O that today you would listen to his voice! (Psalm 95: 7b)

For some people dark mornings in winter are very difficult, especially for those who go to work in the dark, then work underground or in windowless spaces, and come out at the end of the day into darkness. For a little while I worked amongst such people and I know how hard the winter months were to them.

I am blessed in that, living at Launde, I am made aware of the gifts and delights of each season in my short walk from home to work, and I love walking to work in the dark, hearing the call of the first birds, the rustle of wind in the trees, the sense sometimes of dampness in the air, and all around the quiet that comes from a world still at rest.

But I am even more blessed on a Sunday.

Each Sunday at 7.45am, before the Eucharist at 8am, we go through a little ritual called the Blessing of the Water and the Renewal of Baptism Vows. The chapel is in darkness at this time of year and the preparation becomes part of the worship. The water from the bowl in the font is carried out of the back door of the chapel, the one that gives on to the little burial site, and poured onto the land (never down the drain: this water has been blessed). The bowl is filled with fresh tap water and placed in the font and the Pascal Candle, which stands by the font is lit. This is the only light in the chapel apart from the one on the stairs. The one candle lit, we then sit and wait in the darkness that wraps us around like a warm blanket, until it is time for the Blessing of the Water and the Renewal of Baptism Vows. Sometimes, depending on the time of year, grey light may begin to steal in through the windows as the dawn comes but in the depths of winter we remain in darkness.

When it is time we gather around the font. We hear the words of the blessing of the water.

God our Father, your gift of water brings light and freshness to the earth. It washes away sins and brings eternal life. Bless and hallow this water. Renew the living spring of your life within us….

We are reminded of God the Creator, of the extraordinary gift of life and that water is a prerequisite to life and a sustainer of it. We may remember those who do not have enough water. As we are reminded of Christ’s resurrection and renew our baptism vows, we stand again at the beginning of our Christian journey and hear again the call to a holy life. The short service over (no more than five minutes) we light the candles underneath the icons and on the altar from the Pascal candle – just as we do at dawn on Easter Day, and then sit again in the candlelit chapel until it is time for the Eucharist to begin.

I had never come across this little service until I came to Launde Abbey but I am so glad to have discovered it. Every Sunday, for a Christian, is supposed to be a celebration of the resurrection of our Lord and the Eucharist gathers up the story of Christ’s life, passion and resurrection. But each Sunday is also the first day of the week, a moment when we go back to the beginning, so to speak. The world is made fresh and we start again – and where do we start? With a reminder that out of darkness God brought light at the beginning of time; that water brings life and freshness to the earth; that at the darkest hour the Light of the World broke forth from the tomb of death and that, in baptism we received his Light to guide us, his Spirit to encourage us and our call to follow him, however dark it might sometimes be.

^8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
^9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:8-9New International Version (NIV)

I have just had perhaps the most satisfying time spiritually since I came to Launde. I have just accompanied a pilgrim on some of the Exercises of St Ignatius. I say ‘some’ because we are not doing the Exercises in the way they are usually done, in a Thirty Day silent retreat, but in three lots of ten days over a three year period. We just completed what is called the “First Week,” and it was a stunning experience.

St Ignatius really developed what we call spiritual direction but I have also heard him described as the first psychologist. He had amazing insight into the movements that go on inside people emotionally and spiritually: movements towards what is for our good and healing and movements which are self-destructive; movements outwards towards God and others or away from God, inward, self-obsessed, negative and isolating in character. St Ignatius also refined ways of praying that had been around for some time; a few going right back to the Desert Fathers and Mothers of the 4^th century. These include the slow reading of scripture, stopping and waiting every time a word or phrase wake an affective response, to allow the word or phrase more deeply into one’s heart (Lectio Divina); the imaginative reading of scripture in which the reader is invited to enter into a story from the bible as if he or she were actually present; and, finally, the Examen of Consciousness – a time at the end of each day when the one who prays pauses to consider what has gone on inside himself during that day. Where did he feel most alive or most dull? Where did she feel most aware of God or another human being or the natural world? Where did she turn away? All of these exercises have the power to bring scripture to life, give a vivid, lived experience of God and convert the heart in a way which is deep and permanent.

During the Ignatian Exercises, the participant is guided step by step, day by day through Jesus’ life and their own life, reflecting deeply on both as they ponder all that God has given to them. It takes courage and commitment, as you would expect. But the journey for both pilgrim and guide is usually one of entry into the love of God that is beyond and above all human understanding and yet as close as breathing.

Launde Abbey will be doing the Second ‘Week’ of the Ignatian Exercises in November 2015, but we will also be offering six places on the First Week. Details are in the 2015 Programme on the website. You are very welcome to apply

One of the things that most of us have to do is a budget, be it a weekly working out of household costs or at work. As a parish priest I had to learn how to work within a budget for the church. Fortunately, we were blessed with a good treasurer and a church warden who was also an accountant, so I could for the most part, let them do most of the number crunching. But there was always that dark evening in November when we had to sit down and face the hard choices: to keep within our predicted income we had to make cuts. What was going to go? These decisions were hard because they were so often about ethical choices or about mission or about something for which we really had a passion. But it made me think. If it was hard for us in our little parish church how tough must it be for all those who in these financially demanding times are having to make cuts in public spending?

How do we make hard decisions? It has been pointed out to me recently that in most church business meetings we start with a five minute prayer and finish with something like the Grace. In between we do not refer anything to God at all, except perhaps in passing. We do not say, “Hey, let’s stop and pray about this.” Yet Christ’s instruction is to “Pray at all times and never lose heart” (Luke 18:1).” In a way, this is how the monastic idea of “praying the hours”, the periods of the day, came in. This is why religions like Judaism and Islam make such a point of stopping throughout the day to pray – much more so than Christianity. But this is really the saying of prayers (plural), different from prayer (singular). The one tends to be collective and verbal, the other tends to be private and silent. We need both. But when Jesus told us to “Pray at all times,” I think he was asking us to shoot all our activities through with the latter, prayer; to stop when we got stuck and turn to him.

During our budget meeting for Launde we got stuck. I joined the meeting late on in the day to find out where we had got to. Those who had been working at it all day were exhausted and deflated. So we decided to stop and just be silent for five minutes. Those who wanted to were invited to pray quietly and if you didn’t want to, you could just sit and be still. I must admit, the cynical side of me didn’t believe it would make much difference, but the other side was saying, “Give God a chance to talk to you about this.” In the event, one completely new and very viable idea was brought to the table and two others gained real clarity and confirmation in that five minutes of silent turning to God.

This is the second time in six months that I have seen this invitation to pray work. Both were in church business meetings when things were either stuck or threatened to unravel. So perhaps it is time to take Jesus’ instruction seriously, not only in our everyday private life (pray as you make the shopping list, pray as you shop, pray on the train to work or in the car, pray for people at the school gates or on the phone etc) but much more so in our church business meetings. Should not every decision we make on behalf of the kingdom of God be checked out with God? And in these times of money shortages and anxiety in the Church about money and falling congregation, should we not especially remember the second half of Christ’s instructions and be comforted by it, “Pray at all times and never lose heart.”

“I love it when a plan comes together,” said John ‘Hannibal’ Smith, a character in the television series from the 1980s called the ‘A’ Team.  I get the same sense of frisson when a whole series of small incidents seem to coincide, as if someone somewhere is trying to get a point across.

There was just such an occasion a couple of days ago when I was staying with some friends.  First, I watched a television programme about Stonehenge.  Then I was given a cup of tea in a mug with a picture of Stonehenge on it; and finally I opened the book I was reading at the fifth chapter to find that the whole of the first two paragraphs referred to Stonehenge.  But the sense of excitement came not from Stonehenge in the end but from what the writer of my book suggested it illustrated: the “temp” part of the word “contemplation.”  This was new to me and thrilling, so I am passing it on.

The word “temp” comes from the same root as “notch”; notch as in a mark made in a stick or on a stone to denote a measurement.  So you might measure the length of something by marking a notch on your piece of wood and then another mark to denote the end of what you are marking.  Thus, “temp” is a measure of something as in temperament (the measurement of somebody’s emotional or psychological state), tempo (the measure of musical beat), temporary ( denoting a short or impermanent time) or temporal (meaning a state of chronological time or something worldly or earthly.)  There are plenty more words with “temp” in them to illustrate the meaning.

But however the word might be used today, originally it was not an earthbound word but a measurement for the heavens, the place where people looked for answers.  The augurs in ancient Rome would gaze at the stars to see if the deities favoured or disapproved of actions proposed by the city.  This was what Stonehenge was supposed in part to do.  It was, amongst other things, a giant time piece which denoted the summer and winter equinoxes and the full moons.  Whoever used it was doing so in order to study the stars and to listen to the gods.  But over time the place below from which the heavens were studied became a sacred space and took on the name of “temp, as well.”  From this we get the Latin word “templum.”  This was not a building but a sacred space and, eventually, this became temple, the place or building in which the higher things, the things of God, are studied and worshipped; where, earthbound as we are, we can measure the heavens.

Contemplation is therefore that state in which we deliberately place ourselves in a position to measure, spend time with, reflect on that which is ‘higher.’  “Con” means “with” so we are putting ourselves with the reflecting or meditating time.  It is a purposeful act but it is also a natural one.  It is an action that has been innate in human beings from the beginning.

We still gaze up at the stars and it is right that we do so because they are wonderful and they give us a sense of proportion.  We no longer worship the stars, however.  Nor do we believe anymore that we have to worship in the temple of Jerusalem for our faith to be genuine.  The “temple” became for Christians, the person of Jesus Christ.  It is when we gaze on him, when we spend time with him, that our eyes, hearts, minds and spirits look heavenward.

“Listen, my son.”

These are the famous words with which the Rule of St Benedict begins. Before anything else, before any reference to God, the Bible or the Church, Benedict commands his monks to listen. But this word, listen, is not to be translated casually. It denotes acute attention. Someone once described it to me as the way a doctor will listen with concentration using his stethoscope.

To listen has its root in the same word as to obey. The person listening is doing so from choice, from will, desirous of following what is being offered. So listening of this sort is the first step in obedience. We have to listen to hear what God wants. Jesus was always telling his followers to listen.

Listening of this sort is not superficial, surface listening. And it is not just done with the ears, but with the eyes, nose, through taste, touch, the mind and the heart. It can happen only when we are attentive and awake to the present moment. Because we are all weak and frail human beings much more often asleep than awake, we find it hard to listen. But we take in more than we consciously know which is why using a prayer like the Examin at the end of the day, alerts us to experiences we were often hardly aware of at the time.

If we listen: try to remain awake and alert, we become aware that God is speaking to us all the time, through everything in creation. We know he speaks through the Word made flesh and through the word of scripture, through art, music, poetry, worship, silence, nature and human relationships. We know he is the God of surprises who sometimes talks to us through quite ordinary small things which we see (or perhaps don’t really see) every day – and then one day we wake up and we have listened with our eyes and the veil over them has gone.

Jesus spoke to us in metaphor and parable, and God still does when we listen with all of our being.   “It is as if…,” Jesus begins his story. One thing puts us in touch with another and the story unfolds or the memory is nudged or consciousness awakens.

Just lately, I have had more opportunity to listen. I have had to be out of the house early to walk the dog so instead of rushing straight to work I have meandered through Launde’s gardens at dawn. Yesterday, as I walked, the sky was clear and the sun was just above the horizon: an extraordinary and huge ball of copper fire backed by a rose-pink sky. Today at the same time, there was mist and darkness, dripping trees, wet undergrowth, and a sense of presence in the shadowed woods. As I walked through the Launde copse, spiders’ webs kept catching my face and when I reached the Calvery and stared up at the figure of Christ which was silhouetted against the lightening sky I saw that a spider had made a web in the armpit of the statue. It hung like lace between arm and rib cage and Christ’s face turned gently towards it, seemed to be observing it – this tiny creature that had made its lair under the protective arm of Christ.

There were the dripping trees, the silhouetted face of Christ turned towards this tiny part of his creation. And there, right there, was the whole world.

“Despite everything, life is full of beauty and meaning.” Etty Hillesum, Letters from Westerbork

“I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.” Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

 

The other day I was watching an old Frost television interview with Desmond Tutu. He said that after Nelson Mandela had been released from prison and before the first general election in South Africa, was a very dangerous time for the country. Nelson Mandela, who was held in very high esteem by many people but was looked upon with suspicion by others, was preaching reconciliation, but there seemed to be, as Tutu described it, “a third force”: a potential power of violence and destruction that threatened to undermine and overwhelm the whole country. In the end, Mandela’s stature: his determination, courage and personal actions of reconciliation seemed to win the day. Without him no one knows what might have happened.

I was interested in the Archbishop’s description of “a third force.” I have heard it used before, although not in those words, by others – people like the pacifist writer, Walter Wink, who describes how a new personality can seem to take over a crowd, so that individuals who would never dream that they were capable of violence, can perform the most atrocious acts together. Wink points out that we have seen this happen throughout history, again and again.

As we look at the news at the moment many of us feel bewildered at the upturn in violence and the extent of it, appalled at the stories of suffering, and helpless in the face of it. It is as if an evil third force has taken over in some places and its darkness overshadows and undermines all of us. How can we fight the darkness outside so that it does not take over our spirit and overwhelm us, too?

It may seem a selfish and even superficial response in the light of all that we hear and see in the news of other peoples’ suffering, but one way to fight is to encourage a sense of gratitude in our hearts, which in turn leads to praise, thanksgiving and joy. Today is the first day of the rest of your life and this day is the gift God gives you – not yesterday, that is finished, not tomorrow for we do not yet know what it will bring, but today, this day is the gift of God. Can we see it? Can we receive even a little of what God wants to give us? Even on the days when we feel really grey we can thank God for food in our stomachs, a roof over our heads and safety – things that many people do not have.

You have to work at gratitude. We are not, for the most part naturally grateful or thankful. We are much better at moaning and complaining. “Count your blessings,” is an old saying, and a wise one, for as we count them our hearts are warmed and we are blessed. A genuine love grows in us for the people and things of the world, God’s world, and also a strength and faith. People who have been terribly cruelly treated have much to teach us about gratitude, praise and joy even in the midst of extreme suffering. Etty Hillesum, quoted at the top of this blog, wrote from the Westerbork Transit camp in Holland before being transported to Auschwich. Anne Frank was also to pass through. Both these young women determinedly fought fear and darkness by turning to the light and giving thanks. St Paul, quoted below, did the same when he wrote from prison his marvellous epistle full of joy and thanksgiving to the church at Ephesus. This is the way to fight back against the darkness – with the light and life of gratitude, praise and thanksgiving.

I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.     Ephesians 3: 18, 19

I apologise for being late in delivering my blog this week. I have had a rather disjointed but lovely past few days because my brother came home from Australia with his wife to celebrate his 65^th birthday.

My brother went to Australia when he was only 17. We then didn’t see him for thirty years as he established his life out there and brought up his family. When he came back for the first time it was very odd. The whole family turned out to meet him at London Airport and although we recognised him when he came through the barrier, we also didn’t recognise him. Who was this leathery-skinned man with grey hair and an accent you could cut with a knife? What was wrong with his eyebrow – oh, yes, that was where he had had an accident? The mask this man wore seemed to cut me off from the brother I remembered. And then there was a moment when his eyes twinkled and suddenly I saw him. His eyes were the same, strikingly blue, full of laughter. There was my brother and the years rolled away.

Since his first journey home he has come back several times but only about once every five years and due to his work as a farmer, only for very short breaks each time. These intermittent visit have made me aware of how, if you leave home at an early age, certain family myths and stories get fixed in a way they don’t if you remain at home. I do not know if my family is like others but there were certain ancestors and living people too, who were cast in the role of saint or sinner as were growing up. I remember realising in my twenties that in my heart I was condemning people I had never known, without understanding their side of the story. Because family members who can get together, share these family stories as they mature, and if things are healthy, the edges of negative criticism become softer. We realise as we share that other may see things differently and that their view point is just as valid as our own. We take into consideration that times change and that what was, for example, perfectly acceptable behaviour in the first half of the 20^th Century is not in the 21^st.

More than anything, if you are a Christian, hopefully you begin to see that whatever the ills of the past, and what so and so is said to have done to so and so, we are all both saint and sinner. Each one of us has done something that another family member might point out as being, unjust, unkind, negligent or even just thoughtless. All of us need forgiveness.

And that is one of the reasons why it is important that families continue to share the stories and do not let them become stuck in aspic. Even though my brother has had infinitely less opportunity to do this – and it shows – in the few visits home he has made, we have shared and he has softened towards one or two people. All families need healing and sharing family stories with that sense that, “I, too, have failed others,” is a good way of opening up our hearts and minds to all these people in the past, who probably, for the most part, did their best.

Words! Words! Words! I’m so sick of words!

 I get words all day through; First from him, now from you!

Is that all you blighters can do? (My Fair Lady)

Silence; we started the day today at Launde Abbey with shared communal silence, and it was bliss!  Today was the first day of our new prayer and services schedule all created with the aim of bringing more silence and stillness to the heart of Launde Abbey and to those who come to rest awhile in this place.  Instead of the old regime of morning prayer followed by the Eucharist, which was a demanding hour’s worth of liturgy first thing in the morning for our guests, many of whom need to rest, we now offer half an hour of silent contemplative prayer followed by morning prayer.  Midday prayer remains the same and then in the late afternoon we have another half hour of quietness preceding the Eucharist at 5.30pm.  Fewer words and more space to be still and to listen to God.

Like Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, I am sick of words.  I think many in our culture are sick of words, too.  We are clamoured at from morning until night and if it is not coming from the outside it is the incessant conversations inside our heads that are so demanding and exhausting.  Words, of course, need not be just the spoken variety.  We are shouted at by billboards and advertising, emails and over-busy schedules; so to stop and be still becomes not just a luxury but a necessity.

God speaks, we read, and the world is created.  But God does not just speak in words and when he does use words they are not simply the giving of information: narrow and arid, but rather, salve for the soul.  The Word of God is Jesus in all he is.  The way Jesus chooses to speak is invariably in story and metaphor.  God speaks in Creation, in music, in poetry, in dance and in art, but we have to be silent to hear it and to see it.  We have to be quiet inside to be present to it.  God speaks in and through other people, but we have to be quiet inside to be present to them.  This quietness does not just happen.  It comes from a bank or a larder of silence that grows in us as we spend time in silence.

Launde Abbey is a busy place with so many people coming and going.  It is also a place that has to balance the need of some for quiet and others for conversation.  But I hope as we practice our new routine of shared silence morning and evening, that a deeper and more profound quietness will grow in the heart of the Abbey.  It will not be of our making.  It will not belong to us.  It will be God’s silence, God’s words speaking deep with us and creating calm and space at the centre of our lives.

“Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.” Iris Murdock

 

When we wake up to it we all know that we live at the centre of our own worlds; that we do not find in others the same reality we find in ourselves, even those closest to us.  In this lack of awareness of the reality of the other lies some of our deepest pain.  When someone says to me that I have offended or hurt them my first instinct is to withdraw more deeply into myself and to become aware of my own pain: in self-protection I build the wall higher between them and me and in so doing become less conscious of their reality.  Actually, what I should aim to do when I am challenged is to go outwards to the person.  At the moment of exposure to their pain to move consciously towards them, saying to myself, “This person is real, is feeling these emotions now; has a life out there completely separate to mine with a family to go home to, washing and cooking to do, bills to pay, holidays to plan.”  You notice the reaction is not one of who is in the right and who is in the wrong?  That is the reaction of the one who is living with the unreality of the other, who withdraws to a place of self-defence.  When we expose ourselves to the other, right and wrong cease to matter, or not to matter as much.  Something else comes into being.  The world becomes a larger, more real place, full of more fully defined human beings with whom, we realise, we share this space for a little time.

Iris Murdock knew what she was saying when she wrote, “Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.”  It is extremely difficult to realise that someone or something, like a tree or animal, has its own reality which has nothing to do with you.  We have to ‘realise’ it, which means we have to make it real for ourselves.  It is love because it is about standing in the other person’s shoes, looking at the world from their point of view: being merciful and compassionate.  It is love because it is giving yourself away, not self-seeking.  It is love because it is service and a willingness to become smaller so that the other may become bigger.  It is love because it is the discipline of trying to wake up every day to the reality of the present moment rather than indulge in the fantasy that is often so much easier to live in and with.  Finally, it is love because it is the determination day in and day out to go on trying to wake up to the realization that someone other than oneself is real, however costly it may be.

Looking at Jesus in his meetings with people, I am quite sure he saw the reality of each and every person with whom he came into contact, and they felt more real, more cared for, more present because of his utter and grounded authenticity.  If you have ever had anyone give you their full attention, have met them mutually, in deep and attentive sharing, then you will have tasted what it is to be real for someone else and to know what a gift it is to both of you.

Let the same mind be in you that was in Jesus Christ, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself….

Philippians 2: 5-7a

This week someone showed me a beautiful wooden bowl that they had been given.  It was one of those bowls that purposefully is not completely finished.  You could still trace the slender trunk of the tree out of which it had been carved so that holding it you felt close to its source.  It was completely smooth on the outside and very deep and rounded within.  As I took it into my hands I felt a little jerk of response within myself.  It was a joy to hold, my own hands cupped the empty cup and as I held it and looked at it I thought, here is something on which one could meditate for hours.

Three things struck me immediately: the sheer pleasure of the wood, honed and smooth but also the way it made me open my hands to receive; the relatively speaking great space within the bowl, empty, waiting to be filled; and my reaction, that somehow this physical presence in my hands had awoken a spiritual response in me, somehow opening me up, creating in me a parallel, waiting space.

Many years ago I read a Zen Buddhist saying about the space inside a vase being more important than the vase.  If the purpose of a vase is to hold flowers, it would be pretty useless without the space.  One could argue (rightly) that the shape of a vase makes a difference to the way the flowers look within it, but actually anything can be made to hold flowers and as long as the flowers are pretty and arranged well, we respond with delight.  (We have at Launde some old tins, painted white, which hold flowers and look quite delightful on our tables in the courtyard.)

But of course interior space is what we all need to achieve if we are to hear the voice of God.  If we want to hear God speak, rather than all the other voices in our heads we have to find a way of hushing them.  Jesus himself and the great saints from John the Baptist onwards (“I must grow less so that he may grow more”) knew that we are invited to empty ourselves so that God may fill us and Jesus modelled this for us with his whole life.  Over and over again he said it was not him but God in him that he was expressing in thought word and deed.  We need to empty ourselves of the delusion of an identity separate from God, of the illusion that we make ourselves, and instead seek daily to be created and recreated by our Maker.

The spiritual writer, Joyce Rupp, wrote a whole book on spiritual growth, “The Cup of Life” using an ordinary teacup or mug as her starting point for meditation.  She wrote,

“Hold the empty cup in your hands. Look at all the room the cup has for filling. Picture the inner part of yourself. Notice how much room there is for filling. Hold the cup out before you in the gesture of a beggar. Ask God to fill you.”