PI IS RAISED A HINDU, but as a fourteen-year-old he is introduced to Christianity and Islam, and starts to follow all three religions as he “just wants to love God.” He tries to understand God through the lens of each religion and comes to recognize benefits in each one.
Breathtaking cinematography. Yann Martel the novelist must be delighted. I was and am.
FR RICHARD ROHR is one of the great inspirations of my life and I’m grateful to my friend Ivon Prefontaine for reminding me recently of Richard’s Daily Meditations.
In a series of Meditations on his “lineage”, whilst planning the opening of a new Living School for Action and Contemplation Fr Richard’s meditation on Sunday read
Orthopraxy in much of Buddhism and Hinduism
Orthopraxy is usually distinguished from orthodoxy. Orthodoxy refers to doctrinal correctness, whereas orthopraxy refers to right practice. What we see in many of the Eastern religions is not an emphasis upon verbal orthodoxy, but instead upon practices and lifestyles that, if you do them (not think about them, but do them), end up changing your consciousness.
This was summed up in the Eighth Core Principle of the Center for Action and Contemplation: We don’t think ourselves into a new way of living; we live ourselves into a new way of thinking. I hope that can be a central building block of the Living School.
And – joyfully – today I’ve been chestily croaking ALLELUIA! upon reading today’s thoughts about the witness of art
Unique witness of mythology, poetry, and art
My earliest recordings often included mythological stories, poetry, or art to make the point. Many people are more right-brained learners than left-brained. When you bring in a story, or a poem, or refer to a piece of art, you can see people’s interest triple: “Wow, I’m with you!” Whereas, if you stay on the verbal level all the time, their eyes glaze over, they lose interest, they lose fascination and identification with the message.
I don’t think Western preachers and teachers have really understood the importance of art in general. Until people can “catch” the message with an inner image, it usually does not go deep. We’ve also been afraid of myths that weren’t Christian. In fact, we were afraid of the very word “myth.” We thought it meant something that wasn’t true when, in fact, it’s something that’s always true—if it’s a true myth. This will be a very important substratum of the Living School curriculum.
One of the things I most love and admire about Richard Rohr is his generosity of heart, mind, soul and body. He’s open to seeing the Divine all around us, open to contemplation and to receiving the Wisdom from traditions other – though as he shows us, not always so very “other” – from his own. I love that Fr Richard balances the importance of both orthodoxy and orthopraxy; that he both thinks deeply and feels profoundly. That, it seems to me, is what the call of Jesus Christ – and of other great spiritual masters and teachers – is really all about. As Richard has it, “living ourselves into a new way of thinking”. That’s something all of us can do, all of the time, with or without particular religious frameworks – though many, in the living, will thrive in the kind of religious environment that seeks – as the word religion intends (from Latin religare - ”to reconnect, to bind together”) – to bind up the whole.
My friend Mimi is a generous contemplative - Between Night And Day; as is the marvellous Rebecca Koo - Heads or Tails; and Bill Wooten’s - The Present Moment brings a wonderful word from Thomas Merton – and a stunning photo; Francesca Zelnick is as special as her Today’s Special; David Herbert is one of my diocesan friends and I love his latest post (and we share affection for Parker Palmer); and Rachael Elizabeth’s been having a good time doing Christology and incense-sampling ( ! ) in Durham; James Fielden – always showing us “The Way Home” – meditates exquisitely upon Time; Ginny at “Chasing the Perfect Moment” writes about Re-creation; Ria Gandhi has been wondering about who and what’s Beautiful and has flagged up one answer here; Jenni has been Watching the Symphony here.
What are we looking at in all these human “works of art”. What do I see as I reflect upon the colours, upon the wide spectrum that arches over the whole of my life?
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus
Holy, Holy, Holy
Multi-coloured and blessed sanctity – God’s art: whether we’re always aware of it – or not …
BISHOP ROBERT ATWELL and I touched on the convergence of the words ‘liberal’ and ‘radical’ in a stimulating conversation the other day. Both of us were speaking of inclusiveness, accessibility, direction, purpose, of a church’s special charism or gift of grace – of getting back to grass roots. And “the Spirit is moving” it seems, because ‘liberal’ and ‘radical’ featured frequently and prominently in our excellent Church Council deliberations about Growth Action Planning here last night. (Where are we? What are we? Why are we? Where are we heading? Where could we be in 5 years? Where do we want to be in 5 years?)
Sandcastles and temples
It doesn’t take much effort to enumerate some of the ways in which church and society are changing before our very eyes, and at a rate of knots. Frenetic building (or perpetual ‘repairing’) of even our strongest sandcastles is – history shows us time and again – sooner or later to be inundated. Baptism. The ocean prevails. The proud are scattered “in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek”. (Magnificat – Luke 1)
Justice and peace
O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.O light that foll’west all my way,
I yield my flick’ring torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.George Matheson
It’s no accident that ocean breeze and flow keeps blowing the words ‘justice’ and ‘peace’ back into the faces of a Church comprised of many who lived through the human turmoil of the twentieth century – during which more human beings killed members of their own species than at any other point in history. We simply MUST aspire to richer, fuller, brighter, fairer, tearless promise. And our Growth Action Planning last night had the current atrocities in Syria as a backdrop to concentrate the mind, whilst one of our Council reps teaches in a school in which over 35 languages are spoken amongst the small children.
Open plan … and the old glass ceilings
Oceans level sandcastles and temples and leave beaches washed clean. And golden. An invitation. Like fresh snow the shoreline swept clean invites new footprints. “And we therefore will not fear, though the earth be moved and the hills be carried into the midst of the sea” (Psalm 46). And we ask the question, “so where are we headed now?” Levelled, shaken up a bit and cleaned, both the ocean and the land are still here. Shall we build the same old castles or shall we have a rethink? Shall we go for a bit more “open plan”? Shall we leave out the old glass ceilings? Shall we thank God that all the Synodical and Parliamentary minutes about the difference between men and women, and straight and gay, and the world’s faith traditions, and political ideologies, and representation rules – got washed out to sea, whilst the ocean and the land and the better memories – one might almost say the “divine memories” – are still here.
Parables
Once again there’s a fabulous little parable in this week’s UK Church Times. The visionary and prophetic Bishop Kelvin Wright of Dunedin, New Zealand, is reported as saying
my diocese faces extinction … but I’m not losing any sleep over this. I think several other dioceses will be watching what we do with interest
We are. And thankfully Kelvin will be as familiar as I am with an older parable
unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. – John 12.24
What will it mean for the Church – “the Body of Christ now on earth” – and for the World of the future to be both liberal and radical? Bring on the ocean – an inundation worth learning to swim in, and that right early.
Jerusalem the golden with milk and honey blest beneath thy contemplation sink heart and voice oppressed. I know not, O, I know not what joys await us there, what radiancy of glory, what bliss beyond compare
loveforallhatredfornone.org - please click photo to enlarge
WHAT DID YOU ENJOY MOST? - I asked one of our congregation here after the midweek Eucharist on Wednesday – we’d all been trying to spot her at the Jubilee Celebrations in London on the tv. “Oh”, said Eunice, “the atmosphere, the pomp and ceremony, the camaraderie, the colour … but nothing touched me more than the banner congratulations carried by the London Buses: Congratulations Your Majesty! – Muslims for Peace“. Eunice’s report received a heartfelt round of the warmest applause.
I LONG FOR A WORLD of many colours and blurred edges – so the Diamond Jubilee celebrations here in the UK and elsewhere in the world have been “right up my street”. Longing for such a world, for a “New Jerusalem” (loosely translated: “the peace of the Vision of Peace”) I’ve sought for most of my life quietly to follow the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, whose awareness of the Divine at work in him enabled him, precisely, to recognise the Divine presence and dignity at work in all human persons, fully recognising that they sometimes “know not what they are doing”. And I honour and treasure many beloved friends and disciples who, in good conscience, walk in other great pathways of peace both “sacred” and “secular”.
A willing servant
Jesus’ recognition of the Divine presence at work in all people made of him a willing servant who, in placing the value of others’ lives before his own, became for them a “saviour”, one who came to be known as “Christos” – Anointed. And, encouraged by this same Jesus of Nazareth, I have gladly sought to assimilate his teachings, and some of the teachings of other great spiritual guides of the world’s faith traditions, who have sought to lead humankind into the paths of peace. I’ve a long way to go. There are many such teachings and we all have more to learn than we sometimes recognise or recall, so I’ve revelled in the celebrations.
Kindness and good
Why? Well, many commentators have observed that millions “feel safe” under the benevolent – and anointed – reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II because, ever reliable, “she is always there”. I would add that I “feel safe” precisely because the Queen is benevolent – someone who “wishes to do kindness and good”, someone whose reliability and steadfastness encourages an (albeit often forgetful!) nation to follow suit.
Hundreds of thousands have jostled together cheerfully and safely in the London of the past few days. Crowds have “rubbed along” in amazingly close proximity because a crowd that wishes to honour and to do kindness and good has no sharp edges. Laughter is heard in the land. Colours and differences blend so that even little children and the elderly are able to participate in the throng and press without fear for their personal safety, without for a moment doubting their personal dignity and worth as part of a celebrating whole. Here’s a grand vision of “a green and pleasant land”.
Defender of Faiths
I’ve heard too many conversations amongst English churchmen and women who have laughed scornfully at ideas proposed in the past by HRH the Prince of Wales – that there might be a time when the ancient title Defender of the Faith, as applied to the British Monarch, might be changed slightly so that the Sovereign became Defender of Faiths.
But the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales, have been quietly getting on with the task anyway, without need, in the event, of an amended title. And the present Archbishop of Canterbury, working with and alongside other faith leaders in this country and around the world, has supported and sustained an ever healthier religious environment in which sharp edges are properly and gladly softened so that a diverse population finds itself able to rub along together without fear of injury to heart, soul, mind or body.
God save the Queen! God save benevolence!
The immeasurable goodness and greatness of the Fount and Source of everything that is simply cannot be encapsulated or contained in one expression or tradition of faith or philosophy. We do well to note that the Gospels record Jesus of Nazareth living and teaching two non-negotiables as firm foundations for the good of all:
… one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. – Matthew 22.35-40
What, I wonder tonight, is the Name of the Nurse in William Blake’s Songs of Innocence?
Nurse’s Song
When voices of children are heard on the green,
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast,
And everything else is still.
‘Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,
And the dews of night arise;
Come, come, leave off play, and let us away,
Till the morning appears in the skies.’‘No, no, let us play, for it is yet day,
And we cannot go to sleep;
Besides, in the sky the little birds fly,
And the hills are all covered with sheep.’
‘Well, well, go and play till the light fades away,
And then go home to bed.’
The little ones leaped, and shouted, and laughed,
And all the hills echoèd.
Some glad day each and every one of us, presently at play, will know Her Name, the name of the One whom Defenders of Faiths now serve. And music and colours in hills and plains and valleys in every nation upon earth shall blend. And we shall live in an entirely Commonwealth forever. Pray. And if you do not pray then do and say:
Some glad day …
The yearning for holiness remains alive today. We live with a sense that we can be more than we are. We feel the pull of the transcendent and live with a call to be the person God intended. The ammas [the 'Desert Mothers', Christian ascetics in the 4th and 5th centuries] understood that holiness was founded upon wholeness. They teach us that we must shed our false self and allow our true self to emerge.
Laura Swan, The Forgotten Desert Mothers, p 157
WHOLENESS. What constitutes our wholeness? This is the question that lies at the heart of all questions, at the heart of all relationships and right living, and the saints who trod the path of life before us were women and men who recognised that we’re all of us caught up in a process of emerging. The pursuit of holiness and wholeness cannot be a rushed exercise. It’s our lifetime’s task. We shouldn’t be too quick to arrive at answers, still less to “provide” answers for others!
Wholeness and holiness will emerge in human persons at different times, in different places, and at different rates. Quick fix “evangelism” can be misleading, even dangerous at times, and destructive. If any of us need “saving” from anything it’s from those who want to draft out the terms and conditions of our wholeness for us. Wholeness will involve being our deepest, truest selves … and will therefore involve us in being distinctive, unique – and necessarily different.
Live and let live
The world’s religious and philosophical traditions, and the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion that I love and seek to serve, have no choice but to continue to grapple with the life issues that some find it so hard to be reconciled with, issues that are largely to do with diversity. We really do need to learn to live and let live. We really do need to be reconciled to the processes of emerging.
“We live with a sense that we can be more than we are. We feel the pull of the transcendent.” We are emerging – and we’ll know we’ve arrived in the fullness of the reign of God, or, if religious language isn’t helpful, we’ll know we’ve arrived in the state of wholeness, when we’re genuinely and wholly able to revel and delight in our gloriously gifted diversity.
Meanwhile, to return again to the wisdom of Sonny Kapoor, the young hotel proprietor in the fabulous The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel -
Everything will be alright in the end, and if it’s not alright now then it cannot be the end …
POETRY IS SOUL STIRRING. That’s its job. Stirring souls. From the Greek poiein – to make or compose – poetry is an exercise in listening, in making things new, in vivifying, bringing life and maintaining and sustaining it. Poetry opens windows onto the depths of our souls, and the depth always surprises us, opens us, stretches us, appeals to a deeper generosity of spirit, a wider inclusivity. We will never cultivate a love for poetry if we’re inclined to maintain fixed positions – on any subject or object under the sun.
On the move …
Poetry is on the move, dynamic (explosive), changing, creating, morphing. Poetry is beyond the control - of any one human person – even beyond that of the poet. “The Spirit listeth where it wills”. Poetry bears the very Word of Life to hungry hearts, souls, minds and bodies. Poetry is a wide open door and every man, woman and child is invited to enter or depart her portals entirely at will. Poetry – this particular kind of creativity – invites us to celebrate being free to be.
God is the Great Poet. Word has been breathed into the Universe – and thereafter, through the divers gifts of Spirit, trusted to do Word-stuff – something different, even when similar, in every hearer, indeed in every element and atom of Creation. My prophet doesn’t look, sound or make exactly the same sense to me as yours does to you. Your “Christ” and mine might be similar whilst also being different. God – and Life itself – are seen through different lenses. And God is apparently OK with that. We can no more say that another’s faith “is not true” than we could say the same of a poem. Truth is a matter of perspective and a matter of the Word heard; what, where, when and by whom.
Sacred writings
That’s why the world’s sacred writings – the Bible amongst these – are full to bursting with glorious poetry. That’s why, in the Church of England, The Book of Common Prayer is granted a place of high honour. That’s why the late twentieth century Church of England’s Common Worship points to Divine activity with supremely beautiful phraseology such as “the silent music of your praise”. Poetry itself might be bound between two covers, poetry binds up, gathers, collects – in the sense of drawing together, but poetry never seeks to imprison. Poetry recognises that the real grace of words is their function as vehicles for every person’s imaginative creativity and expression. Christian truth, as one example amongst the world’s faith traditions, is intended to hold and to celebrate the glorious fact of diversity.
I think that’s why poetry enters most every conversation I ever have with a would-be priest. Conversation with four ordinands today, two within our parish and two without, led naturally and fluidly into the sharing of poetry. That’s always rewarding and hopeful in my book. I’m assured thereby of a willing and loving open-mindedness and generosity of spirit.
All of one race – the human one
Further reflection upon the gifts of Pentecost at the Eucharistic celebration here this morning brought us again to that glorious affirmation in the King James Version of the Bible (Acts 2) – “we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God”. Different words and different languages for different people, but all of one race – the human one.
The sharing of three poems – each written by people of different religious traditions – was well received by one person after another at the fiftieth birthday celebration of our Associated Church Fellowships group here in the late afternoon. And – gloriously – in the relatively few words of the poetry a large assembly multiplied the power of the words by a factor of 50 or more persons present. Each of us hears a different measure of truth from exactly the same set of words – and are, at one and the same time, bound by a common, shared experience.
A Vision …
And then there was the sharing of Psalm 122. “O pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.” Jerusalem is the big word here so we unpacked it. Jerusalem may be translated “City, or Vision, of Peace”. (Oh, can you feel the irony?). Let’s pray the psalm poetically – “O pray for the peace of the Vision of Peace”. Ah! There’s OUR point and purpose. Whether we’re praying for or about the representatives of the three Abrahamic faiths that look to Jerusalem, or for or about any other form of reaching out (or in) to the Divine, what is of fundamental importance is that we pray, with all our hearts and souls and minds and bodies, with our very lives, for the peace of the Vision of Peace. How are we to set about this in practice? By cultivating a love for the poetic, by being open-hearted, by being willing to recognise that the Divine Source of all our lives is “making all things new” and “turning the world upside down”.
Ria Gandhi, a writer friend who lives in Mumbai shares my affection for the works of Rabindranath Tagore. I love the 78th Song Offering in Gitanjali – with which I ought to draw this post to a close … (for the wholly pedestrian reason that I’m due at my aqua-fit class in half an hour!)
When the creation was new and all the stars shone in their first splendour, the gods held their assembly in the sky and sang ‘Oh, the picture of perfection! the joy unalloyed!’
But one cried of a sudden – ‘It seems that somewhere there is a break in the chain of light and one of the stars has been lost.’
The golden string of the harp snapped, their song stopped, and they cried in dismay – ‘Yes, that lost star was the best, she was the glory of all heavens!’
From that day the search is unceasing for her, and the cry goes on from one to the other that in her the world has lost its one joy!
Only in the deepest silence of the night the stars smile and whisper among themselves – ‘Vain is this seeking! Unbroken perfection is over all!’
Room for all shapes, colours and sizes: York Minster, Europe’s largest Gothic Cathedral credit Yorkshire.com
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things – Gerard Manley Hopkins
HOW DID IT GO? some lovely friends (in the UK, in Canada, France and the US) have asked this evening. How, they’ve asked, having read yesterday’s What’s Good News?, was the Catholic Evangelism conference? And I find myself in the same sort of place I’m in when someone asks “How was Easter?”. How on earth am I going to answer that one in five minutes? Or five hours? How will I not have bored everyone half to death before I’ve got halfway through my stuttering reply? Anyway, here goes:
Great speaker
Charismatic speaker, Fr Philip North. There’s a photo on the Old St Pancras Team Ministry Website, where he’s Rector, that describes his “presence” and excitement better than any words of mine might. His problem with the BBC’s wonderful “REV” is only that “anyone who works half as hard as Tom Hollander would never have only 12 people attending his church in London.” I was really glad to hear that. And I’d wager there’ll be more than a dozen or two attending his own church.
Truth and uniqueness?
And there were good friends there, a return visit for me to a church and parish where I spent happy years as Vicar (1996-2001), a good lunch, good speakers, good conversation – all these are part of my answer to the question. But – a degree of alienation, bewilderment, frustration and questioning are also part of my answer to the same question. I keep banging my head, hard and painfully, against ecclesiastical assertions about “truth” and “uniqueness”. For the life of me, notwithstanding my most sincere desire to understand and to be be understood by some of my more assertive fellow Christians – Protestant, Catholic and all-shades-in-between – I simply cannot grasp how some expressions of Christian faith have come to be so certain about what are seen as Christian facts, with the accompanying assertion that others’ truths must necessarily be deficient. If I believe in the God I say I believe in then I cannot help but believe in many levels and expressions of truth, yes, even “multi-truth”.
Narcissicism?
It’s not that I’m anti-truth, more that I fear the mindset (and parochial immodesty) of those who believe that they have unique access to it, those who believe they’ve encountered truth in its fullness. And I’m not being deliberately bolshie! I absolutely want an answer to my question: “How can you know that you’re more in possession of truth than is another?” I can grasp and assent to Jesus’ own reported “He who has seen me has seen the Father” – but did he mean that such a seeing granted someone an entirely new status, a more exalted position in the scheme of things? An A Level in Divinity, perhaps? A theological degree? If God is truly to be seen in the faces of the poor then “The Father” is also going to be seen, isn’t “He” in thee, and in any and all “others”, and in me. What would it mean for us to think more of God’s presence being everywhere – and not only within our denomination or tradition, not only in what we reckon we know, or say we believe, or think we can see? Or does our narcissicism rule out an “everywhere” possibility? Surely Jesus was constantly suggesting that there’s always going to be so much more that we cannot yet see. We’re not yet in full possession of truth. And what truth we are in possession of is always going to be meant to set tax collectors and prostitutes, non-Church people, Persians, Medes, Elamites, everyone – free. (Though JP Gustafsson’s The Unmasking of the Selfish Heart – what it means to be truly free – really resonates with me). Earthly truth must be encountered within a temporal context – of provisionality.
Perceived opposition
And perhaps we’re a people “under judgment” (Fr Philip – several times during the course of the day) only because we spend so much time judging others … and coming, sometimes, too frequently if truth be told, to believe that it’s OK simply to “do away with” any form of perceived opposition; looking at others as potential pew fodder, funding for our temples (well, the ones we like, anyway) – or bust. Why – I want to know – do we want to keep the Church of England afloat? What for? Are we serious about being open-hearted, will we listen to others’ experience, can we admit that we’re not in possession of all the “facts”, that we’re a people who “faith” in life and love. Are we serious about being really, honestly, permanently – an open door?
Empties
And will it be OK with us, sometimes, perhaps increasingly often, to close the doors of resource-devouring and under-used church buildings (do read Bishop Kelvin Wright of Dunedin’s “Empties“) so that we’re freer to open the doors of hearts – to others? It’s going to need to be OK. And it’s absolutely not easy. I know. I’m a parish priest who has closed one of his parish churches. The final service was a desperately painful “funeral”, indeed someone succinctly described it as “our cross”. But it did turn out to be an important, an essential, crossroads. My successor and her fellow disciples in that place went on to close another of the remaining two … and then to build up a much stronger one. I think the gospels record that Jesus spoke of the necessity of pruning, whilst also reminding the self-satisfied of the difficulties their camels will encounter when trying to negotiate the eyes of needles.
Billions of variables
Truth, surely, is Divine. God, the Mother and Father of us all, is in full possession of truth. Our access to the Divine is, as yet, limited, (now we see through a glass darkly) and coloured and shaped by billions of variables – a person’s having been born in Bangkok, Bethlehem or Birkenhead, Stockport, Shanghai or Sydney being amongst these. A person’s being female, male, gay or straight having also a major bearing on our life and faith perceptions. And it’s not as though Christian assertions about truth or the uniqueness of Christ were filling the pews with convinced truth-seekers. We reflected for a moment or two today on the “news” that less than 1% of the population of Stockport, here in North West England, attend our churches. Many non-attenders are nonetheless real exemplars of Jesus Christ, consciously or sub-consciously, with or without a religious vocabulary. These are to be celebrated. “For of such (like children) is the Kingdom of Heaven”.
Sleepwalking?
Sometimes I think that the Church of England is sleepwalking towards more of the same; that she misses the dearest freshness deep down things. And perhaps I’ll fall over the edge of the Church one day. But, for all of that, I’m not wholly disheartened. A new friend introduced me recently to Gregg Levoy’s wonderful book Callings. In it he writes
on a windy spring day, a part of the invisible world was made, for a brief moment, visible to me.
I saw in the light lancing through a row of trees, great streams of yellow pollen sweeping by on the wind, every speck filled with information – blueprints for making perfect blue flowers, the dark musculature of trees, meadow grasses.
I saw in that moment that the whole sky is filled with furtive transmissions – pollen and seeds, radio waves and subatomic particles, the songs of birds, satellite broadcasts of the six o’clock news and the Home Shopping Network. And I saw that what is necessary to make substance or meaning out of any of it is a receiver, somebody to receive.
“Furtive transmissions” (Gregg Levoy)
I want to be the kind of catholic evangelist who is not so wrapped up in theological either / or that he misses the “furtive transmissions” that the over-arching sky, the wide embrace of the “Cosmic Christ” is so patently full of. Not an either / or sort of a Christian but one who knows that in all things – and for as long as time endures – he’s somewhere in-between.
I’M OFF TO A DAY CONFERENCE on “Catholic Evangelism” tomorrow. I’m not wholly sure whether it’s going to be about Catholic Evangelism (capital C, capital E) or catholic evangelism (small c, small e), and I’m rather hoping for the latter … hoping, that is to say, for a catholic evangelism that really is about good news (evangelism) universally applied (catholic), ie, for everybody – no matter their “faith tradition” or lack thereof – everywhere.
I’ve spent a very great deal of my life passionately pondering what exactly constitutes good news, and in particular why having some sort of acknowledged relationship to / with the Source of our lives might matter – to individuals, to communities, to nations, to our world, to the whole created order – some of these whole and healthy, some desperately broken, hurting, and in need of that Divine touch that brings healing. And I’m consistently finding that old definitions of what it means to be Catholic, or Protestant, or Christian, or shades in between all of these, don’t fit all sizes any more, if they ever did.
Christ everywhere …
What constitutes Good News in a ‘catholic’, pluralistic world? Where is an / our anointed Christ to be found? (as I’m sure such a Christ is indeed to be found, anywhere in the world, and across the world’s faith traditions). And the questions are so important to me because as a Christian priest, seeking always to live and learn – to be a disciple – after the pattern of Jesus of Nazareth, I have observed that some kinds of Catholic, some kinds of Protestant, and some kinds of “Christian” plainly do not represent very good news for many people at all. So catholic evangelism must be something quite different, something much more open, something prepared always to be held to account as to the reach of what it purports to be good news. Catholic evangelism will not, I think, be too prescriptive.
Feast of life for all
Catholic evangelism will offer the “feast of life” to people in the “highways and byways” won’t it? Catholic evangelists, personal and corporate, will have dismantled their drawbridges. Catholic evangelism will be less concerned (although not wholly unconcerned) with the Faith of our Fathers and hugely more concerned with Faith Being Received Today. When I’ve asked adults over the past thirty years whether they’d like to come to confirmation classes, so that they can be presented to the bishop, confirmed, and thereafter receive Holy Communion many have politely declined. When I’ve offered the Sacrament of Holy Communion “no questions asked” it has been the case, more frequently than I can count, that the recipient has ended up doing the asking, seeking to confirm a present and acknowledged reality – satisfied hunger – in their lives.
Let’s explore!
And I remember that Jesus was ever ready to go the extra mile for children, too. “Do not try to stop them for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these”. Catholic evangelists will work hard at becoming more, well … catholic – so that they’re more plainly seen to be, well … “Christian” or “Anointed”. Catholic evangelists will be interested in marginalised multi-tasking-capable women, tax collectors, prodigal sons, unimaginative but very opinionated men, quieter and more imaginative men, too, and in lost sheep. Catholic evangelism won’t chastise the lost sheep for having left the fold in order to “explore”, still less tell the poor creature that God forbids it. Instead truly catholic evangelists (like Jesus of Nazareth) will make the fold larger so that there’s the space for MORE sheep to engage in the business of exploration, to engage, that is to say, in their God-given Life!
The Sound of Silence
One of the biggest growth areas in our parish (liberal Catholic with blurry edges – a bit like my paintings!) – has been a call to shared and silent meditation in the parish church – arriving and departing in companionable silence. No coffee or handing out electoral roll forms afterwards. And numbers in excess of many a church’s entire Sunday congregation have responded to a call – we believe a Divine call – to dwell for a space, together in the “house for the Church”, to wait upon the Word that touches life in silence. (The Word – not words. There’s not “even” a Bible reading). It’s life-changing, say many participants. It’s the only occasion in my month when I’m really and deeply aware of the heartbeat of God, the pulse of life, say others. This silence, this “that’s not very Catholic” but absolutely catholic encounter is breathing into our common life new elements of what it means to bear good news in our lives today, what it means, first and foremost to BE the Body of Christ now on earth, what it means to be religious in the original sense of the word (religare) – reconnected, re-membered. Restored to what we’ve forgotten.
Old assumptions yield
So whether tomorrow proves to be slanted more to Catholic Evangelism, or to catholic evangelism, I hope we’ll be asking the same question – What is Good News? – at least sometimes. Because, remembering Louis MacNeice’s Mutations again:
… old assumptions yield to new sensations.
The Stranger in the Wings is waiting for his cue.
The fuse is always laid to some annunciation …
Tracy – photo/emmaward
REALLY GREAT first sermon from Tracy Ward here today. We’ve had some inspirational first sermons here in the last year or two and I’m thrilled to bits that we’ve currently 3 aspiring priests at Bramhall Parish Church, and we’re also sponsoring the theological training of an ordinand for the Diocese of Newala, Tanzania.
God’s Spirit calls hearts and souls and minds and bodies today, as ever. Tracy voiced the Word of God’s Spirit with an encouragement to Live Your Life – being exemplars of the kind of in-love-with-life-and-Love-service that can truly be described as a more excellent way. Great sermon. Great eucharistic worship. Great Spirit of God right here in the midst of us. We hear the commission. We’ll act upon the call: the uniting, embracing Body of Christ.
