Author Archives: Simon Marsh

About Simon Marsh

Anglican parish priest in Bramhall, Stockport, UK

LETTING WORDS GO …

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IT’S WELL NIGH impossible to describe the measure of “peace that passeth understanding” that is experienced here during our monthly gatherings for Monday Meditation. That, in part, must be due to the fact that meditation is really about letting go of thoughts and words and just being. I’m mindful this evening of the gospel account of the great storm that frightened Jesus’ disciples out of their wits. His words for them are words we do well to hear now:

Peace. Be still.

A core group of around 75 people are practising regularly in and around our parish church, and many tell me that the “peace” spoken of in the ancient prayers of the Church – but not always experienced - is becoming a deeper reality for them.

For all that Jesus calls us to rise up and follow him into action, (said one note this week) there’s no avoiding the message that he still speaks when we get caught in – or turn life into a storm. Always the same: ‘Peace. Be still.’

I’m grateful.

CONNECTION

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I’D NOT SEEN this year’s Britain’s Got Talent until my friend Hilary drew my attention to Charlotte and Jonathan, after a Eucharistic celebration in which Rachael Elizabeth – herself extra-ordinarily connected with her hearers – encouraged us to pay attention to the Dominical command to “love one another”.

I don’t mind telling you that I’ve just howled my eyes out! The connection that Rachael spoke of this morning is so completely and patently present in these two young singers. The odds of pre-judging criticism weighed heavily against them – and for all their youth, they knew it, too. But there’s a mind-blowing, awe-inspiring Grace in the connection between these two, and each brings out the phenomenal charism of the other. Millions have been following the series and will have seen this film before. I’d bet my bottom dollar that no-one will mind watching this one again.

I saw connection and majesty in the Black Dyke Band on Thursday. Now I’ve watched, over and over again, the connection between these two, the power of the encouraging glance, loyalty, mutual admiration, giving and giving some more until it hurts – and then some more still, so that the hurt gives way to joy and glory. This piece of film brings me – literally – to my knees with admiration and awe, and it stretches my heart and lungs to near bursting point. Each “sees” the other – and whenever and with whomsoever that happens we see a glimpse of Heaven. And, as Rachael suggested, in the ultimate fullness of life it’ll be confirmed, irrevocably, that “we’re family”. Let this be our prayer.

The fabulous Ashleigh and Pudsey won this particular competition and I loved their act – and the “connection” between them, too. The singing duo were “runners up”. But I don’t think I’ll ever forget young Charlotte and Jonathan. I’m profoundly struck by the thought that as the Holy Spirit animates God’s Creation by her self-giving, as the loving spirit and anointing grace of Mary Magdalene animated Jesus the Anointed, so Charlotte animates and draws out the song-in-the-soul of Jonathan – though she could easily and blessedly have revelled only in her own. I salute this strong and tender young woman. I am touched to the core by the beauty that each magnifies in the other. There’s deep, deep majesty in them; a paradoxical enormity and littleness about their self-giving humility, a greatness about their gifts – of music and of character.

Deep, deep, deep grace. How does one say a fitting “thank you” for that?

DELIGHT & FANTASIA

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I’M STILL REVELLING today in the echoes of Thursday’s concert with the world-class Black Dyke Band. The warmth, connection and sheer vivacious brilliance of the musicians gave the music an edge so keen that every muscle and sinew in my body was engaged in the majesty of it. The physicality, the being present, the being carried and enveloped by glorious music (Benedictus from Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man – A Mass for Peace had me barely able to breathe) and the intense connectedness and concentration of the music-makers was fantasia for me.

At times pure delight, flooded with moving colour and spirit, I was awed by the fullness and the flow of being and blowing and breathing, and lamentation and laughter and love, and passion and praise and sorrow, and life and breath and extra-ordinary energy in the entire enterprise. The band were a lesson in what communion truly means. (“On a rare free evening we still all go out together!”) As the years have gone by I’ve come to see, to feel, to “hear” colour in music and in silence more and more intensely, notwithstanding my dependence for “ordinary” sight now on glasses.

And the glorious thought occurs to me that perhaps through the years to come, and on into eternal years, colours become ever more beautifully observable, always and everywhere just the perfectly right colour and hue for the mood and the moment; and the music more perfectly an instrument of eternal healing and restoration, perfect union and vibration, there being silence and stillness – the home and the resting place of all music – often enough, and pure enough, to be able to host unimaginable notes of delight and fantasia, world without end, to which we ascend and ascend and ascend …

I am deeply indebted to the kindest of hosts for friendship and for Thursday evening. And ever more increasingly I know myself deeply indebted to the Kindest of Hosts for the eternal Grace of Life.

SINGLE STATEMENT

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Perfume bottle by Stuart Heath

THE MORE FERVENT your desire to reduce a whole set of experiences into a single statement, the more ignorant you appear, because life is too big, too broad, and too unpredictable to bottle as fragrance – no matter how many flowers are in the garden.

Katherine Monk, film review of Damsels in Distress, Vancouver Sun

FULL TO THE BRIM

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THIS WORLD is full of angels. Messengers of God. And because they’re in this world, because they’re here, in the flesh, with you and me, they sometimes wonder, with us, “how can I live?” Sometimes, of course, they answer their own question, or have it answered for them, inwardly, by God. All angels, nevertheless, need and deserve encouragement and assurance from the people amongst whom they live, and move, and have their being.

Angels are very aware of this need, of this being dependent upon something, upon someone, beyond their immediate selves. That’s how they become angels. Knowing their own need, and sometimes barely able to see through the pain of that need (and – by the Grace of God – the gift of healing tears) they are able to recognise and respond to the (often silent) human cries in others. And I know an angel called Mary, who is an inspiration, and who finds “life and hope in all the shades of green of the trees …” (I hope you like red tulips too, Mary).

As I stand at the bus stop in the early morning, tears streaming down my face, and wondering how I can live, I call myself back to the present moment.  “What in this moment can I feel and enjoy and be glad for?” God is encountered in the present moment, in all the sights, and smells and sounds, in each person we encounter and with whom we interact.  I find life and hope in all the shades of green of the trees and in the white blossom unfurling amidst the leaves.  I am alone in the world at this time.  Me and the possibilities of the day ahead.

At work of course, life finds me.  Here, in all my interactions with people, I find myself and all of us to be a part of something much greater than we are on our own.  In the very solid, real world of bodies and poo and blood and sick, and tears and fears and confusion, of laughter and love and violence, of connection, I find my greatest sense of the mysterious.  Work gives me life.  Giving my empty self to everybody, I end each day full up to the brim.  A day which has begun with wondering how I can live..,

via Depression and God and Other People and Me – And Three Cheers for Us All :) | All Now Mysterious.

I called at the Hospice again this afternoon. Again and again my life is touched and blessed by the ministries of angels from God. Alleluia!

LOOK AT THE SKYE

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YESTERDAY’S PEACEFUL reflection gave way to a debilitating migraine-level headache. Frightening afflictions, any pretensions to Superman status in this least superman-like creature on the planet are firmly quashed by such events, perhaps half a dozen times a year.

Good, deep sleep has done its healing work and I’m beginning Wednesday morning just slightly “foggy”. But, short of being hit over the head with a mallet, I’m almost always too inclined to leap straight back into (further debilitating) action again, notwithstanding all my long experience and talk of reflection and the benefits of living life at a slower pace.

Why? Why do we do this to ourselves? We know what the outcome will be, for the world, for nations, for institutions, for families, for friendships, for persons. I need perspective. I need to place my life in the context of a much bigger enterprise. I don’t want to slow down to the point of stopping, whilst not wanting to keep running until I smash face-first into a brick wall either.

I need to make time (4 minutes in this case), to contemplate, to loosen uptight shoulders, to breathe, to consider the glory and the wonder and the majesty of the gift of life. So I’m going to look again at Skye with David Watson’s eye. And then I’ll get cracking …

REFLECTION

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A CLERGY QUIET DAY with Bishop Robert Atwell today. Time for reflection and contemplation. The “quiet waters” of the canal near Dunham Massey bridge were just the place to be … and the passing narrow boats spoke to me, not for the first time, of the rightness I recognise in “making progress slowly”; of Kosuke Koyama’s “Three Mile An Hour God”.

No-one was rushing around our local Hospice this evening either. Quiet waters fit the bill there, too. Everyone speaks of being able to hear the birdsong, clearly, indoors. Perhaps it’s the slowing of the pace of life there that causes most everyone I know to speak of it as a place of beauty, peace, and sometimes even joy in the very midst of sadness. And staffed, of course, everyone says, by “Angels” – messengers.

MARY’S DRESS

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BANK HOLIDAY weekend affords a happy extension to “left brain time.” There are always more books I want to read, more paintings I want to paint, more photographs I want to make, more writing to be done, more poems to unfold, more prayer to be celebrated, more people to share some time and stories with, more songs to be sung, more colours to be marvelled at, more silence to be revelled in – than time ordinarily allows. And that very fact is cause for thanksgiving! Life is indeed a rich tapestry. The signs of the reign, the joy of God, are all around me. And I’m immensely thankful for the connections that blogging makes possible with people all around the world.

Today’s artwork is inspired, in Eastertide, by Mary Magdalene, beloved apostle of Jesus, first witness to new life in the Resurrection, loyal provider of intimate and loving support and sustenance, someone generous, open-hearted and giving, someone who just “knew” instinctively, what Jesus’ mission on earth was about, someone released, by God’s goodness, from the kind of prison every one of us finds ourselves in from time to time.

All human persons are “bedevilled” by “Legion” the perpetually underlying and taunting belief that somehow we’re failing to make the grade, we’re unlovable, bigger and better “failures” than anyone else, destined to be “alone”, faithless, heartbroken, misunderstood, wretched. All human persons yearn for the kind of release that Jesus’ love and acceptance brought about in Mary’s life; for the kind of release that she brought about in his.

Mary Magdalene: someone cruelly maligned and abused by religious patriarchy and misogyny across the centuries, but all the while someone I’ve admired and looked to as an icon of life’s richness and fullness, of life’s goodness and generosity, of life’s being – under the vivifying reign of God – a beautifully, colourfully, gorgeously dressed dance with our Creator.

Sydney Carter described Jesus as The Lord of the Dance. In my heart I think of Mary of Magdala as Jesus’ dance-partner and she is clothed, dressed, like the environment all around and about her, in colour and glory. And theirs is a partnership, theirs is a dance that, far from being exclusive and excluding, invites you and I to join. “Shall we dance?”, Mary asks. “And shall we sing?”, asks the Lord of the Dance. And sometimes the colours blur a little in the swirling. And sometimes they’re blended by our tears …

Have you seen the wonder of it? Have you seen Mary’s dress?

GLANCING …

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THERE’S AN ENCOUNTER with Heaven in William P Young’s The Shack  that has left an indelible mark on me. It’s a vivid, vital vision of colour-expressed emotions

a wash of ruby and vermillion, magenta and violet, as the light and color whirled around and embraced him …

Countless connections. Whirling. Swirling. Shimmering. Glowing. Loving. Forgiving. Embracing. Changing. And – ever since I read the book – gifts of daily such “visions” have delighted me.

The artist Wendy Rudd recently encouraged me, and a group of friends, to let go of “right brain” connection sometimes and let “left brain” make itself heard. I’ve blessed her many times for that encouragement. I let go of mental overload, on a fairly regular basis, by listening / looking instead to “left brain”, allowing wordiness to become colour and image. And colours – perpetually glancing, gently bumping and bouncing into and through one another, make connections and communion …