How to love?

I remember asking my father when I was quite young, how it was possible to fulfil Christ’s commandment “to love one another,” including the most difficult of charges, to love your enemy. After all one could not will to love.

My wise Dad responded that although it was very difficult to love some people, we could and we should always treat people as if we loved them. That answer was good enough for me as I entered the tortuous territory of adolescence and went on being my touchstone for some years afterwards. But as I have got older it will no longer do. Christ calls me to love and this from the heart. Good behaviour on the outside, however well meant, is not in the end, enough.

A little while ago I came across this lovely quotation by the 13th Century Persian poet, theologian and philosopher, Rumi.

“Your talk is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built built against it.”

It came as an answer and as a bit of a relief. I was no longer charged with loving someone out of my own inadequate faith, ability and energy. Instead I was invited to seek and find, as honestly as I could, all the barriers inside me that stop me either giving or receiving love.

When I started to think about this at more depth I realised how manifold and slippery many of these barriers are. For example, I might just avoid someone or some situation that makes me uncomfortable: easy to do and no one is ostensibly offended or hurt. But if I do this I fall short of Jesus’ pro-active command to love and I remain blind to and in the thrall of the barrier, whatever it is. The challenge goes the other way, too. What barriers do I put in the way of allowing God and others to love me? It is strange how similar the barriers are that stop us loving others and being loved: fear, distrust, pride, anxiety about coming out of one’s comfort zone; all of these are alive and well whether we are trying to love or receive love.

The invitation, as always, is to self knowledge; to recognise the moment when the barrier is raised, to stop, to observe, to question and to challenge oneself. It is to resist what seems the easiest line of defence, blame of others. It is, as Jesus said, to stop looking for the mote of dust in the other person’s eye and to face up to the plank in one’s own eye!

I would not, however, want to suggest that this is a recipe for self-help. Everything we know about love teaches us that we learn to love by first receiving, experiencing and learning to trust love. The first letter of John puts this succinctly,

In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:10)

Christ first loved us. Our job is to try to seek and find those barriers which we all have that stop us from believing this and acting on it. As we understand what stops us from loving and receiving love we are healed and freed to love as Christ commanded.

“What’s in a name?

“What’s in a name?” Well, for some of us there is quite a lot in a name. I was, for example, extremely pleased to be serving in a church in my last parish which was dedicated to St John the Evangelist. Like many I find his gospel a never ending source of spiritual nourishment and revelation. Before that church I had served in two churches in succession whose dedication was to St Andrew. I could never get quite as excited about St Andrew as St John the Evangelist, but at least he was an apostle and as I got to know Andrew and preached about him on patronal festivals, I grew to love this seemingly modest man who was the first of the disciples to meet Jesus, introduced others, including his brother, Peter, to him; and managed to assist in solving a food crisis by introducing Jesus to a young chap who had two small fish and five loaves!

You will realise from all this that the name of the church I am serving in has quite a lot of meaning for me. So to be quite honest I was disappointed when I learnt that the chapel at Launde Abbey is dedicated to St John the Baptist. Although an essential character in his story even Jesus says that,

…the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he (John). (Matt 11:11)

The Baptist never knows Jesus in the way the other disciples know him. He stands as the last of the prophets in the Old Testament line and never lives to see Jesus’ saving work. So why was Launde Abbey chapel named after someone who never really knew Jesus? I didn’t get it.

But lately I have had an epiphany. There could hardly be a better dedication for the chapel of a retreat house than that of John the Baptist. The role of John the Baptist was “to prepare the way of the Lord, to make his paths straight.” The job of a retreat house could be said to be the same. We don’t by enlarge do the preaching and the teaching. We try to prepare a space where people can stop, be quiet, rest in body, mind and spirit and be enabled to open up to whatever God may want to say to them. The retreat house is there to help to help people prepare to listen; to help make paths straight by assisting all those who come see and remove the burdens and barriers that get in the way of our walk with God. John the Baptist is the warm up man for Jesus’ ministry. He sets up the scene and begins to engage the audience with the issues. Then he stands back so that Jesus can do his work. If Launde Abbey with the grace of God can do that we are fulfilling our function and living up to our dedication.

What on Earth?

Some years ago I had some friends who were quite a bit older than me. Although in many ways as English as they come in birth, upbringing and culture, they had found that the Hindu faith had spoken more to them as young people than the religion they experienced in 1930s and 40s Church of England services. We spoke often and at a depth which I found very enriching. We had much more in common than separated us and recognized in each other the same shared longings and desire for God. Although they largely read the great Hindu scriptures, they continued to read the Bible, too, and had a great attachment to the language of the services they were brought up within the Church of England; so they loved the 1662 Prayer Book. On one thing they were adamant. In the Lord’ Prayer, the wording should be,

Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done

In earth as it is in heaven.

“In” earth, not “on” earth.

As the years have gone by this translation has made more and more sense to me. Earth at the time of the 1662 Prayer Book did not simply mean our planet or the soil. Earth meant us human beings. It was a link with the idea of Adam being made from the dust of the earth; and with all we know now about the Big Bang and the way all matter is recycled over and over again, including the matter which makes up our bodies, it makes even more sense.

But even more importantly the whole prayer is slightly shifted when we use “in” instead of “on”. If we pray that God’s kingdom comes and his will is done on earth, it is out there: it is about justice, mercy and love, the kingdom values, happening in our world, yes, but out there. If we hold the older understanding in our minds, “in earth,” it becomes about us, you and me. May God’s kingdom come and his will be done in me. I then become responsible along with God, along with all others who pray the Lord’s Prayer for promulgating God’s Kingdom values and not just blaming the lack thereof on others, on the world out there.

It’s a small word shift, “on” or “in”, but it gives quite a lot of food for thought.

Pondering

Jesus said that the kingdom of Heaven belongs to the little ones, children, and that none of us can enter therein unless we become like a child. There are many ways in which we may be being invited to be childlike in our journey with Christ. We can use our time fruitfully in considering the qualities children have that we lose as we mature. One of the things I rediscovered some years ago on retreat was the art and the joy of ‘pondering’.

As a child I know I pondered. Those long holiday afternoons of childhood that most adults remember were periods of intense activity – of course, but there were also hours of lazy pondering; sprawled on the grass under a tree with a book I was enjoying put to one side for a moment. What happened in these times of meditation? Nothing much; time ticked by gently. I appreciated where I was without analysing or intellectualising. There was no sense of urgency, just peace. Psalm 131 speaks to me of the atmosphere of these times.

1 My heart is not proud, Lord,

my eyes are not haughty;

I do not concern myself with great matters

or things too wonderful for me.

2 But I have calmed and quieted myself,

I am like a weaned child with its Mother

like a weaned child I am content.

As a teenager I also pondered on long walks to school. Even as a college student I remember pondering, lying in front of a fire on Saturday afternoon, doing nothing. And then the “prison walls” as Wordsworth so succinctly put it, crowded in: the prison walls of adult responsibility, adult pressure; the imperative to make sure every moment was usefully spent and to fulfil the obligations of the ‘to do’ list.

We are told that Mary, the mother of Jesus, pondered. She is often painted with a book as a sign of her thoughtfulness. Pondering is a time when instead of grasping at the world or inflicting our agenda on it, we allow it to come to us. We are open and we wait to receive. Pondering is time in the early morning with a cup of tea sitting at a window. Pondering is something we might do before prayer, something that prepares us for prayer because prayer is about receiving, something that turns into prayer.

To ponder is to allow the grace of God to work in us. We have no agenda and we make no demands. We simply enjoy the gift of the moment and the gentle flow of thought as we waste time with our Mother God.

Prayer – not an easy thing

Prayer is difficult; let’s face it. To start is easy; to persevere is hard. I always liken it to what happens after the London Marathon. Immediately after the race you see quite a few more runners out on the streets than usual, all starting to train for the following year. But when it is cold, when the rain and wind sets in, when it is grey and dull and all you want to do is pull the blankets over your head and stay snug in your bed, then the runners become fewer.

Someone has said that prayer is particularly difficult for modern, western people because we all come from a culture which says we have to become competent at anything we take on. We talk about “conquering skills,” meaning to be able to do something with ease and ability. But prayer isn’t like that. In fact prayer is almost the opposite of that. However long we may have been praying we always feel like beginners; and alongside the deep and meaningful experiences we might have every now and then, there are days when we are bored or cross or so distracted that at the end of our time of prayer we feel no better than we started. We are not helped if we think that there is a technique which once mastered will open the door into the heavenly kingdom. Techniques do help to start us off: learning about prayer from those who have prayed over the years helps. But in the end we have to understand why we pray it and then just do it. Prayer is something we practice.

Prayer is not an end in itself. It is about God communicating with us. Its long term aim is to help us conform our wills to the will of God, because what God will for us and for all is life and health and freedom

Thy kingdom come; thy will be done.

It is to be in God’s presence, the creature with the Creator.

The first and main thing we have to realise in prayer is that we cannot make it work or “happen.” However we are going to pray, we simply place ourselves in God’s presence to wait on him, attend to him and to receive from him. We are not passive because we try to be awake and alert but we are not the prime movers, either. All we can do is put ourselves there, make ourselves available and trust. If we persevere God, who makes the buried seeds sprout out of sight in the dark earth, will grow from seeds hidden deep within us, his fruit in due season. If we persevere we will begin to find that prayer “works” but explaining how it works, well that is not an easy thing.

Easter – a family affair?

Holy Week and Easter Day are such intense experiences.  This year was especially true for me as I led my first Holy Week retreat at Launde Abbey.  From the Monday evening of Holy Week until the morning of Maundy Thursday, nineteen of us considered the Holy Week themes in depth.  On Maundy Thursday I went to three Eucharists – many clergy did the same; each one spoke differently and deeply into the profound journey we were making.  The first Eucharist was with the retreatants, our last celebration before returning to our own churches and the weekend ahead.  The second Eucharist was the Chrism Mass at Leicester Cathedral when clergy come together to renew their ordination vows with their bishop and many of their congregations.  This was a powerful experience of being alongside colleagues, who share an understanding of and sympathy for the role to which God has called us.  The third was back at Launde Abbey again where a new group of people, students training for the ministry, had joined the community for a week.  For the next two or three days, through the silence of Good Friday and Holy Saturday and into the heady joy of Easter Day we moved together and separately as we shared some things and went our own ways with others.

And now we are in Easter Week.  The students are studying and the community is moving gently back into its usual routine.  There is a slight loss of the energy and impetus that is necessary to propel one through the lead up to and celebration of Easter Day, but there is also a quiet warmth as we read Luke’s resurrection stories each day and let them speak to us anew.  There is also a more conscious sense for me this year of the Eucharist as sharing with others.  Three Eucharists on the same day and on the same theme can be vastly different because the people make them so.  The Eucharist is communion with God and people.

When I was first confirmed (way back in the Stone Ages) accepted wisdom was that you only received Communion once a day.  If you happened to go to a second Eucharist you attended but you did not receive.  The thinking behind this was that the receiving of communion was between God and you and you did not need to receive the host again on the same day.  Indeed to do so was almost to denigrate the gift of God and to question its facility.  At some time this thinking changed and we realised Eucharists are family affairs, family parties and one always eats at parties!  So on Maundy Thursday this year I went to three parties with three different sets of people and each one was a joyful celebration.  And this was because although we were all different we had one very important thing in common: Christ.