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Exciting Celtic Summer School!!!

3/27/2019

TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE

Celtic Christianity is becoming such a popular concept it is almost impossible to avoid, whether that be books, music, art, or jewellery. There are also a growing number of churches putting on ‘Celtic’ services. But what exactly is Celtic Christianity? Where did it come from and what does it mean to us in the modern church.
The Community of Aidan & Hilda, a Celtic inspired New Monastic Community, are putting on a week long Celtic Summer School in Durham in August 2019 as part of their 25th anniversary year.
The summer school has some excellent and well known teachers and authors of Celtic Christianity coming to speak, as well as music from some great Celtic musicians, and Celtic art workshops led by Mary Fleeson of Lindisfarne Scriptorium.
Over this week in August you will discover, through the talent of experienced authors and speakers, a broad stretch of wisdom and knowledge on the topic. As Dr Ian Bradley, one of our speakers, says ‘...how should Celtic Christianity be defined? Certainly not, as it sometimes seems to be, as a broad family or grouping of Christians like Catholic, Orthodox or Protestants... Nor should it be seen as a separate denomination like Anglicanism, Presbyterianism or Methodism... Rather we are dealing with something which is highly heterogeneous, with different expressions in different places and at different times. It is better defined geographically, linguistically and temporally, as the Christianity practiced by those living in the Celtic speaking regions of the British Isles [and Ireland] over a particular timescale.’[1] So it can be said that ‘...the term Celtic can be useful today to help identify a certain collection of peoples, tribes, and kin. Even though there may have been differences in their specifics, there are enough similarities to enable us to see a connection – which, if true for the people, would also follow when speaking of the ‘Celtic’ [Christians]. Although there were, historically, differences... there are enough similarities to enable us to see a connection... When it comes to Celtic Christianity, we are speaking of a distinct style and expression of the Christian faith which reflected the life and community of these ‘Celtic’ people groups.’[2]

The summer school is using different churches in Durham city centre, as well as the Cathedral, as venues for these exciting talks. With three talks a day, and a weekend full of activities available to choose from, this week will be something not to miss!!!

Come along and discover much more of this rich and fascinating topic.

TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE

The program is as follows:

Wednesday 7th : at St Godric’s Catholic church
Pm 1: David Cole – Introduction - with music from Julie Cameron Hall & Nigel Cameron
Pm 2: Ray Simpson - Celtic Christianity – 12 criticisms, 12 keys

Thursday 8th : at St. Oswald's Church
Am: Ray Simpson - A Way of Life as life-long discipleship
Pm 1: Ash Barker - Celtic Christianity in a multicultural society
Pm 2: Ken McIntosh - The Bible through Celtic Eyes

Friday 9th : at Elvet Methodist
Am: Ash Barker - New Monasticism in an Urban context
Pm 1: Penny Warren – Contemplation in the Celtic Tradition
Pm 2: Ken McIntosh - The Celtic view of the work of the Cross of Christ

Saturday 10th – evening concert – Dave Bainbridge & Sally Minnear at Cathedral

Sunday 11th – an evening with Andy & Anna Raine at Cathedral

Monday 12th : at Elvet Methodist
Am: Simon Reed - Living a Way of Life in a Local Church Context
Pm 1: Simon Reed & Graham Booth - Soul Friendship
Pm 2: Graham Booth - The Celtic Way of Prayer

Tuesday 13th : at St. Oswald's Church
Am: Ian Bradley - The Celtic Way for Today
Pm 1: Ian Bradley - Dispelling Myths of Celtic Christianity
Pm 2: Greg Valerio - Celtic Christianity and Connection to Creation

Wednesday 14th : at St Godric’s Catholic church
Am: Greg Valerio - Celtic New Monastic expressions in a rural context
Pm 1: David Cole - Conclusion

TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE

[1] Bradley, Ian. Following the Celtic Way – a new assessment of Celtic Christianity. Dartman, Longman & Todd Publishing. 2018. Pg21

[2] Cole, David. 40 Days with the Celtic Saints – devotional readings for a time of preparation. BRF Publishing. 2017. Pg7-8

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Thoughts from the Friary

2/19/2018

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Recently I went and spent a weekend on personal retreat at the Franciscan Centre in Dorset, England – Hilfield Friary. My purpose for going was to take a couple of days out of my work schedule as a writer, speaker and retreat leader to just go and ‘be’ in the Divine presence in a space created for stillness. I was, for all intents and purposes, practicing what I preach.

The centre itself is a place where the Friars and other residential folk, some long term and some short term, live and work and have their being. It is not a silent place, but the stillness which rests upon it is evident to all. Slipping into the daily rhythm of prayers and meals/tea breaks was a wonderful way to punctuate the days which I spent there and the times of quiet stillness. The welcome and love I felt from all those who are resident there was palpable, and it simply added to the whole experience of just being.

St Francis himself was a man who understood the busy-ness of life. He and his brothers, back in the 13th century, were always hard at work either building churches or working to help the poor and needy. But he was also a man who understood the concept of peace and stillness and the importance of taking time out. He spent time-out with God in caves and deserted places in contemplative quiet. The idea of taking time out of the busy schedule was a part of who Francis was. He learned from Jesus, who ‘often withdrew to quiet places to pray” (Luke 5v16), the importance of taking time out to just ‘be’. This is something which is important to all of us, not just those who may be called to some form of monastic life.

The rhythm of prayer at Hilfield Friary allowed my day to be punctuated with deliberate times when I would take time out of solitary quietness and to go and gather with others to focus my prayers and my mind, which may often wander when sitting alone and just being. Morning, midday, evening, and night prayer were a joyous collective time of silence and chanting and listening and liturgy. The Daily Office book of the Society of St Francis (SSF) has a wonderful feel to the words and flow of prayer. This, along with the beautiful smell of the incense filling the chapel meant that one could easily slip into the Divine presence in the collective company of all as we all sat in the chapel to focus on the Divine.

Whilst I was there for the weekend, in the quiet, I was able not just to recuperate and enjoy the stillness without and within, but also to ‘hear’ the Divine voice of silence in the depths of my being. Some things were revealed to me (deep and personal things), as is often the case when you create the space for the Divine to move, and the beginnings of what might become another book (perhaps – when I finish the current project of a revision of my first book ‘The Mystic Path of Meditation’) are starting to formulate within me. This was all due to the fact that I created space in my diary to have just a couple of days where I went away with no agenda other than to just ‘be’ with God. I withdrew to a quiet place to pray.

I would encourage you to create space in your diary to do this very thing. I do it once a year, both as a personal practice which I have long done, and also now in accordance to the Way of Life I live by as part of being a vowed member of a New Monastic Community.
I know that when I write these words and you read them phrases such as ‘I don’t have the time’ or ‘can I afford it?’ may immediately spring to your mind. But my challenge to you, as it always is when I teach my workshop days or residential retreats, is just how important to you think spending time in stillness and quiet with God is? Is following the example of Jesus himself something which we should put ourselves out to do? We must create the time to do this to benefit our inner being, in the same way that we create the time regularly to sleep for hours for the benefit of our physical being. And really the question should be not ‘can I afford to do this financially?’ but ‘can I afford not to do this emotionally and spiritually?’. (If finances are a problem then there are options out there, for example, although there is a suggested cost at Hilfield Friary, it is, in fact, a donation based centre).

In the stillness and the quiet of places designed and sacredly kept for this purpose, such as Hilfield Friary, we can encounter the Divine in ways that we would never be able to do in our own homes or local places, even in our times of solitary or collective contemplation and meditation, taking time out in a different place has a different, deeper, and more transcendent affect on us.

It is time.

It is time for you to go.

It is time for you to go and ‘be’.

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Awareness of the Divine Heartbeat

1/24/2018

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Last weekend I travelled to a group to run ‘Living in the Awareness of God’, one of the workshop days I offer, and this coming weekend I am travelling to teach a group on ‘Listening to the Heartbeat of God’ and abiding in the Divine presence. As I have prepared and presented these teachings it has reminded me of just how important it is to dwell in the Divine presence, both in deliberate acts and disciplines, as well as in the continued awareness throughout our day, in all we do.

One of the illustrations I use at the start of these days is that of the air and our breathing. The Meditation teacher’s basic 101 teaching – concentrating on the breath.
As I remind the participants, I remind myself, firstly the air around us is a constant presence – it is always there, and we share it with all other life. The other people and creatures around us breathe in and out as we do, and the plants which surround us ‘breathe’ in and out opposite to the way we do – breathing in what we breathe out, and breathing out what we breathe in. The air is always there.
Secondly, we are all breathing. In and out all the time, constantly, without ceasing, day and night, in and out, breathing. Yet we are almost never in a state of conscious awareness of either of these things – the air or our breathing. Through the practice of mindful meditation we become aware of the air and of our breathing. We draw in the air, and that which was outside of us comes into us. It fills our lungs and increases our physical capacity. Then we exhale and the air flows out of us again.

Just as the air surrounds us all the time, so the Divine presence surrounds us all the time. Just as we breath in and out and the air, becoming our breath, flows in and out of us, so the Divine presence is not just something outside us, but something which flows through us. The air and our breathing are just like the Divine presence and our existence. Just as we can use meditation practices to draw our attention to the air and our breathing, we can use meditation practices to draw our attention to the omnipresent Divine, and its flowing through us.

However, there is something more about the air and our breathing.

We don’t just breathe in the air around us and breath it out again, there is a point to it. There is a reason that our bodies do this. The reason is because there are things in the air which we need to survive as a being – oxygen, for example. The air flows into us through our breathing, but doesn’t just flow out again, first the life giving aspects of the air penetrate our physical being, it doesn’t just flow in and out of us, it actually becomes a part of who we are as a living being. It is incorporated into our being and it is this which gives us life. We can go for a while without food. We can go for a slightly shorter while without a drink. But we cannot go long at all without taking a breath! It is the most significant aspect to our survival, based on how long we can go without the things we need to survive. Breath is what we can go without the least.

This is also true with the Divine presence. As the Divine presence flows through our very being, it doesn’t just stay something separate to us, it isn’t just something external which flows into our being and through us, as it does that it becomes a part of who we are as a being. And it is what we can do without the least. We can go for a while without reading the bible, or going to church, or even verbal expressions of prayer, but without the interflowing of the Divine presence into and through our being, becoming a part of who we are, we will spiritually perish. So therefore this means that just like the air and our breathing and the interaction with our physical selves, the Divine is flowing through each of us and interweaving into being a part of our existence and of our very being all the time. We just live most of our lives completely unaware of it.

Just as the basic first fundamental teaching of meditation and mindfulness is focus on the breathe, and is a practice continued by even the masters, so the focused awareness of the Divine presence and its interflowing and integration into our very being is a basic practice for the spiritual meditator.
And just as with all other meditation practices, the more one does it, the more one becomes aware. The more one becomes aware, the greater affect it has on our being, our living, our existence. It becomes a part of who we are, and flows out from us as we live out our lives.

Stop. Breathe. Live aware.

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Being a Pneuma Nastic New Monastic

9/14/2017

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It was a few years ago now that I became a vowed member of the dispersed New Monastic community ‘The Community of Aidan & Hilda’ (CA&H). Much more recently (at time of writing) I had the privilege of facilitating the service of one of the Explorer members of CA&H taking their vows to become a Voyager. These are terms which CA&H use for those people who have been spending time exploring living by the Way of Life (our monastic Rule) who are becoming a vowed member of the Community.
On my way to the service I went to collect a friend and we both drove up together in my car. The three of us, the person taking their vows, the friend I collected, and myself, are all mutual friends, but the one I had collected did not know a great deal about CA&H or New Monasticism, so on the journey, a little over an hour each way, they took the opportunity to ask questions and discover more about it. We discussed all the different aspects of what it meant to commit to take vows to live by a monastic rule as a lay person in a dispersed community, and various thoughts on spiritual disciplines. However, it became apparent as we spoke that something was not quite matching up. My friend just wasn’t quite getting what I was saying. Then it became clear why this was. Although I was speaking clearly, some of the words I was saying were leaving my mouth one way and hitting the ears of my friend in a different way. Specifically one, quite key, phrase. You see, as I said the words ‘New Monastic’ my passenger was hearing the words ‘pneuma nastic’. Being an intelligent person, they knew that ‘pneuma’ was the Greek word for ‘spirit’ used in scripture, and so was assuming that this was something to do with the Holy Spirit, but was not really getting the gist, as this little miscommunication changed everything, and made much of what I said unintelligible. Once we had cleared up this little misunderstanding, by my friend stopping the conversation and asking me ‘what is nastic?’, and laughing about it, things began to get much clearer for my friend. However, it got me thinking, I liked the idea of ‘Pneuma Nastic’, of a Spirit led something or another, but as far as I knew, ‘nastic’ was not a real word. It wasn’t a suffix of ‘monastic’ as the prefix included the letters ‘na’ from the monos of monk, meaning ‘one’, or ‘alone’. However, I decided to look it up anyway. Some of you may already know this, because you are cleverer than me, but to my delight I discovered that ‘nastic’ is an actual word! And it has a wonderful meaning to be allegorically translated into the Christian (Pheuma led) life.
Nastic is a term which comes from botany, it is the movement of plant parts in response either to external or internal growth stimuli. Nastic movements, which are generally slow, can be observed with time laps filming, which we have probably all seen on the amazing natural history and nature programs on telly.
How wonderful! Nastic means to grow, slowly, from an internal or external stimuli. Certainly Pneuma Nastic has now become a thing, at least it has for me! Being that I am a branch of the vine which is Christ, a nice botanical allegory, Pneuma nastic is the slow and gradual transformation and growth of my inner self due to the internal work of the Holy Spirit (Pneuma) or the external work, that is, through other people, of the same.

Therefore I am a Pneuma nastic New Monastic!

However, you don’t have to be New Monastic to live a Pneuma nastic life. In fact, the Pneuma nastic growth of our inner selves is really what being a Christian is all about! For example, this is what the Apostle Paul meant when he suggested to the church in Rome that they be transformed by the renewing of their minds. This ‘renewing’ was Pneuma nastic. Or when he wrote to the church in Corinth explaining how we are being transformed from one degree of glory to the next to become more and more like God, and become a better reflection of the Divine glory.
We may not all be New Monastics, but we should certainly all be Pneuma nastic! We should all be led into slow transformative growth by the prompting and stimuli of the Holy Spirit!

For many people the joy of spiritual disciplines, or following a monastic Rule or Way of Life is a life-giving wonder, and, speaking for myself, has been one of the greatest helps in my own growth. But whether or not you choose to be New Monastic, as we all continue on the path to which we have been led, I pray that we will all always live a Pneuma nastic life, and that the Holy Spirit will always be the stimuli for our nasticness (I think I made that last word up!).

If you wanted to know more about New Monasticism, and CA&H specifically, then why not visit www.aidanandhilda.org.uk, or dip into one of these books:
New Celtic Monasticism for Everyday People by Ray Simpson; Followers of the Way by Simon Reed; or Ancient Faith, Future Mission – New Monasticism as Fresh Expression of Church. Various authors

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Sacred Spaces

10/12/2016

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[Jesus] came to the Samaritan village of Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime. Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water... Jesus said, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”
John 4 v 5-7 & 13-14

Physical, geographical Sacred Spaces:

God has always been involved in His creation, since the beginning of time, throughout every day since, and will continue to be so until He comes to reclaim it and all things are reconciled back to their Creator.
We seem happy in church to sing of such things, proclaiming that ‘this is the day the Lord has made’ for example, and singing songs with lines such as ‘who told the lightening bolts where they should go? Or has seen heavenly storehouses laden with snow?’ Both of these are Old Testament scripture references, but do we really believe them? Do we really believe that the earth, or the whole of the created order, are sacred, special and interact with the Divine?

The bible tells us not only that God is involved in his creation, like the verses above, and many others like them, but that there is a great Divine love for it! One good example is a reference to God’s love for the whole of creation which I believe has been greatly misunderstood. The verse I am referring to, in my experience, has been understood and referred to as saying ‘people’, that it is referring to humanity. But it isn’t. It is so much more than that!

There is more than one word in scripture to refer to the ‘world’ so as to be able to distinguish the natural created order (which includes people) from just the people (humanity) from ‘fleshly attitudes’, three distinct things. One of these Greek words, the word for the natural created order of things, is ‘kosmos’. And all through the New Testament the word ‘kosmos’ is used and translated as ‘world’, which is correct. However, there is one scripture where the word ‘kosmos’ is used, meaning the whole of creation, and is translated as ‘world’, which is correct, which we seem to have been conditioned to misunderstand as meaning ‘people’. That scripture is John 3v16. The original translation uses the word ‘kosmos’: ‘for God so loved the ‘whole of creation’ (kosmos) that He gave His only Son (then moving onto people) so that whoever believes in Him…’ etc…etc... To understand this verse in this way gives us a whole different perspective of God’s view of nature and the whole of creation. It was for it all, the trees and plants, the creatures and birds, the waters and the rock, that Jesus suffered and died and not just for human beings.

If this is the case, if God so loved the Earth that he gave his only Son, and if God so loved the birds, and animals, and seas and everything in them, if God so loved the trees and plants that he gave his only Son, then what difference should that make as to how we see and treat the planet upon which we live? What changes in our Spiritual Ecology do we need to make to enable us to be in line with the Divine perspective of the world, the Kosmos? Some good books to help you through this include: L is for Lifestyle by Ruth Valerio; Simple by Helen Jaeger; Toward an Eco-Spirituality (Church at the Crossroad) by Leonardo Boff. Also see ecochurch.arocha.org.uk.

But it is not only God’s love of the earth that the bible speaks of, but the response by or from the earth back to God (and I am not talking about people). Romans 8v19-22 speaks of the created order groaning in child bearing pains waiting to be freed from it’s subjection to the fall. I don’t know if you are aware, but plants do actually emanate sound. Flowers, for example, emit two tones which can be ‘heard’ by bees, one signals that they are full of nectar, a welcoming sound, and the other signals that they have just been emptied and need a couple of minutes to replenish their nectar supplies. This, some scientists believe, is why bees sometimes hover in front of a flower and then leave without going in. Plants communicate through sound beyond the normal human hearing.

I have the privilege of living at the edge of 152 square miles of protected forest. I often go out into this wonderful surrounding to meditate. On one such occasion a few years ago I was sitting in a lovely wooded grove. I had woven some vines together around a couple of tree trunks to create something to sit on, and planned to sit there all morning in meditation. After a couple of hours in stillness and silence I began to hear a sound. It was a low, very low, humming sound, although not like a mechanical hum, more like a vocal hum. As I listened more I could hear that it was not just a single hum, but multiple hums, and in different tones, but in beautiful harmony. I sat and listened for a short while more to this beautiful sound. Then I opened my eyes. As I opened my eyes I could see what looked like a heat haze coming off the tops of the trees surrounding me. This seemed a little odd as I was wearing a jacket to keep me warm that day. As I watched, in probably less than 2 seconds, the ‘heat haze’ disappeared, and at the same time the beautiful harmonious humming sound faded out too. Both disappeared together. I believe that what I heard, from within a deep meditation, was the sound of the trees responding to their Creator.

In the gospel of Mark, Jesus commissions his disciples to go into the world (kosmos) and preach to the whole of creation (ktisis: all created things) 16v15. This seems a very odd thing to say! To go and tell all created things the Gospel of Christ. Unless, of course, we think that proclaiming the Gospel is more than just using words, but is also shown by our actions. Then acting out the Gospel, the good news of Christ to the whole of the created order is not so difficult to do. Perhaps this command by Jesus is a command to care for creation!

Creation is alive, has a ‘relationship’ with God (for want of a better word), and God is intricately interactively involved in every part of it in love (see Matthew 10v29 for example). We need to understand that the bible teaches that God has a relationship with every part of the whole of His creation, and not just the people of it, and that He dwells within it, and not just in His people.

Today it is perhaps the Celtic Christians who are most famed for seeing and believing in the Divine within creation, understanding it as panentheistic – God in everything (as opposed to pantheistic, which sees everything as a god). Perhaps, arguably, the best advocate of this from the Celtic Christians was John Scotus Eriugena who, in his Homily on the prologue of John’s Gospel he states that we can ‘learn to know the Maker from those things that are made in him and by him’and particularly his book Periphision – on the division of nature, which as Oliver Davies says in Celtic Spirituality, in his work Periphyseon - On the Division of Nature Eriugena ‘presents an understanding of the origin and meaning of the universe… [which] establishes the created world, both visible and invisible, as a theophany of God, who is unknowable in himself. God is thus simultaneously present in all things and infinitely beyond all things’. But it wasn’t just the Celtic Christians who believed this, many others throughout the Christian heritage did too, such as St Francis of Assisi, famed for his connection with nature, and also the Medieval German Mystic Meister Eckhart who said “If I spend enough time with the tiniest creature – even a caterpillar – I would never have to prepare another sermon, so full of God is every creature.”

The concept of Sacred Spaces, or Thin Places has come from this knowledge over the generations of the Divine dwelling in the natural realms, that the spiritual and the physical are interwoven. Many specific places on earth have become sacred spaces, places where the Divine presence seem a little heavier, where the veil between the physical realm and the spiritual realm seems to be much thinner.
We can often better understand the spirit realms with a physical illustration; Jesus understood this, which is why He used so many of them. Hopefully this following illustration will help a little to understand the concept of physically sacred spaces:

If I have a large plot of ground and set up a sprinkler system above the whole of it, it would be true to say that the whole of it would be covered in the water. However, if I then took a hose pipe and held it constantly over one space of this ground, although the whole area would be covered in the presence of water, it would be true to say that the space under the hose pipe would be saturated to a much greater extent to that of the rest of the ground.
This is the concept of physical sacred spaces, that although the Divine presence is everywhere and in all places at all times, that there are specific spaces on the Earth where Spirit filled people have deeply saturated it in the Divine presence over long periods of time through prayer and worship, and so the presence of God is there to a greater extent than it is in other places, as the heavy presence of God dwells and lingers there.

A true story which may help to illustrate this:
Some years ago I lived and worked in London, and at a meeting I heard this testimony: There was a church which held a service one Sunday evening where the Divine presence became overwhelming to the people. The heavy presence of God, or to use a biblical/Hebrew word, the ‘Kabod’ of God, a wonderfully onomatopoeic word which means ‘the falling of the heavy presence’ of God, seemed to rest and dwell at the front of the church, similar to how the Spirit of God was over Naioth in 1Samuel 19v18-24. As people came to the front of the church, when they reached the front, they seemed to just fall to the floor under the presence of God. The meeting continued until it finished and all went home. The following day, as was usual, the cleaner came in to set things straight. One of her jobs was to remove the flowers from the stage and replace them the following week. She continued as usual to go to walk across the stage and take the flowers away. However, as soon as she reached the stage she fell to the floor under the continuing dwelling ‘Kabod’ of God which had lingered.

There are a great many sacred spaces which one can visit around the world. Some of those from the Christian heritage in Britain and Ireland include: Lindisfarne (also known as ‘Holy Island); The Isle of Iona; Glastonbury; Canterbury; St David’s; Bardsey Island; Caldey Island; Whitby; Skellig Michael; Glendalough; Kildare; Clonmacnoise; but there are so many others. Recommended books to help find these places include: Every Pilgrims Guide to Celtic Britain & Ireland by Andrew Jones; and Pilgrimage by Ian Bradley.

Inner Sacred Space:

I used the scripture passage of Jesus at Jacob’s Well at the start of this blog as an illustration of how the indwelling of God’s Spirit means we can also have ‘sacred spaces’ within ourselves as well as out side. Jacob’s well was a physical sacred space, but Jesus spoke to the woman about the spring of living water welling up within us, which is also a sacred space, an inner sacred space.

The move of God as recorded in the New Testament does not negate nor disregard that of the Old Testament - note that when the Apostle Paul spoke to Timothy and said “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.” (2Tim 3:16) he was only referring to the Jewish scriptures, the Christian Old Testament. God did not stop all He was doing, but transformed it, and added to it, so we can now not only have sacred spaces in the physical world, like the Holy of Holies in the temple, but also within ourselves with God’s indwelling Spirit. This is what the tearing of the curtain in the temple at the moment of the death of Christ signified.

The way in which we create the inner environment to have and dwell in an inner sacred space is through contemplative prayer and practices such as meditation. There are many books which enable us to learn how to do this, including my own (which you can find here) as I believe that creating inner sacred spaces draws us closer to the Divine than any other form of prayer or worship or service, though all other forms are worthwhile, none draws us as deeply in the very heart of the Divine, into the Ground of our Being as much as contemplation.

Final thought
God still intimately loves and dwells within His world, the ‘kosmos’, the created order, and works intricately in every part in a relationship with it all, and also works within His people, which He has always done. The need for personal alignment to the ‘Law’ is now no longer necessary, for we are now under the grace of God through Jesus’ death and resurrection. All else, though, is the same, and we can encounter and dwell with the Divine Creator in physical sacred spaces as well as our inner sacred spaces. Find existing, or even create, external, physical sacred spaces, and also, through the practice of contemplation and meditation, create inner sacred spaces.

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Intentional Silence - Walking the Mystic Path

5/26/2016

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Words are powerful. It is no mistake that the word ‘spell’ is used both for the way in which a word is constructed, and also for collecting words together to say and draw the supernatural power (sometimes called ‘magic’) from them.
Words are emotive, they create in us a response, a reaction. The emotional reaction to words comes from one of two places: our personal experience; and also our total inexperience, where we nonetheless have created a totally unfounded pre-conditioned meaning to a word, perhaps from something others have said, or simply from our imaginings of the word and its meaning. From the latter comes a great deal of prejudice expressed in all sorts of ways.

The word ‘mystic’, for many Christians, is one such word, a very emotive word. To some when it is said the transcendent tradition or writings of such people as Meister Eckhart or Teresa of Avila come to mind, for others however, there is a negative reaction as it is simply something which is associated with ‘other’ beliefs’.
In my book ‘The Mystic Path of Meditation’ (see ‘books’ link to the left) I describe the word near the beginning. In it I say “…the true meaning of the word “mystic” points to practices I wholeheartedly endorse. According to the dictionary, a mystic is ‘one who, through meditation and contemplation, seeks to become of one mind and will with their Deity.’ Based on this definition, then, all who seek to truly follow Christ should strive to be mystics.” It’s as simple as that, a mystic is someone who uses contemplative practices to become more like their Deity. All who desire to be more like God/Christ are called to be mystics therefore, and all can be.

In ‘The Big Book of Christian Mysticism’ (highly recommended!) Carl McColman describes mysticism as ‘Christianity’s best kept secret’ and that ‘Christian mysticism is not the same as ordinary religious belief or observance. It has room for profound doubt and questioning. It does not ask you to check your mind at the door and submit your will to some sort of external authority…Christian mysticism invites us to look at God, Christ, the church, our own souls, and our understanding of such things as ‘sin’ or ‘holiness’ in new ways [to what you might be used to]…It is a revolutionary way to approach God and Christ and spirituality. It is an ancient wisdom tradition…which promises to transform the lives of people who seriously and sincerely apply its wisdom to their own life circumstances”.

Mysticism and contemplation are inextricably interwoven. We gain the benefits of the mystic path by practicing contemplation. We become still and we become quiet in our inner selves, through which we gain a deeper experience and understanding of the Divine. In fact, those who we now, in our modern terminology, call ‘mystics’ from the Christian tradition, would most likely have referred to themselves as ‘contemplatives’. The art of contemplation, or ‘intentional silence’, allows us to become mystics, to regularly practice contemplation and meditation is to walk the mystic path. The subtitle to ‘The Big Book of Christian Mysticism’ is, in fact, ‘The Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality’, and a follow up book of McColman’s is entitled ‘Answering the Contemplative Call – First Steps on the Mystical Path’.

Words, as I said at the start, are powerful, but something equally as powerful is silence. No words. Often we use words to distract our inner selves from dealing with the things within us that really should be dealt with. This is why some people are so afraid, or respond badly to silence. We hide behind the words, the busyness of our inner self. Words can, in fact, sometimes be counterproductive in our prayer life and our relationship with God. Sometimes we just need to stop talking, out loud or in our heads, and just sit in silence. Father Thomas Keating, who founded ‘Contemplative Outreach’ and teaches and writes on ‘Centring Prayer’, once said ‘God’s first language is silence, the rest is interpretation’.

When was the last time you engaged in intentional silence? Not just switching all the external noise off, although that is good, but intentional silence. Deliberately creating an inner environment of quiet and calm, stillness and silence.

Intentional silence is a first step in contemplation, which is the path to mysticism, to becoming more of one mind and will with the Divine.
Meister Eckhart, a 14th century Dominican Friar and often seen as one of the ‘great’ Christian mystics said “If God is to speak his word in the soul, she must be at rest and at peace, and then he will speak his word, and himself, in the soul”. Eckhart always referred to the soul as a ‘she’, and here he reminds us that if we truly wish to hear and know God’s word and in fact his Self, then our soul, our inner self must be ‘at rest and at peace’.

To deliberately put time out, to create opportunities in our lives, for intentional silence is perhaps one of the most important but highly neglected practices of the modern church. As Mark Yaconelli says in ‘Contemplative Youth Ministry’ “The contemplative tradition of the Christian faith comes to us as a precious gift in an age when no one has time to sit still”, and as I point out in ‘The Mystic Path of Meditation’, “according to Brian Hedges of Life Action Ministries, [only] one in every 10,000 Christians meditate regularly”.

There is a lot of talk these days about transforming the church. Especially following a recent UK report to suggest that the 'non religious' now outnumber the Christians for the first time in hundreds of years. Many folk are seeing that the church as it is is not doing what it is meant to be doing, and not as it was intended to be, lots of people feeling despondent with mainstream church, feeling that they don’t fit in (see my previous blog ‘Ecclesiastical Monachopsis’). Perhaps Karl Rahner, a 20th century German Jesuit Priest, was right when he said “The Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist at all”. By mysticism, Rahner explains, he does not mean some esoteric phenomenon but “a genuine experience of God emerging from the very heart of our existence.”

This here is the heart of it. Putting time out for intentional silence, to practice contemplation, to walk the mystic path, is to gain and live within a constant awareness of the Divine presence, and to “experience…God emerging from the very heart of our existence”. If we, as individual Christians all practice this, then the collective, known as ‘church’ will be entirely transformed into something positive for humanity, and the rest of creation too, something which will deeply reflect the true character of the Divine, and perhaps we would experience God truly emerging from the very heart of the church’s existence.

Practice intentional silence. Walk the mystic path. Encounter God more deeply, more personally. Be transformed.

Further reading:
A tiny reading list from what is available, but good places to start

Cole, David. The Mystic Path of Meditation – beginning a Christ centred journey
Heath, Elaine A. The Mystic Way of Evangelism – a contemplative vision for Christian outreach
Keating, Thomas. Intimacy with God – an introduction to centring prayer
McColman, Carl. Answering the Contemplative Call – first steps on the mystical path
McColman, Carl. The Big Book of Christian Mysticism – the essential guide to contemplative spirituality
Nelstrop, Louise. Christian Mysticism – an introduction to contemporary theoretical approaches
Rohr, Richard. The Naked Now – seeing as the mystics see
Underhill, Evelyn. Practical Mysticism for Normal People

Any primary sources from the mystics/contemplatives of the Christian heritage.
Many secondary sources about the mystics/contemplatives of the Christian heritage.

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Ecclesiastical Monachopsis

1/19/2016

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Have you ever been in the situation where you feel that you just don’t quite fit in? That everyone else in whatever group you happen to be with seems to slip right into the mould but you feel just a bit uncomfortable? It isn’t that you particularly dislike the people, it’s just that you don’t quite seem to dovetail as well as everyone else with everyone else and the environment. This is called monachopsis (mon-a-kop-sis), the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place; that you just don’t quite fit.

I suffer from a particular form of this affliction: Ecclesiastical Monachopsis. That is, the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place; that I just don’t quite fit in to conventional church (Ecclesia in Greek).

It isn’t that I particularly dislike the people (not all of them anyway), nor is it that I dislike gathering with the purpose of focusing on God, engaging in worship and learning (or even teaching as I do quite often) on Christ centred life and biblical understanding. In fact I love these things very much. I am, though it may seem an oxymoron, and perhaps a future blog will emerge on this, a contemplative extrovert. I love being with other people. I love chatting about real things (not a great surface converser) and I love spending time with folk over food and drink, whether it’s a meal, a cup of tea, or a pint of ale at the pub. I love engaging in different kinds and styles of worship. I don’t just mean singing, although as a musician I enjoy that style of worship, I mean practically and physically engaging in different acts of worship, spontaneous as well as ritualised. Anyone who knows me will agree that I do like to talk. I do like to teach. And I do love to pass on to whoever wants to listen anything which has helped me in my personal life journey, especially if it has helped me gain a deeper and more authentic relationship with the Divine. So in essence, I love the practical side of what happens in most churches on most Sundays. But I just can’t shake that feeling of ecclesiastical monachopsis.

I think a big part of why I feel I suffer from ecclesiastical monachopsis is that I just don’t think the mainstream presentation from the modern church is quite what Christianity is supposed to be. I think Christianity, as a faith, has slipped quite seriously from what Jesus was all about and what he, and those who taught immediately following his departure, meant by living in a relationship with God. In my experience, and I can only speak from my own experience, Church as an institutionalised organisation, on the whole, has become something apart from the teachings and person of Christ.

The term ‘Christian’, which has today become the title of a religion and a religious identification, was first made as a statement about the life and behaviour of a community of followers of the teachings of Jesus Christ. It is recorded in Acts 11v26 that the followers of Christ were first called ‘Christians’ in Antioch. The word ‘Christian’ is the Greek word ‘Christianos’ and means ‘Christ-like’. It has the suffix ‘ian’ which means ‘with the same meaning and properties as: an, ian.’ The latter is the more productive of the two suffixes in recent coinage, especially when the base noun ends in a consonant: Orwellian; Washingtonian; Christian. That means that this community of believers in Antioch was so much like the Christ they said they followed that they were identified as having the same properties, or qualities as Christ. This is, it seems, a far cry from many today who use the term ‘Christian’ to identify themselves, and of those who Mahatma Gandhi must have encountered in the mid-20th century for him to say ‘I love your Christ. It is just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ’. What has happened to cause such a chasm to have been created between the believers in Antioch and those in the 20th century whom Gandhi experienced, and those in the 21st century whom many outside the church (and often those within it, including myself) encounter today?

One of the key verses in scripture for me is 1 John 2v6 which says ‘[t]hose who say they live in God (or, in this context are Christians) should live their lives as Christ did’. This seems a pretty straight forward statement. Be like Christ. But something is not right.

I have a book by the author Margaret Silf which is a collation of stories. In this book, entitled ‘one hundred Wisdom Stories from around the world’, there is a story called The Firemaker. In this story we enter into an imagined time where people lived but knew nothing of fire. Then a man who could make fire enters a village. He shows them this amazing thing, teaches them how to use it properly so that it does not hurt them. Shows them how to use it for heat, light, firing clay, and cooking. The Firemaker finally teaches the villagers how to make fire themselves. The village elders do not like this and decide they must get rid of the Firemaker, and the only way they will be able to do this is by killing him. But his death only seems to encourage the people more. So the village elders decide to control the Firemaker following which was beginning to build up. If folk wanted to celebrate the Firemaker, then they could do it in contained meetings and specially built buildings. The village elders would organise the gatherings and would control the way in which they went. After a time the gatherings of the followers of the Firemaker became a regular thing. The followers remained faithful and paid homage to the life of the Firemaker telling stories of him and great rituals built up around the gatherings. But, as the story ends, ‘there was no fire’.

I think the story of the Firemaker is an excellent reflection (as is its intent) of what has happened to Christianity from the time of Christ to its mainstream expression today. Throughout Christian history pockets of fire have risen, as they do today, but it has never become ‘mainstream’. I have a desire to make fire, but I do not always find others with the same desire, so I feel out of place. Pyrotechnic monachopsis!

So what is the answer to my ecclesiastical monachopsis? To be honest I am not sure there is one, I am not sure I will ever get over it, as I am not sure that a 2,000 year old institution can be that radically changed. Not in one generation anyway. But the individuals who are its make up can be. Signs are beginning to emerge that people who are absolutely convinced that Christ is the way are becoming discontent with the current expressions and teachings within the modern church. Questions are being raised. Doubts are being aired. Books are being written (*). Fire is emerging not just in individuals, but in groups of people.

I don’t wish to throw the baby out with the bathwater, as has been the repeated pattern in church history when a ‘new way’ emerges. I don’t want to stop gathering with other people to worship and learn about God; or encouraging folk and building them up in their faith – I like those things. I want to draw on the wonder and richness of our spiritual heritage, I want to live a life like Christ, even when that might conflict with the church institution. I want to learn from and be accountable to those who make fire, whose lives are tested and proven to have depth, breadth, and to be Christ-like, not just those who happen to have gained a qualification and position in leadership.
Ecclesiastical monachopsis may be something which I will have to live with, but it isn’t something I have to resign myself to suffering from (they are not the same thing at all). I can make a difference. This is one of the reasons I felt God calling me to start Waymark Ministries in the first place, and create opportunities for those who feel the same as I do, hence the tagline ‘The message of Christ for spiritual seekers’. Having already quoted Mahatma Gandhi in this blog, I will end with another quote attributed to him which seems fitting here and sums up why I do what I do: “Be the change you want to see in the world” (or church).

(*) one or two bits of further reading:
A New Kind of Christianity. Brian McLaren
Church: why bother. Philip Yancey
So you don’t want to go to church anymore. Wayne Jacobsen & Dave Coleman
A Churchless Faith – Faith journeys beyond the churches. Alan Jamieson

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Simple Prayers

9/30/2015

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How often do we feel the need to lengthen our prayers, and put great explanations out to God so that he understands what we are asking, as if he doesn't already know what is in our hearts. There are a great deal of prayers associated with Celtic Christianity, many books can be bought of beautifully worded, wonderfully crafted prayers, but below are prayers from arguably two of the most influential Celtic saints which show just how simple prayers can be.

In the first story Columba, who founded the Christian centre on Iona in the 6th century, simply shouts one word twice. That is his prayer. And angels of God know exactly what he is saying and under Divine instruction answer Columba's prayer. In the second story Aidan, who founded the Christian centre on Lindisfarne in the 7th century, simply makes a statement. That is his prayer. And the Spirit of God moves.

Simple prayers can be very powerful!

Columba sat transcribing the Scriptures in his little cell at Iona. Two brothers who were near the open door were alarmed when his countenance suddenly changed and he shouted ‘Help! help!’
‘What is the matter?’ they asked with consternation. Columba told them: ‘A brother at our monastery at Oakwood Plain in Derry was working at the very top of the large house they are building there, and he slipped and began to fall. I ordered the angel of the Lord who was standing just there among you two to go immediately to save this brother.’
Later they learned that a man had indeed fallen from that great height, but nothing was broken, and he did not even feel any bruise. As they discussed this Columba said: ‘How wonderful beyond words is the swift motion of an angel, it is as swift as lightning. For the heavenly spirit who flew from us when that man began to fall was there to support him in a twinkling of an eye before his body reached the ground. How wonderful that God gives such help through his angels, even when much land and sea lies between.’

Aidan was spending time out on the isle of Inner Farne praying in solitude and silence, the Pagan king Penda, of Mercia, began an attack on Bamburgh castle. As he could not capture it by assault or siege he attampted to set it on fire. He tore the local town apart to get fire wood and built it up against the castle and gates. Waiting for a favourable wind he lit the fire and watched the flames rise high against the castle.
When Aidan saw the flames rising into the sky and the great plume of smoke he raised his eyes and hands towards heaven and said, with tears in his eyes, "Lord, see what evil Penda is doing!". As soon as these words had left his lips the winds changed and blew across the ocean towards the castle, pushing the flames away from the castle and towards those who had lit them. Penda and his army fled, and the fire did little damage. Later when Penda heard the story of the power of Aidan's prayer he vowed never to attack this castle again as he realized that it was Divinely protected.

Keep it simple. Matthew 6v7-8

Wording for the Columba story taken from 'Celtic Daily Light' on the reading for September 30th. Wording for the Aidan story taken from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People.

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Exciting Celtic Summer School!!!

Thoughts from the Friary

Awareness of the Divine Heartbeat

Being a Pneuma Nastic New Monastic

Sacred Spaces

Intentional Silence - Walking the Mystic Path

Ecclesiastical Monachopsis

Simple Prayers

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