Category Archives: faith traditions

DOWN TO THE DUST

Posted on by
Reply

ONE OF THE MOST VIVID memories I’ve carried across the years is that of the Funeral of Grace Perigo, a teacher of Classics. My fellow students and I were practiced over and over to sing the Russian Kontakion for the Departed. Neither the words, nor the music, nor the solemnity of that funeral 35 years ago have left me.

And just this week I’ve been reading in Richard Holloway’s Leaving Alexandria, published on the 1st March, his account of a similar funeral, on this occasion that of a fellow student, during the years of his own formation at Kelham House.

Give rest, O Christ, to thy servant with thy saints: where sorrow and pain are no more; neither sighing but life everlasting. Thou only art immortal, the creator and maker of man: and we are mortal formed from the dust of the earth, and unto earth shall we return: for so thou didst ordain, when thou created me saying: “Dust thou art und unto dust shalt thou return.” All we go down to the dust; and weeping o’er the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Sky News reports this lunchtime on the desecration by Libyan militants of more than 150 graves of British Servicemen killed during the Second World War. “Headstones at the Benghazi war cemetery were pulled down, with crucifixes destroyed by vandals … the Foreign Office says it believes the attack was carried out by a group of Salafist jihadists, a hardline branch of Islam, because Muslim graves were also desecrated.”

The desecration of a grave, any grave, is absolutely unacceptable. Civilised people of all faiths and none are in agreement about that. But this particular tragic occasion has given rise to an immensely important official statement by the Libyan National Transitional Council  - apologising to all Christians for the destruction of the cemeteries – that I hope and pray will not be overlooked in the immediate revulsion upon hearing / seeing news of these dreadful acts:

“These actions are the personal actions of specific individuals and do not reflect the views of the National Transitional Council and are nothing to do with the Islamic Faith. We are Muslims, we know that our God created us from the earth and we will go back to the earth, so all souls belong to God. Once again, we hope that the Christian community worldwide can accept our apology for what has happened”, the statement read.

I thank God for the very great grace and goodness in this statement and apology. And particularly for the grace-filled assertion: Muslims … know that our God created us from the earth and we will go back to the earth, so all souls belong to God.

For Christians, too, know that we go down into the dust; and weeping oe’r the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.”

Let us apologise to one another, daily: Muslims, Christians, those of “other faiths” and none, for the countless acts of desecration we wreak upon one another, upon lives and not just upon graves. Because all souls belong to God. And I cannot see that God would have it any other way. So weeping o’er our graves and in the midst of our torn and bewildered lives, let us live and sing Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

ARE YOU GOING TO SAN FRANCISCO?

Posted on by
Reply

TO SAN FRANCISCO? I wish. But no. No immediate plans. Bramhall’s my patch for the present. But some day. Some way. Because somehow St Gregory of Nyssa’s Church in San Francisco lives and listens and speaks with and about the kind of words I’m constantly wanting to say. And do. And Grace Cathedral too. Church Times’ front page photo of a celebration of the Eucharist at St Gregory’s represents for me the glorious hotch-potch of loved and redeemed humanity that is my own life’s prayer and perpetual dream. And there’s a big chunk of an extract of Sara Miles, author of Jesus Freak: Feeding, healing, raising the dead. 

Worship and service were part of a whole; the Friday food pantry and the Sunday eucharist were just different expressions of the same thing. Well meaning Christian visitors liked to describe the pantry as a “feeding ministry”, but that just seemed like a nervous euphemism to me. What I saw was church: hundreds of people gathering each week around an altar to share food and to thank God. And then, on Sundays, in the very same space, communion. The priest and whoever else was serving that day – a woman with cancer, a fussy older guy, a serene, angelic seven year old boy in shorts – would lift the plates of fresh bread and cups of wine, and turn, showing the food to the people standing pressed close around the big, round table in the middle of the sanctuary …

These words, and this photo, and these films speak to me of the God of Life whose own freedom has granted humankind its own. Freedom to explore. Freedom to become whole and holy in and amongst the hotch-potch of communities filled with people of every shade and hue and opinion and creed under the sun and stars. Freedom in which hospitality and generosity are extended to all. Am I going to San Francisco? Well, whether on earth, or the San Francisco in heaven, some day, I pray. And in the morning here in Bramhall? There will be alimentos gratis – the free food of Divine Love – in Eucharist at 8, 9 and 10.45am – and during the course of these celebrations, by the Grace of God, six children will be baptised …

IMAGINING

Posted on by
Reply

IMAGINING. I think that’s one of our chief works as humans. It’s how we co-create with the Source of all life. And imagining is what I’ve been doing all day. First in a fairly routine sort of early morning meeting, later in a scintillating encounter between an artist, Stephen Raw, an architect, John Prichard, two churchwardens, Ralph Luxon and Sue Taylor, and a photographing priest who thought he was in photographic heaven, moi …

I took many dozens of photos. Mindful of my manners though I will check with the artist before sharing too many more than the one above. This is a little trio of beautiful articles in a Stephen shaped cave. Not the work of the artist, but absolutely the work of the artist, if you know what I mean? Stephen’s studio feels like a coloured X-ray of his heart and soul and mind and body; a statement of faith and an act of imagination and creation. We came away energised at some profound level. We’d been standing on holy ground. I shall hope to stand there again. And there was good coffee! And cookies.

~

Later in the day I imagined a lovely local man being now in the nearer presence of God. I was deeply moved by his wife Sheila’s beautiful reading of Psalm 121 during a memorial service at nearby All Saints’ where Harry had been the organist until his sudden and unexpected death. The music, sung, played and listened to, together with Fr David’s quite simply superb shepherding of the service, and a fine address, made for one of the very finest funeral thanksgivings I’ve ever experienced. I’m deeply grateful for that and know that Harry’s family must surely be yet more thankful. Harry was an artist in his own distinctive and giving way. Perhaps all of us, in early morning meetings, artist’s studio, thanksgiving service in Church, or wheresoever we may be, are, each and every one of us, artists in our own distinctive ways.

How did  God bring about such an extraordinary work, I wonder? And I only come near being able to approach an answer when I make time in my life to imagine ….

Update: with Stephen Raw’s kind permission: my photos are here

ALMOST SPELLING ‘HOLY’

Posted on by
Reply

WRITING ABOUT stained glass fragments “blown apart in wars” and haphazardly reassembled later, the priest poet David Scott, in the second stanza of his A Window in Ely Cathedral, tells of

A leering bit of face with twisted lips,
a bit of beard, and letters almost spelling ‘holy’,
a sheaf of corn, a leaf, and then the sun dips,
lighting Mary in her simple glory.

Piecing Together
 A Window in Ely Cathedral,
stanza 2 of 3, page 29

In the economy of God there’s something afoot. I can feel it in my bones. The downtrodden, the dispossessed, the shattered, the fragmented and the forgotten, wherever they are in the world, are raising their voices. They cry for the reconciliation, resurrection and restoration of a humane humanity – for people of every race and nation, and of every creed (or lack thereof), or “class”, or colour. Too much has been blown apart by wars and for too long. But days wear on, the sun dips in her course, illuminating that which speaks of life’s real glory, and is thereby truly holy.

This is exciting. This is the stuff of the reign of the Source of all of our lives, to whom we have prayed, and with whom we have yearned, in every time and place, in every political and religious tradition, for so very long. Whether we’re speaking of ordinary Libyans standing up to be counted, intent on “occupying” their own entitlement to a bit of their own space as human beings; whether we’re speaking of Occupy New York, or Occupy London, or occupy-a-space-in-the-queue for fresh air, or clean water, or a bowl of rice, something is most assuredly afoot. The sun dips, lighting Mary in her simple glory, and because at evensong we’re rather quieter than usual we may hear her softly say and pray

he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek

Come Christ-Mass this year the stable and the tent will not be featured only in hand-picked and glossy Christmas cards. Tents and stables are being raised up alongside cathedrals and churches. Tents and stables are being raised up in our dreams and in our slowly-awakening hearts. Here are opportunities to catch real glimpses for the possibilities of life’s glory, opportunities that are thereby truly holy. Some amongst us, nonetheless, will not look any more kindly upon such fragmented opportunities than they would ever have looked upon the teenage mother in the stable of Bethlehem.

But something of and from the divine is afoot. The leering bit of face with twisted lips, a bit of beard, and letters almost spelling ‘holy’, must give way to the sun’s dipping

lighting Mary in her simple glory.

SILENCE

Posted on by
1

(update at 2 May 2012: See Francesca Zelnick on Silence)

DEEP SILENCE is one of the chief appeals of Friday night-time Lakeland for me. Many years ago I found myself somewhat bewildered when my confessor / spiritual director spoke to me of the “language” of silence. The bewilderment passed, somewhere along life’s road, and today I find, like William Cleary, that there’s an abiding eloquence and a deep peace in the quiet places and spaces of my (generally very active and often fairly talkative) days … not least because silence recognises no denominationalism … weaving her wise whisperings into the nooks and crannies, the divisions within and between souls, and – breathing closely – making us more whole.

The silence between us is rife with communication and eloquence. We both speak and listen, a communion. Thanks. And Amen.

We side with the morning | William Cleary

ADULT FAITH … AND BELONGING

Posted on by
Reply

I’VE RETURNED time and time again in the last couple of years to the writings of Diarmuid O’Murchu in the quest I’ve engaged in all my life: the search for Adult Faith. In his book of that name O’Murchu quotes the late John O’Donohue:

Our modern hunger to belong is particularly intense. An increasing majority of people feel no belonging. We have fallen out of rhythm with life. The art of belonging is the recovery of the wisdom of rhythm.

John O’Donohue, cited by Diarmuid O’Murchu

Adult Faith, Growing in Wisdom and Understanding, page 139

I’ve witnessed a spiritual hunger in young and old alike in the past thirty years – along with a reluctance to partake of a “spiritual” diet grown old and stale (albeit that the kind of theological staleness I’m thinking of is too often dressed up as “contemporary”, or “for the young”, or “modern”). Many would rather remain hungry than have to suffer indigestion wrought by leave-your-brain-outside coercion. Me amongst them sometimes. O’Murchu, though, whets my spiritual appetite in these early years of the twenty-first century in much the same way that John Robinson reawakened interest, debate and dialogue mid-way through the twentieth.

There is a tendency in all the great religions to pass on religious wisdom through doctrines and creeds, with emphasis on knowing the verbal formulations. Adults are judged to be religious if they can pass on those beliefs to future generations just as they have been passed on to them. But this transmission is often lacking in internalized understanding; the neophyte learns the formula, and frequently is unable to apply it to daily life in an integrated way.

The bigger challenge is the realisation that we are all endowed with an inner transparency for the holy, for the mystery we popularly call “God”. We are programmed internally in the power of living spirit, always inviting us to attune more deeply to the Great Spirit who infuses the whole of creation. Whether we adopt a religion or not, we are innately spiritual and will remain so throughout our entire lifespan. For contemporary adults, this awareness is quite widespread and is raising formidable challenges for the meaning and place of formal religion in human living.

ibid. page 14

It was precisely Jesus’ own raising formidable challenges for the meaning and place of formal religion in human living that attracted me long ago to follow him. I’m still attracted, and still formidably – albeit willingly – challenged. When we’re able to rise to Jesus’ challenge to rid ourselves of outdated and outmoded shibboleths on the one hand, and perpetually to align ourselves with Divine Mystery on the other,  we begin to roll away the stone from the tomb. And in doing so begin to glimpse new ways of belonging, in an altogether more “catholic” universe. We wean ourselves away from the life of the “whited sepulchre” and find ourselves nudged towards the joy and belonging of perpetual resurrection.

THIS MYSTERIOUS SOMETHING

Posted on by
Reply

THERE IS IN THE SOUL a something in which God dwells, and there is in the soul a something in which the soul dwells in God.

Meister Eckhart

HMM … WHAT QUAKER MYSTIC George Fox called the “inner light”.  Mystery. That which – or Who – shows us the way forward – in a nudging-as-opposed-to-a-certain sort of a way. But this appears to be an elusive light for humankind. Unsurprising, then, that the way forward is not very clear. And I (and you) need time and some quiet space in life before even beginning to grasp what Meister Eckhart is saying here. So I find myself asking – a dozen times a day – whether the noise and the demands of contemporary religious experience – whatever the religious tradition – are too many and too great?

If we want to maintain religious traditions for their sake alone then we could probably do with a bit more noise and busyness – for that kind of maintenance work will always be demanding, voraciously time-consuming, and costly. But if we would know God, if we are intent on finding a way forward that comes to us by means of “inner light”, if it’s true that there’s something in the soul in which God dwells, and something in the soul in which the soul dwells in God, then it seems to me an obvious thing that we must “hush the noise” before this Mystery, quieten the strident voices of our most vigourous “certainties”, and “hear the angels sing”. Probably, for most of us,  sooner rather than later …

HOSPITALITY’S COMMUNION

Posted on by
Reply

I’M VERY MUCH TOUCHED tonight. Earlier today I baptised one of Stephen & Joanna’s lovely daughters. It was a joyful occasion, the second such family baptism I’d celebrated with them in recent years. The little candidate had a lovely time. Gorgeous, in a most beautiful white dress, she toddled about the church, sometimes appearing to be deep in prayer as she knelt at the communion rail. Sometimes looking intent, like one of our housekeepers. And all this set in the context of the Eucharist. Baptism and Eucharist, the two great sacraments of belonging. These make for celebration indeed. A holy communion between souls and the Heart – the Life – of God.

And then they headed off to “wet the baby’s head” in that other most important and time-honoured tradition. I wasn’t able to join them for that bit. But if hospitality’s communion had been celebrated in the church in the morning so, too, is hospitality’s communion to be celebrated here in the vicarage in the evening because, bless their hearts, a knock on the door mid-afternoon signalled the sharing of a marvellous and extraordinary gift – the wherewithal for a simply sumptuous 3 course supper, lovingly prepared and shared, and including Joanna’s fabulous home-baked cakes pictured above. This is holy communion indeed. The Lord Jesus, I believe, would smile and smile again upon such a sight and such a gift. Holy communion. In the morning and in the evening. I can almost here him asking “d’ya get it?” … Stephen and Joanna do.

Many, many, many thanks :)

MAXIMILIAN’S BAPTISM

Posted on by
Reply

THE FULL HOUSE for the joy-filled Baptism of Maximilian this morning gives me (another) opportunity to head up this post with my very favourite account, by a simply wonderful narrator, of Jesus’ Baptism! But more than that, it’s always such a joy when our House for the Church is full of people come to celebrate the goodness of God and the richness of the gifts we revel in. And there’s no greater gift to a family than that of an infant. Nor, perhaps, any greater responsibility laid upon older shoulders. Bringing infants to Baptism in and into the House of the Lord provides glorious opportunity for all of us to reflect upon the giftedness and gratuitousness of our lives, upon our hopes and our aspirations, what – in co-creating with, and in, and surrounded by God – we want to make of our world, our humanity, our society, our church – for Maximilian, for ourselves, and for God.

“I baptise with water”, said John the Baptist. One who will come after me will baptise with Holy Spirit. And so it came to pass. Today and every day humankind is baptised “new every morning” by the Spirit of Divine Grace and Love. Perhaps that’s why Maximilian and his wonderful parents were smiling so much in our sacramental celebration of the fact this morning. Perhaps that’s why people had travelled from far and wide to celebrate the gift and the treasure. Yes! – wherever and whenever humankind is “baptised” in the Spirit of God we can rest assured that the Source of our Life continues to turn the world upside down. “Whoever has seen (this human) me has seen the Father” said the anointed Jesus to Philip. And this morning he might have said “whoever has seen Maximilian has seen the Father”. What a joy, what a commission, what a responsibility – this living of the Life and Love of God in and through each one of us, dear created people.

DIVINE PARENT,
Mother and Father, Sister and Brother of us all,
in company with Jesus,
in the power of your Spirit,
with prophets, priests and royal leaders,
and with every woman, man and child
upon the face of the earth,
we bless you for the gift of life and of abundance.
And as we bless you we also ask
your blessing for ourselves that we may be
inspired, strengthened and encouraged daily
to share that life and that abundance
throughout the world.

WORLD UPSIDE DOWN

Posted on by
Reply

COFFEE & CATCH UP with Church Times - no. 7749 23 September 2011 – tells me that an online poll “finds majority Christian in name but not in practice”. Now I wonder how “practice” is defined? The question’s important because I can wholly understand that many who are naturally “at home” with God might very well be turned right off “the Church” by some of the unedifying spectacles, historically and currently, to be witnessed in her life, across the denominations, the world over: “You are usurpers, AMiE tells CofE ‘Establishment’” - as but a tiny example this week! Thanks be to God that

O Lord all the world belongs to you
and you are always making all things new.
What is wrong you forgive and the new life you give
is what’s turning the world upside down …

In such a topsy-turvy world I wonder whether it might be nearer the truth that many fine women and men of goodwill are Christian in practice but not in name? In a world turned upside down (evidently one of God’s permanently creative processes) we should perhaps be celebrating the demise of some of the shibboleths once held dear. I – for one – would love to see the demise of the (oft-used and often tub-thumping) phrase “Bible-based” and a corresponding increase in “God-centred”. Many’s the God-centred person I know whose patent closeness to the Spirit of Jesus owes little or nothing to regular recourse to Scripture. Many the seeds that must fall to the ground and die. Many the situations of dire human need that need religious change-of-heart if they’re to be addressed with anything resembling the compassion of Jesus. And in the meantime I thank the Source of all Life that many are Christian in practice if not in name – and I watch and pray with loving faith and interest as the Lord of Life continues to turn both the world and the Church upside down. Magnificat!