and appreciated presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, but the reality of that presence is as indefinable as the reality of that core of feeling, emotion and life –other life– that I speak of as my soul.

‘In Sacred Scripture the term "soul" often refers to human life or the entire human person. But "soul" also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him, that by which he is most especially in God's image: "soul" signifies the spiritual principle in man. (Catechism of the Catholic Church. 363)

It is this personal inability to define the external power that would twin with our own equally indescribable centre of being that prevents any likelihood of certainty. We may experience a sense of something we call certainty, and it may seem long-lasting, but it will eventually waver and slip away. In the same way that there is only one truth, regardless of what we may believe to be the truth, certainty is not what it seems unless it is unshakeably certain. The only ‘truth’ which is true is The Truth. The only ‘certainty’ of which we can be certain is Certainty, and that is not granted to us. Faith would not be required if we were able to achieve and maintain absolute certainty, and it is faith that we are called to have. It is faith that will move mountains, and it is faith that enables prayers to be answered.

‘In truth I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt at all, ... even if you say to this mountain, “Be pulled up and thrown into the sea,” it will be done. And if you have faith, everything you ask for in prayer, you will receive.’ (Matthew 21:21-22).

How many of us can imagine having a faith equivalent to what we call certainty? A faith resulting in mountains actually moving as a result of our undoubted expectation that it will happen? And we are so sure that if this happened we would have our proof, and then we would have real faith! The reality is that it will never happen for us because we find that level of faith impossible; and faith must precede realization, just as realization always precedes proof. It is only a God given proof acquired through faith that will transcend the faith demanded of us.

‘Only faith can guarantee the blessings that we hope for, or prove the existence of realities that are unseen.’ (Hebrews 11:1).

My own near-certainty is perpetuated by my experience of being out in the elements; among mountains, yes, but also on far smaller hilltops; deep in forests, yes, but also in small patches of woodland; in the vastness of a treeless landscape, and in the seclusion of shadows beneath ancient trees. But I have been blessed with a faith that has leeched its way back from the drenching of this deeper solitude, to the simple quiet of a field of wheat, a cider orchard, a tumbled barn, the wheeling Buzzard, a country lane, skylarks, swifts, and the Barn Owl that ghosts above my smiling face as I watch it hunt with the setting sun two minutes from my home. And home itself, with its own life-giving qualities, is now impregnated with that same smile of growing conviction that God knows of my presence in this world, and that we are within reach of each other.
The warmth of the sunshine, the sound and the feel of the rain, the silence of snow, the crescendo of breathless wonder that is the thunderstorm; the bluest blue skies and the artistry of the ever changing clouds; all these I love, but what brings me to life, what links my childhood, my youth, my manhood and my gradually emerging spiritual maturity, is the movement of the air around me. It is not so much the touch as the broader awareness of its presence, highlighted for me by the sound of the wind, in the trees especially, but also across the grass or heather coated hills, and by the movement created by its passing. It lifts me to realms I find it impossible to access in any other way. I am transported – as recently stated – ‘with my breath and the wind sighing as one’.

What is this Holy Spirit we hear about? Do we really know?
It is the breath of God.
Whenever and wherever I hear the wind, I know that I am within His grasp and am being blown where God wills. But my nearest approach to certainty is that He is blowing right through me. He is the Spirit of Truth, and Truth is the only explanation I can offer for the production of so many joyful tears.

Open yourself to God’s universal gift: The Holy Spirit: the Spirit of Truth: the Breath of God.
Let it drive you forward to your destination; let it fill your sail and blow you to where your hidden gifts are to blossom and bear fruit. Let it guide you to the very edge of your faith, and beyond to the realization of God’s dream within you.
It is there, waiting for you.

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If you can hear the voice of Jesus ... “Come, follow me”,
your soul already knows what your answer needs to be;
just one word from the heart ...

“Yes”
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Pentecost

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On looking up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moving on

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stepping through

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dear Lord,
never loosen your grip on my life.