Category Archives: world

ARE YOU GOING TO SAN FRANCISCO?

Posted on
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 …

BECOMING THE BELOVED

Posted on
1

Henri, I want a blessing …

YOU ARE MY BELOVED. On you my favour rests. – I’ve just come across this extraordinary little series of films and have found myself transported into the company of angels and archangels. Blessed be God for his eternal grace at work in Henri Nouwen (1932-1996) – dear Wounded Healer. Truly beloved.

 

WITH A LITTLE HELP …

Posted on
Reply

PAUL DEAKIN (vested, left) preached an encouraging and challenging sermon this morning, attired for a few brief moments in a too short preaching scarf – because it’s more ordinarily employed at Stockport County FC!  It’s great having Paul home on leave from his studies at Mirfield. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” – Nathaniel asked of Philip. Well, of course, someone could and did! And Paul Deakin’s one of the many good things to “come out of” Bramhall.

DAVID TAYLOR (robed, right) served the dual offices of assistant verger and altar server, at short notice, in the midst of one of those whirlwind sort of mornings that Sundays at St Michael’s often look like. With consecutive celebrations of the Eucharist at 8, 9 and 10.45am there’s a lot to be done behind the scenes to make sure there’s a smooth flow. With David and other willing souls like him we’re able to sing: “we get by with a little help from our friends …”

AND ANDY BROWN put imagination into gear and was quick to snap the moments when some of my wonderful young friends here got stuck into “the priesthood of all believers” liturgically. Literally “active angels”, we encouraged each other to pray according to the style and practice of ancient tradition, standing, and with arms raised in a posture of praise, thanksgiving and receptivity. And we all shared in times of silence and stillness too. It all made for a holy communion. Eucharistic. Something accomplished. Religio - a binding together. And I recall that the great son of man who came out of Nazareth once said: I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends – John 15.15-17

IMAGINING

Posted on
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
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.

ADULT FAITH … AND BELONGING

Posted on
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.

MAXIMILIAN’S BAPTISM

Posted on
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.

TELEPHONES FOR ONE THING …

Posted on
1

Bede Griffiths (17 December 1906 – 13 May 1993), born Alan Richard Griffiths and also known as Swami Dayananda (Bliss of Compassion), was a British-born Benedictine monk who lived in ashrams in South India.

I READ FR BEDE GRIFFITHS’ A New Vision of Reality way back in 1989 when it was published. Formerly a Benedictine monk at Prinknash Abbey, Fr Bede, the book’s dustjacket informs, left England in 1955 to travel to India to assist in the foundation of Kurisumala Ashram, a monastery of the Syrian rite in Kerala. In 1968 he moved to Saccidananda Ashram in Tamil Nadu by the sacred river Cauvery. This Ashram (founded in 1950) was a pioneer attempt to found a Christian community in India which would incorporate the customs of a Hindu ashram and the traditional forms of Indian life and thought. It seeks to become a centre where people of different religious traditions can meet together in an atmosphere of prayer and grow together towards that unity in Truth which is the goal of all religions.

I’m a devotee of Brother David Steindl-Rast whose website Gratefulness pointed me to the old VHS tape footage of Fr Bede (above) which is simply priceless …

You see, for me, coming to America from India – the complexity of life! All these telephones for one thing, you know, and cars and tv and so on. It’s very wonderful in its way but [in India] in the simplicity, you seem to get an integrity, your whole life becomes more whole … if people can learn to simplify their lives, you know, at least in part – some sphere of simplicity where you can let go and be simple in the presence of God …

Bede Griffiths never lost his grip of the most fundamental requirement for a child of God: living in the presence of God. His / her entire life story arises therefrom. But we human beings are forgetful as Bishop Kelvin Wright of Dunedin (another prophet possessed of “a new vision of reality” in our own day) wrote a day or two ago …

These empty worship shells scattered around the countryside are the signs of the death of a particular religious infrastructure. I look at them with such fascination, I think, because they represent a process which is still continuing. A particular way of meeting the spiritual needs of our society is disappearing because it no longer meets the needs of our society, and still we are preoccupied with preserving it: keeping our buildings open and making sure our functionaries are paid and making sure the committee structures which kept the whole system turning over are filled with the fewer and older and wearier people who still give us allegiance. I think we have missed – are missing – the point.

The role of the church is to introduce people to the Living God and open them to the transforming power of the presence of God. Gradually we have forgotten to do this. We have forgotten how to do this. We have forgotten, even, that we are supposed to do this. And quite naturally, and quite rightly, the infrastructure we have created precisely to help us to do this crumbles and dies.

The old churches tell me one thing and they tell it to me clearly and loudly: The church must facilitate personal transformation or it must cease to exist. It is time to forget the infrastructure except to the extent that it facilitates the one essential task of the Church. As my Lord tells me, “seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all the rest will be added to you as well.”

Personal transformation before ecclesiastical transformation,  that’s the secret. Jesus changed individual hearts before he changed church. Personal transformation begets ecclesiastical transformation, and thereafter societal transformation. Bede Griffiths, Roger of Taizé, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Kelvin Wright … might all have worn the name badge Swami Dayananda (Bliss of Compassion). And that’s where personal transformation begins: in compassion, first for oneself, and then for all other created persons and things, and that (Christ-like) compassion leads to “some sphere of simplicity” where we can “let go and be simple in the presence of God.”

In other words, we re-member. How lovely that an old VHS tape (oh, the simplicity of such things!) should bring Fr Bede to hearts and minds in 2011. How glad he might be to read Kelvin’s Available Light, even from the perspective of his now living entirely within it. Brother David, I’m grateful.

A BRIGHT VISION …

Posted on
Reply

20110619-172344.jpg

GREAT WORSHIP THIS MORNING, Trinity Sunday. Our parish church, it seems to me, is developing an ever deepening vocation to openness and inclusivity, to a bright vision of a world where men, women and children live in the embrace of “the Peace of God that passeth all understanding.” And nobody gives the impression of smugness. Nobody gives the impression that they think the fulfilment of such a vision is going to be easy (we’re all very familiar with the image of the crucified Jesus, and with images of Holocaust, and genocide, and – most recently – burned cathedral and churches in Sudan).

Nobody feels entirely equipped either, whether individually or corporately. Many of us, and especially me, would think of ourselves as theological or religious or political “lightweights”, glad to recall that Jesus spoke of fondness for the simple and for the meek. And again, many of us feel called more to stillness, silence, prayer and contemplation than to the more readily obvious or demonstrable agitating or “action”. But the truth is that, week by week, there’s a vision taking shape … and the vision involves the glory of the Lord Creator filling heaven, earth with its glory stored. And there’s a fountain welling up within us, a fountain of desire to sing: “Unto Thee be glory given. Holy, holy, holy Lord.”

And the glory of God is there to be seen in every part and detail of his Creation, every day of our lives. The glory of God is to be seen in children, women and men of every faith tradition under the sun, and in those who would lay no claim to having a particular faith tradition. The glory of God is to be seen in sun and sea and moon and sky, and in Creation’s daily asking “Why?”.

20110619-175703.jpg

In the metaphor of “Trinitarian” faith – our human attempt at imagining, at putting into words, how relationship or communion works within the Godhead – we can recognise the Father showing the Son who he is, and the Son showing the Spirit who she is, and the Spirit showing the Father who he is, and the Divine embracing all created things and showing that Creation who it is. Matter alive with the Spirit, the breath of God – so that there’s absolutely no avoiding that if “my matter” matters then all matter matters. And we’re all “the Body of Christ” in the sense that we’re all a body anointed – with the Divine breath of life.

And when matter matters vocations start to spring up from the dark earth. Vision reaches towards light. Communities seek to create communion, to “repent”, to turn around and look at life and Creation in new ways. Communities start to pray that life in this world may be “put right”.

Paul Deakin has been charting his vocational journey. Rachael Elizabeth has, too. But – gloriously – they’re not alone. There’s a “bright vision” in the hearts and lives of churchwardens, too. And of church council members, and of children’s workers, youth leaders, study groups, prayer groups, growth action strategy and daily, quiet pray-ers.

Many years ago when co-leading a Pilgrimage to the Holy Land I was struck, as were many in the party, by frequent repetition of Psalm 122 whilst we were there: “O pray for the Peace of Jerusalem, they shall prosper that love thee.” And – mindful of a translation of “Jerusalem” as “Vision of Peace” – 60 or more people got into the daily praying of these words:

O pray for the peace of the Vision of Peace.
They shall prosper that love thee.

Something of that prayer and something of that vision was present in our Trinitarian worship this morning, and for more than a few of us it rang true that that kind of worship is “the party where God is, and always was, and always will be.” Pray for the peace of the Vision of Peace. Let the Vision rise brighter. The Lord God has placed the key into our own hands.

GOD IS NOT A CHRISTIAN

Posted on
2

20110606-170211.jpg

ARCHBISHOP TUTU’S new book God is not a Christianwas published on the 6th May. I’ve only just spotted it but will speedily make up for the lateness. Here’s a snippet:

Surely it is good to know that God (in the Christian tradition) created us all (not just Christians) in his image, thus investing us all with infinite worth, and that it was with all humankind that God entered into a covenant relationship, depicted in the covenant with Noah when God promised he would not destroy his creation again with water. Surely we can rejoice that the eternal word, the Logos of God, enlightens everyone — not just Christians, but everyone who comes into the world; that what we call the Spirit of God is not a Christian preserve, for the Spirit of God existed long before there were Christians, inspiring and nurturing women and men in the ways of holiness, bringing them to fruition, bringing to fruition what was best in all. We do scant justice and honor to our God if we want, for instance, to deny that Mahatma Gandhi was a truly great soul, a holy man who walked closely with God. Our God would be too small if he was not also the God of Gandhi: if God is one, as we believe, then he is the only God of all his people, whether they acknowledge him as such or not. God does not need us to protect him. Many of us perhaps need to have our notion of God deepened and expanded. It is often said, half in jest, that God created man in his own image and man has returned the compliment, saddling God with his own narrow prejudices and exclusivity, foibles and temperamental quirks. God remains God, whether God has worshippers or not.

An ordinand asked me, ten years or more ago, “why do you think Desmond Tutu is always smiling?” I answered at the time “Because he’s a big, big man” … and today this snippet affirms something else I’ve often said of him … “who has a big, big heart”. Gandhi was indeed “truly a great soul”. So is Tutu. Any human being would do well in seeking to emulate both. And I’m ever ready to say and to pray “Thanks be to Thee my Lord Jesus Christ for all women and men of goodwill.”