Tag Archives: waiting

MELODIES WOVEN …

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KELLY JOHNSON writes in God does not hurry (see ++ below)

In a beautiful reflection on time, Tolkien * wrote of creation as a work of music, a theme declared by the creator, Ilúvatar, and sung by the angels in their many voices. They

began to fashion the theme of Ilúvatar to a great music; and a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Ilúvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void …

The gift of time is musical, moving at a pace that is fluid but ordered, growing to fullness without racing to get finished. The beat may be fast or slow, but the good musician knows not to hurry. Time is not the enemy, something to be gotten through; it is tempo, carrying mobile harmonies. Although sin enters in through one angel who wants to win glory by introducing his own themes, Ilúvatar continues to weave the music through to its end, not silencing the discordant elements, but introducing a new theme,

… and it was unlike the others. For it seemed at first soft and sweet, a mere rippling of gentle sounds in delicate melodies; but it could not be quenched, and it took to itself power and profundity.

Jesus does actually tell a story about God hurrying … rewarded with the sight of the prodigal on the road home, then God hurries, casting all caution to the wind, racing out to meet this lost child. The love that waits, scandalous in its patience, will finally be unreserved in its haste to welcome us into the feast of reconciliation. In the meantime, we wait in joyful hope.

* JRR Tolkien, The Silmarillion (London, 1977)

++ God does not … (chapter 3: God does not hurry) D Brent Latham, Editor, Brazos, 2009

THE SOUND OF SILENCE

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I’M ALMOST OVERWHELMED with relief when I bring to mind and celebrate the large and ever growing number of people here who sense a call to a deeper, quieter, sometimes silent waiting upon God – even in the midst of busy working and parish life, even at the heart of a midweek Eucharist. Coughing and shuffling and sputtering are beginning, in a new way, I think, to give way to mutual respect for the silent prayer of others. Holy Spirit’s Peace descends when we ask her to, and we recognise Jesus’ praying and staying with us. We know that Jesus apparently liked a party sometimes. But we know that he called his disciples to silent waiting too. And it is an especial joy that this is proving to be the case amongst younger and older, women and men and children alike.

There’s a growing discernment about the ungodly divisions that exist in our own church – before we even begin to consider those that exist elsewhere, and an equally growing willingness to bring those divisions, and an entire panoply of blessings too, to bring indeed the whole of our lives, the whole of our world, into “the quiet place”, understanding that God is very unlikely to fill the space we create with English conversation – mini-sermons telling us all how we should shape our ideas up – and much more likely to “breathe loving Spirit into every troubled breast.” And the quiet conversations that are the fruit of such silent waiting go on to engender in our shared parochial life a wider reach of care and concern. Further, we’re moving more and more into a “can do” culture. Works of grace are appearing more spontaneously and more frequently. A team of folk appeared as though out of mist to prepare for our worship this coming Sunday.  Yes. A relief. God in the sound of silence begets Love.

NOT NOW, NOT YET

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VOCATION, VOCATION, VOCATION. If it’s true that these words are real features in our corporate life here in Bramhall then it’s also true that they’re undergirded by prayer, prayer, prayer. People are learning that “Be still for the presence of the Lord” is a real invitation and not just a nice first line for a hymn with a popular tune. And I keep turning, again and again, to Gerald G May’s The Wisdom of Wilderness …

Like a slave to my thoughts, my body gets up to collect what I need for breakfast. I set my coffee mug on a stone near the fire and take one step toward the car and I am suddenly overcome with fatigue and the Slowing Presence arises wordlessly inside me, in a place much deeper than my mind, and it is telling me No, it is not yet time for breakfast, not at all.

I almost feel gentle hands taking me by the shoulders, setting me back down by the fire. My body relaxes, my mind quiets. I sit. I look at the fire. I look at the morning mountainside. I close my eyes. There is no sound but the stream and the pine sap popping in flames. I watch the fire and I know time passes. Much time. Now and then thoughts of breakfast arise briefly and are stilled by the deeper sense, “Not now. Not yet.” I just sit.

And sometimes, oftentimes even, it really is in just sitting that vocation, vocation, vocation really takes shape, really makes sense, really involves ME, and leads to just the right kind of creativity and action.

WHAT WE NEED IS HERE

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THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH encourages people to follow the path of the Master, to follow the example of Jesus. Other great faith traditions encourage people to follow other spiritual masters. Teachers all. And what is common to the teaching and practice of Jesus, and of other masters, is a call to quietude, a call to mindfulness, a call to a deeper stillness.

How ironic that what we think of as mission all too often means that we fail to practice what we preach. We’re in too much of a hurry. Too mortgaged. Whilst Jesus gave time and attention within a limited space and time, rigorously maintaining his own discipline of solitude and prayer, we’ve fallen into the habit of believing ourselves capable of mission to the entire world. All of us, I mean, not just the Church. And we’d like the job in the bag by tomorrow.

And so our real mission fails. We lose the plot. We kid ourselves that we are what we are not. We turn to measuring, and begging, and banking, and we call it “growth strategy” whilst our spirits are shrinking. Thank God for the abiding of the teachers. Thank God for the patient abiding of the anointed, of “the Christ”. Thank God for the quiet watching and waiting of the poets:

… Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

from The Wild Geese, Wendell Berry

JACKAL HOWLS AND STARRY NIGHTS

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BAGUETTE LUNCH TODAY with a priest colleague who’s one of my most inspirational pals. Over a quarter of a century Jerry and I have regularly nattered away over coffee and sandwiches and I’ve always come away inspirited, often challenged, always happier, invariably enlivened, and usually with a renewed booklist since, as with all my closest friends, we natter largely about the people and the books that have been teaching and delighting us since we last met. Energising encounters. Ours, and those we engage in with others. Life-friendships of this kind are our richest gifts.

We talked about pretty much anything you could mention today. And about Carlo Carretto, the Little Brother of Jesus who, to quote the bumph on the back of I Sought & I Found (DLT, London, 1984) …

… burnt his address book, left Catholic Action and set out for the Desert. Carlo Carretto, the son of poor Italian peasants. Carlo Carretto, the great and inspired spiritual writer. Here he is again, mature but ourageous as ever, as outrageous as Jesus of Nazareth. He gives us his own story and along with it his prayers and his help.

‘The desert – the real desert, the one made out of jackal howls and starry nights – was the place of my encounter with God.

‘No longer did I wish to discuss him. I wanted to know him.

‘I sought the God of all seven days of the week, not the God of Sunday.

‘It was not hard because he was there ready waiting for me.

‘And I found him.

‘And this is why I say with joy, and dare to testify to my brothers and sisters in the Spirit: I Sought and I Found’

There ready waiting for me. Sometimes I find him in ‘the desert places’ of my own life. Sometimes I find him in Jerry. Sometimes I find him in you, dear reader. And in these encounters I am most fully alive. I seek and I find. I am sought and I am found. God is ready waiting for me – to find and to be found. And I am ready waiting – to find and to be found. So’s Jerry. And you. And the people manning Alimentos Gratis at St Gregory of Nyssa in San Francisco. We are, as we said over lunch, “on the cusp of something”. Laus Deo!

WAITING WITH THE WANTING

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TODAY WE ARE ENCOURAGED to take the waiting out of wanting, cut to the chase and get what we want right away, as though there is nothing worth waiting for. This Advent book dares to defy all that. So says Archbishop Sentamu of Paula Gooder’s The Meaning is in the Waiting. Of John the Baptist, Paula Gooder writes

John’s waiting is about transformation that actively prepares for the person or event for which one waits and so helps to bring it about

This is the sort of waiting that we need in our parish’s Growth Action Planning. No good being too quick to ‘cut to the chase’. God’s angels are perpetually prepared to bear God’s message to the world,  they don’t start by publishing action plans of their own. We’ve been discovering afresh that we want to put more of ourselves into ‘seeking what God wants’. May there be waiting, then, with the wanting, so that we help to bring it about. And whilst we’re waiting it’ll be worth keeping in mind what we’ve already heard: ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you tidings of great joy for you and all the peoples …’

FAMILY GATHERING

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Ascension, 1408 (Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow)

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JESUS AND HIS WANDERING BAND sought to bind as one family the whole of humankind. Painting mind-pictures (without benefit of written word) in the lives of all they encountered, Jesus and those he commissioned to ministry left a great deal to the imaginations of all those who longed for a better world.

The works of restoration and healing they’d brought about were to be surpassed by those who’d witnessed them. And the gist of the Message is that in the mind of God no one is to be left out; no one to be left comfortless; no one called upon to engage in life’s ministries in isolation. “The Spirit will teach you everything”. But first the disciples – the learners – are to “stay in the city until you are clothed with the power from on high”. Luke 24.49

There’s some waiting to be done. Some patience to be prayed for. And – as W H Vanstone would have it – there’s stature in waiting. “Stay in the city” is the word. Stay put enough, and stay quiet enough, often enough, to allow the day to dawn when people of every race and language come to see that the New Pentecost of God is Family Gathering. Human Family Gathering. “Wait in the city”. Or was that “Pray in the city”? Until you grasp his meaning. Until “though parted from our sight” his Spirit settles upon and within you. Until, albeit unseen, you know he’s standing right in front of you. Wait. Reach. Ascend.