One to one (3)

There is one feeling in particular that holds us back; taking many forms and being at the root of other apparently un-associated feelings, attitudes, actions and inactivity. More than anything else, it is fear that makes us withhold the truth and shy away from others who may dare to reveal it for us; it is fear that leads us away to hide from aspects of reality, and once hidden, it is fear that keeps us from altering our way of seeing those things from which we hide.

I am brought back, once again, to the truth expressed in that same passage from John Henry Newman’s sermon, ‘Christian Sympathy’. ‘...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.’
In the same text, we are reminded that ‘... the one has within him in tendency, what the other has brought out into actual existence ... They understand each other far more than might at first have been supposed. ...They have common ground; ...they have one and the same circle of temptations, and one and the same confession. ... we fear that others should know what we are really ...’

I am unable to read through those words without being taken back to the situation recorded in chapter eight of John’s gospel: the woman about to be stoned for committing adultery. (verses 3-11)
“Let the one among you who is guiltless be the first to throw a stone at her.” says Jesus to the men gathered round her. ‘They went away one by one, beginning with the eldest, until the last one had gone and Jesus was left alone with the woman.’
Here was a time when, in spite of the Old Testament Law which told them to stone a woman in such circumstances, the men present – Sadducees and Pharisees – appeared to act according to the teachings of Jesus. In response to His words, they found themselves unable to avoid weighing their own inclinations and weaknesses, and perhaps their own transgressions, against the discovered act of the woman before them. (But where was the man?). They appeared to acknowledge that ‘the one has within him in tendency, what the other has brought out into actual existence’, and walked away rather than pass final judgement. The eldest leaving first, points to both time’s persistence in its attempts to make us succumb to our weaknesses, and to its granting of wisdom through the experience of constant or repeated temptation, and through the making of our mistakes.

Temptation and transgression both contribute to an awareness that, deep down, each of us differs little from another.

This interpretation may be inaccurate of course. The men may have drifted away due to the failure of their attempt to trap Jesus into saying something usable as evidence against Him; but here was a demonstration of the New Covenant in contrast with the rigid interpretation of comparatively black and white laws of the Old: Jesus telling those present, and us, in a way that clearly brought the message home in the individual consciences of His hearers: -

“You have heard how it was said, You shall not commit adultery. But I say this to you,
if a man looks at a woman lustfully, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
(Matthew 5:27-28)

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This new way of approaching and understanding mankind – understanding ourselves, and of understanding God’s commandments and His requirement of us, coupled with our Lord’s instruction to forgive and thus to heal, opened up a whole new world: a potential for both unity and ‘sympathy’ within Christ’s Church. It is within this world that our facing each other has the power to heal. It is not possible to face each other for the first time without altering our relationship; without moving the relationship on in some way.
The Law, as laid out in the Old Testament, was not designed to hurt, but the interpretation of it, and the following of it, frequently left little room for understanding, mercy and forgiveness. In contrast with this, the whole ministry of Jesus was a coming face to face with mankind as a healing force. Our following of Him is expressed in our will to meet, to listen, to console, to forgive, to provide and to heal: in short, to love one another.
Those who have heard and understood Christ’s message, and have begun to act upon it, may find this comparatively easy with people from whom they are distant, but remarkably difficult with those they know well: their friends and family members. How is it that we can have a close and long-running friendship with someone and still find it so hard to ‘trust each other with the secret of our hearts’ ?
Everything points to the likelihood that daring to fully open our hearts and our consciences to each other would allow our long-maintained protective layers, and our pretence, to fall away. Beneath, would we not find that we are indispensable companions for each other’s journey, and, one by one, and two by two, that we are all made in such a way that we should all be sharing our journey together?

Could it be that this mutual honesty and openness is an essential without which we are unlikely ever to be empowered?

Are we unable to progress to the next stage with our imagined group of fellow travellers because our fear keeps us out of sight? – Because we do not allow our light to shine?
Love casts out all fear. Let us take the risk.
On the other side of our decision to face someone and to speak our truths to them, is a further awakening, and an enabling that will lead us closer to the certainties for which we long. Acting upon such a decision may be the key to our empowerment: the missing part of our surrender of self to our Lord’s will. I certainly sense this to be at least a part of the key to my own.

Without being empowered by the Spirit of God we shall remain unable to fulfil our potential; we shall remain less than the persons God has made us to be.

Let us crave a new dawn in our lives: an awakening from our sleep; an enabling that will empower us for all that God may ask of us. It begins and ends with us. The whole of creation has to do with us. And ‘us’ begins with you and me, our neighbours and our friends, each of us making that vital decision to meet face to face, heart to heart, and one to one.
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One to one (2)

‘Do not desert an old friend;
the new one will not be his match.’
(Ecclesiasticus 9:10)

Even when well away from the seemingly unstoppable surge of life in the modern world, not just out of the city centre, not just beyond suburbia, not even when we are tucked cosily into the countryside: on holiday, travelling through, on a day trip, or strolling briefly away from the roads, we can be held in the grasp of much that we thought had been left behind. The television, the internet, DVDs, computer games, mobile phones: the many trappings of today’s world that no longer simply follow us wherever we go but are found to have preceded us into almost every corner of the world. If these products of man’s ingenuity were unavailable it would still take us a considerable amount of time to slow down, to shed our supposed reliance on them, and to begin benefiting from the reduced intensity of constant mental activity associated with them, much of which is subliminal. But when they remain as an active and constantly influential presence in our lives, our slowing down takes far longer, and we are unlikely ever to truly switch off from the activity they perpetuate and which drains us of the ability to actually stop, to truly listen and to really see.

It is not only the world around us that we continue to miss: the sights and sounds, the reality, the experience; it is the people in our lives. We may relax more into the presence of family or friends, but the opportunity for finding out more about who we are – who our companions are and who we ourselves are – is missed, because we fail to recognize that such a chance exists. How can we see opportunity where we fail to identify the underlying need? How shall we look each other in the eye and dare to discover who we are if we are afraid to come face to face with each other and with ourselves.
Access to the internet and the habitual presence of mobile phones – even in their simplest forms –allows us and encourages us to believe that we are more in touch with other people, especially friends, than ever before.

Texting took the ‘mobile’ beyond being a telephone, and the same small piece of hardware is now apparently capable of being most things, not only to most modern men and women, but to children down to (and beyond) whatever age their parents now regard as being appropriate for their possession. Involvement in social networks on the internet, especially by the young, has spread so rapidly that it is as though a dam has burst, releasing some previously unimagined need that has ever been locked into the makeup of mankind. To many people, the entire field of instant communication is a wonderful answer to their unspoken, and previously unimagined prayers. It has gone from non-existence to indispensable without any real journey between the two, and the ‘need’, once created and fed, has become an addiction wrapped in an irresistible and illogical desire. The must get, must have, must do, must see, must hear, must show, must tell mentality has been vastly expanded by such groups as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Last.fm which focuses on the perpetual hunger for the mutual enjoyment of music.
That was about the limit of my knowledge of such sites until I looked on Wikipedia! It names more than 150 sites in its list of major active social networking websites (It has another list for defunct sites), and states that ‘the list is not exhaustive, and is limited to some notable, well-known sites.’

With 250 million registered users, one of the ways in which Facebook describes its function is, “Giving people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.” I have no quarrel with that as an aim, an objective, or as a description of Facebook. If everybody became and remained connected they would become more open with each other, and it works the other way round too; these two aspects of relationship rely equally on each other for their continuation. If living in this world was that simple, and if the power ‘given’ to people by these websites was fully utilized, we could all begin looking for real signs of world peace, of justice, tolerance and understanding, and of a global redistribution of resources and commitment. But as soon as either the connectedness or the openness begins to fade – and it will – the other will start to crumble; a degenerative spiral will be set in motion that will be very difficult to stop.
My seemingly pessimistic outlook on the fruit of so much involvement in these networks is based on the superficial nature of the openness. The connections, however meaningful and however strong they may appear, can only remain if there are other forms of real contact between the parties: some form of human relationship away from the internet with its inherent distancing and distraction. Without it the thin skin drawn over the lives of participants in these networks – the only layer in which they and others may share any level of connectedness – will not take the strain.
The connections have no genuine face-to-face quality; there is no meeting eye to eye; and there is no sharing of what is really going on inside hearts and minds. The busyness of the activity involved in taking part in such networking creates the feeling that we are in touch, informed, being honest, and in relationships. It covers over the simple knowledge that everything shared here is of a superficial nature. And it is our feelings that will always ensure this will be the case; the feeling that we are already truly sharing (and therefore need do nothing more), and an underlying reluctance to listen to any whispers within ourselves that suggest otherwise. We dare not attempt to make it real, as reality demands that we become fully present to others: that we meet them face to face. Technology and modern communications will not do that for us; we must do it for ourselves.

A bringing together of Anglicans and Catholics in the 1920s (the Malines Conversations) was the subject of the Archbishop’s ‘Testament’, from which the following often quoted words are taken; but their truth goes far beyond that particular context. They speak well of the requirements for every form of real togetherness, right down to the central and vital heart-to-heart meeting of two separate, but truly open, individual human beings.

“In order to unite with one another, we must love one another;
in order to love one another, we must know one another;
in order to know one another, we must go and meet one another.”
(Cardinal Mercier)

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One to one (1)

‘Iron is sharpened by iron, one person is sharpened by contact with another.’
(Proverbs 27:17)

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Ronald Knox quoted the above verse in a sermon entitled 'Jesus my Friend', and went on to say, 'your friendship with so-and-so inevitably knocks you into a particular shape, just as one piece of iron knocks another into a particular shape if you hit them against one another. Inevitably, not as the result of any deliberate attempt on the part of either to influence the other, but simply as the result of daily contact. And of course, speaking of human friendships ... either affects the other equally; it's not like sharpening a pencil, which leaves the knife just as it was.’ (The Pastoral Sermons.)
Referring to that same two-sided effect, Carl Jung said: - ‘The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction, both are transformed.’ (Modern Man in Search of a Soul)

Such words from people with well known names and acknowledged reputations can so easily be taken as facts applicable to every person and every situation. We make no conscious decision to regard them in this way, but we are easily led by the words of others, and when the words come from a highly thought of name like Carl Jung, who are we to doubt? If something is well put, and sounds reasonable, we skip beyond the careful consideration that it may deserve to an unconscious acceptance of what we have heard or read as fact. We absorb the ideas of others without any real analysis of what we are accepting and believing. Nothing we hear or read should be thought of as being beyond dispute, and this is no less applicable when what we absorb is apparently supported by words from scripture. The above quotes from Ronald Knox and Carl Jung are examples of this, being supported, as it seems, by the verse taken from the Bible. We take such things ‘as gospel’: we regard them as ‘the gospel truth’; and we allow the scriptural connection to blur our understanding of what scripture is, what the Bible is, and what the gospel is. We may still understand what truth is, but we relinquish our ability to comprehend what is, and what is not, the truth.

Many of us are susceptible to this weakness; I always have been, and often wondered whether I really did have any firm views of my own – on anything. In recent years (thank God) I have found that I do, and my slow realization of the fact has brought a welcome belief that these are well considered views based on my own assessment of what is real and what is true. It takes an appreciable increase in confidence to entertain even the idea of questioning the statements of others, regardless of the sometimes loudly proclaimed declarations of their views.
The ability of people to influence others by the powerful, well chosen, eloquent or persuasive use of words must never be forgotten. We must always be aware of the ease with which we can be swayed by those who speak out or write, clearly, confidently and apparently with knowledge and experience of their subject. We cannot be reminded too frequently of this.

How are we affected by our contact with each other? Are we affected equally? If so, is that always the case?

Ronald Knox said it clearly enough: ‘speaking of human friendships ... either affects the other equally’; and the implication is that this is the norm. I am able to read, consider and doubt his words as superficial and misleading through my own accumulated awareness of the reality of life as a human being. My doubt then leads me to compare directly with my own experience and thus to reject his words completely. In fairness, he was contrasting our human friendships with our relationship with Jesus; Jesus is not altered at all by His friendship with us, but we are changed by our relationship with him.
I believe there are no grounds whatever for saying of our human friendships, that ‘either affects the other equally’. For both parties to be affected in any way, and to any extent, however divergent or otherwise the degrees of change, there needs to be – as Carl Jung said – a reaction: some form of chemistry between them. The context of his words is the relationship between the psychologist and patient, where, to quote again from the same passage, ‘the personalities of the doctor and patient have often more to do with the outcome of the treatment than what the doctor says or thinks’.

Our friendships can take a wide variety of forms. They can be similar to Jung’s doctor/patient relationship in that one person can be a supportive guide for the other, occasionally, frequently or permanently. The support may always be going in the same direction, or may alternate between the two: sometimes we are supportive, at other times we need the support. A friendship can be based on two people both being ‘doctors’ at the same time, just as they can both be ‘patients’; and the whole area of confiding in another and giving and receiving support is only one facet of the broad canvas that is friendship. But friendship is not the only contact we have with others; all contact has the potential to change us in some way.

Iron can be sharpened, dulled, or simply battered, bent and dented by iron. In like manner, one person can be sharpened, refined, inspired, dulled, battered or otherwise abused by contact with another. The possibilities are endless, but we can neither receive nor give anything of value without turning to each other and daring to look each other in the eye. We are sharpened by contact with each other only when our honed edges point towards each other: when we meet face to face, whether as doctor and patient, as master and servant, as equals, as enemies, or as friends.
It is in our first meeting that we take the risks. It is in facing each other that we either hurt or heal.

A perfect touch

One of the wonderful things about being human is our capacity for being drawn to a person – even someone we do not know – through an undeniable awareness of powerful emotion: the strength of feeling generated within them.
Such feelings encompass the whole range of our life experience from the blissful and joyous to the most debilitating sense of utter desolation. It is a capacity that both derives from our being human, and contributes to the advancement of humanity towards God’s intended fulfilment. It is also a manifestation of the many-sided giftedness with which we are all blessed; a necessary aspect of the binding together of individuals into a real community. And it goes beyond our usual and habitual understanding of community to where we hear the echoes of Jesus’ prayer that all of us “may be so perfected in unity that the world will recognize” that it was the Father who sent Him. (John 17:23)
Jesus prayed, “May they all be one ...” (17:21) Such simple words: such a powerful message; and prayed, not only for those who lived and breathed with Him two thousand years ago, but for all Christians who have followed after, including ourselves: we who, in the present day, can so easily show ourselves to have not been “so perfected in unity”.

One of the natural traits we all share as human beings is the ease with which we place reliance on our feelings. In much that life brings us, we instinctively base decisions and judgments on our reactions, our bias, our preference and our prejudice. Every day, clear evidence that this is not the best way presents itself in friction and disagreement between individuals, and in news of conflict, injustice and abuse that speaks loud of the scale of wrongdoing across the world. In one way or another, all such wrongs are the fruit of wrong thinking: wrong thoughts and consequently wrong action based on the feelings – or lack of feelings – of people with the power to influence the lives of those around them. Those people may be numbered in millions, and their extreme distress apparently goes unnoticed by those who are its root cause. They do not feel anything about it, and therefore pay no heed to what is so obvious. Of course there are other factors involved, such as pride and greed, but these generate their own sets of feelings and are therefore anchored in the same root cause. All these conflicts, from the smallest argument, show how far we can stray from an awareness of our capacity for being drawn together, for empathy, for reaching out to others in response to feelings within ourselves: feelings brought about by the emotions and strength of feeling in others.
Here we have two completely opposite ways, not only of thinking and feeling, but of being. The one resulting from an ability to sense the feelings of others, the other from an inability to do so. The former is truly human; the latter is inhuman.

Our sense of inadequacy in the face of another person’s desperate need is a natural consequence of the truth contained in Proverbs 14:10: ‘the heart knows its own grief best, nor can a stranger share its joy.’ But for each of us, it is awareness of God’s presence that can and does still make a difference. Even as a stranger, if we can begin to raise that awareness within someone whose plight is blinding them to all forms of consolation, we shall have helped to show them the way. We shall have brought them closer to being able to reach out to Him with the words, “Out of the depths I cry to you O Lord.” (Psalms 130:1).
For me, those depths are not only the place where we feel crushed, deserted and helpless; they are the inner heart of our desolation: the hard to find, and sometimes even harder to believe in place where peace builds its home; the cracked vessel which God repairs through our dejection, our emptiness, and through our regained trust in His presence, leaving the vessel stronger, wider and deeper than before.

Our faith invites us to walk alongside each other, carrying the message that strives for recognition within us into the everyday routine of our days, as well as into the perceived burdens and turmoil of the people around us. It is through this quiet but constant inclination that we are set upon the path towards ‘perfection in unity’. It is faith which tells us to act, not like a stranger, but as a friend: to match our steps with those of others for just a few paces along the way. Our paths have crossed, but God so often causes such meetings to occur at a staggered crossroads: one at which we briefly share the same path before separately journeying on. For us to regard this merely as coincidence would be to deny the power for good that would direct us in all things. Wherever that power leads, we must hope to always have the strength to follow.

Learning to respond to such situations without allowing doubts to steer me away has been a slow process, but the more frequently I do it, the more clear it becomes that this is what is asked of each of us; the touch, the word, the attentive ear, the supportive hand held out- whether accepted or rejected; making it known to those in need that we have noticed, that we are aware and are feeling some of their pain, and quite simply that we are there.
The act of truly being with someone, even for only a few moments, is a hint of ‘perfection in unity’ and a blessing to both parties.
It is a touch of the perfection for which Jesus prayed for us. It is a perfect touch.
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Great and small

“All the points in which men differ, health and strength, high or low estate, happiness or misery, vanish before this common lot, mortality.” (John Henry Newman. Parochial and Plain Sermons,)

Why do we think of ourselves and others as being equally, more, or less able, intelligent, gifted, significant or worthy than anyone else? Other than within an academic or sporting context or when ensuring that a person is sufficiently and relevantly qualified for a specific form of employment, we have little or no reason to think about such things and no cause to consider anything in that way. Newman’s quoted words are from a sermon entitled ‘The Greatness and littleness of Human Life’. Our lives are both great and little, but not in the ways we habitually think, and not in the sense that one person is great while another is not. Thinking in those terms will have faded to nothing for some of us within a few years of leaving school or university, leaving us with the knowledge that nearly all such comparisons, while not being meaningless, are devoid of significant meaning for us in our daily lives. For many, however, such means of dividing individuals are perceived as essential to the advancement of themselves and thus to an imagined improvement of mankind.
All that really does matter is knowing that we have the intelligence and other attributes needed to be the persons we are supposed to be: the mental capacity and the ability to appreciate and think about who we are, where we are going, and our place within our local community and as part of the global family that is mankind.

Using the words, ‘mental capacity’, immediately takes my mind into my world of work, where the Mental Capacity Act 2005 Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards came into force on 1st April 2009. These safeguards are to protect the rights of people who are not able to make their own decisions, particularly where, in their own best interests, there is a perceived need to restrict the extent of their liberty. That liberty, which can include but does not necessarily mean the freedom to come and go whenever they choose, is something we all take for granted. For some, however, that freedom does not exist, and the deprivation may encompass anything that is not in the best interests of the individual, or that may be the cause of unacceptable outcomes or risks for others.

Over the years I have come to know many people with ‘learning disabilities’, some of them very well, and it is only through knowing them that I have become fully aware that this coverall expression refers to something which only has meaning when considered in relation to something else: something with which it can logically be compared. It is purely relative, and in that way is much the same as our usual understanding of ‘intelligence’ or ‘cleverness’. Compared with some people, I could be assessed as having learning disabilities and, in the right context, you or anyone else could describe me in that way without giving any offence – occasionally I have done so myself as a way of highlighting points relating to aspects of my work – but, in general we do not differentiate between ourselves in that way.
For those, however, who are, for mental capacity reasons, unable to live independent lives and who always need some degree of support, the world has been, and to a lesser extent still is, a very different place. The medical profession, and in particular the field of psychiatric assessment, based the classification of such people on a system which gave us words we still hear being used both lightly and offensively in everyday conversation: words which once described particular individuals and groups of people – those assessed and then forever regarded as being within the range of that classification, as follows:

MORON. An adult whose mental development corresponds to that of a normal average child between the ages of 8 and 12.
IMBECILE. An adult person whose intelligence is equal to that of the average normal child between the ages of 3 and 7 years, or between 25 and 50 per cent of that of the average normal adult; person of weak intellect.
IDIOT. A person so deficient in mind as to be permanently incapable of rational conduct and having a mental development not exceeding that of an average normal child of two years old; utter fool.
These definitions are taken from a 1963 edition of the Oxford Dictionary, and recognition of changes that began taking place in the following years can be found in the fact that they are not to be found in my 1979 OED.
This terminology was part of a fixed system that left little room for anything other than a basic categorization based on comparisons and preset criteria. The recognition and valuing of each life as being that of an individual and unique human being was not part of the system.

It is only through getting to know someone that we are able to find, recognize and appreciate the person before us.

We cannot get to know others without communicating with them, and we cannot do that without spending time with them.

Among those with whom I have spent a great deal of time have been people who were both mentally and physically incapable, not just of living independently or of living a meaningful life with input from others, but, without continual care and support, of living at all. Such people are usually classified today as having ‘profound and multiple learning disabilities’, which condition is not infrequently accompanied by severely disabling physical problems. Becoming aware of the person hidden within even the most incapable and apparently unresponsive mind and body has been a real blessing for me. It has been a privilege to be given the opportunity to spend time with them, a pleasure to get to know them, and an honour to have gained their trust and their friendship.

The lifelong vulnerability of such people is emphasised in the minds of those who get to know them by an awareness that they are, in effect, acting as life support machines. But for anyone prepared to search for ways to make a real connection with a person with these extreme needs, the relationship can bear fruit that is as meaningful and life-changing as any experienced in friendships with the most able-bodied and ‘intelligent’ persons.
Two observations from Paula D’Arcy in her book, ‘Where The Wind Begins’, are relevant to this:

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‘... who we are changes the life around us. If we choose to be loving, involved, withdrawn, cold, critical, judgmental – we shape the world in some way.’ ..- ..‘... we were all changed by the shared moments, and carried away a bit of the other. That’s how love is.’

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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.