Following from my last post – I think Rob Bell and St Benedictine are saying similar things – everything is spiritual, everything has a bearing on our relationship with God, God is in everything
Bell and Benedict
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Category Archives: spirituality
sleep more … pray less
On study days recently, and on those odd times that I sit in the coffee shop or w/s on my own I have been investigating the Benedictine tradition which is the underlying spirituality of the cathedral. I have been looking into this to see if there is anything we can learn from as a cathedral in how we engage with visitors, particularly at the time of major festivals such as Dickens and the Sweeps festival.
I knew very little about Benedictine spirituality other than the hospitality side of things and have been surprised so far by what I have discovered.
The first two words of the rule, in the prologue, are listen carefully. The more I read the more I come back to this central underlying instruction to listen carefully – to God, to others, and to self; and probably in that order.
The Benedictine rule seems to be about communication and encounter rather than a set of rules. A communication and encounter with God that causes us to change. In short, I guess he is talking here of a life of worship. That may surprise you as a comment on a rule of life consisting of 73 chapters or rules to follow. But, it does seem to be about meaningful engagement with God and each other rather than sticking to rigid rules. For example, rule 10 takes account of seasonal changes in daylight hours and speaks of shortening the time set aside for prayer rather than shortening the time for sleep. I can’t help but think during the summer months in many churches today that I would receive a fairly negative reaction if I said that, due to the time of year, I would not be able to join the prayer meeting as I felt it was right and better for me to be sleeping!!!
In other rules, St. Benedict lists exceptions due to a number of things which shows a good understanding of humanity and our need to find what works for us within a particular framework that is flexible to some extent. A lot of freedom of expression may be found within the rule.
Benedict had a clear holistic view with an understanding the whole of life, how we work, how we worship, how we look after ourselves and how we deal with others all being connected. The whole of life is our spiritual life. Yes – more prayer can help us, but lack of sleep through prayer may cause us to sin out of tiredness induced weakness!
I have only learnt a little and I have a lot more reading to do – but I am intrigued by a character that tells me the right amount of sleep needs to take precedence over the right amount of prayer! With that … I’m off to bed!
spiritual privilege
I have had an excellent day and the MBS festival in Victoria today. I have been helping on the Dekhomai stand for a few years now and I always find the experience a real privilege.
Today I have chatted and prayed with people as I massaged their feet. I have prayed with people who wanted healing, and prayed with others who wanted a blessing or prayer for a loved one. For the first time I used the Jesus Deck to pray with people, which took me out of my comfort zone a fair bit. It was amazing how God led in the conversations with these cards.
I find it a real serving and humbling experience being at such an event just to bring a gift to people – the gift of some interaction of the Divine. It’s amazing to sit back and watch how Jesus challenges, comforts and loves people that are spiritually searching. I am amazed again at how open these people are. Jonny made a good observation that every one we spoke to assumes that they have some relationship with God – and that was my experience too – which seems to fly in the face of the story we hear about people today through our churches. It was an interesting point to mull over.
This is always a highlight of my year; my only regret is that I can only do one day this year … roll on next time!
MBS again
We are approaching one of my favourite events of the year, the London Mind Body Spirit Festival.
Again this year I will be helping out on Dekhomai. If you don’t know what I am on about then go check out the Dekhomai website to learn some more.
I love this event. The chance to pray with people and the privilege of being with people, many of whom are searching, who have a great expectancy and desire for something to happen. I love seeing what God does through simple acts of conversation and touch.
I tried out a spiritual profile test the other day, just for fun. Apparantly I am a seeker. I’ve cut and paste explorefaith.org’s definition of a ‘seeker’:
Seekers are people who naturally connect with the Holy One through questioning. They have a healthy skepticism that makes it easy for them to explore different opinions, understandings, and experiences of faith. They do not feel the need to accept traditional faith patterns in order to come to a lively trust in God. They do not feel that faith needs to be categorized or institutionalized in order to be real. Inconsistencies and mystery are not daunting to them, but they sometimes find it hard to recognize God in ready-made answers to questions of faith. They seek to relate to the Holy One through exploration and journey. They tend to pray with hopefulness rather than certainty in God’s response. If they were to meet God face to face, they would want to ask God questions.
The woman who met Jesus by a well near her town exemplifies the qualities of a seeker. She was courageous in speaking with Jesus—a male who was outside her tradition—and she even boldly challenged Jesus when he questioned her about her faith and life. Though she was on a path of trying to find and live spiritual truth, she was humble enough to accept new truth when it was revealed to her.
If you are a seeker you may find spiritual meaning through asking questions and testing the normally accepted assumptions about God and faith. As a seeker looking for truth, the journey will be as important to you as the destination. You may be encouraged in your seeking by going to explorefaith.org’s Explore Faith section. Other material of interest could include explorefaith.org books such as Blowing the Lid off the God-box and Beyond Words: Fifteen Ways of Doing Prayer, and articles introducing new ways of perceiving, such as those on Ram Dass, Jewish Spirituality, A World of Prayers, and The Stuff of Dreams, about using dreams and the unconscious to connect with God.
Seekers may struggle more with traditional patterns of prayer and faith. Praying the Hours and reading daily Signpost devotions may be surprise tonics for your soul.
so … there you have it!
the depth of insignificance
As part of the YFC retreat looking at the metaphor of trees in our spiritual lives, we paid a visit to the Westonbirt Arboretum.
Its a magnificent place with hundreds of various trees growing in pretty amazing ways. I remember commenting on the variety of different greens that there were as we wondered from tree to tree following the footpath.
A couple of us were intrigued by the title ‘2000 year old lime’ on the guide and thought we should explore further. We were excited at the thought of being able to see part of creation that had been here when Jesus walked the earth; after all its not an experience that you can repeat every day.
We were quite disappointed to find what you see in the first picture – a 2000 year old Lime coppice. The trees themselves are quite young, but the base of the trunks (second pic), and the roots, date back 2000 years. It may not have looked that impressive, but the significance was evident.
As I look back on my life certain areas can seem quite young and immature – that’s because they are. When I look at others I can have a tendency to be quite judgemental and just look at the surface. If I had not known the significance of the age of this coppice I would have just wandered past.
Sometimes there is a need to pause, to reflect and consider the roots. This lime looked young, new, wispy and insignificant – but a closer look at the roots show that it stands on a pretty solid foundation that has sustained it for two thousand years, and probably will continue to sustain it for quite a while longer.
God in the darkness
Today I traveled to the Franciscan Friars house in Canterbury to meet up with Brother Colin.
For the next year Brother Colin, a wonderful Franciscan Friar, is going to be my spiritual director. If we both believe its working after the year we will agree to continue.
This morning Brother Colin got me thinking in a number of ways but one in particular followed our discussion of morning and evening prayer. For many years now I have been following and using the daily office from the Northumbria Community. For the last few months, in line with requirements of ordination, i have been using Common Worship for morning prayer. I can’t pretend to be totally comfortable with this as it is over wordy (in my humble opinion) and I resonate far more with the Northumbria liturgy.
As we discussed this Br Colin reminded me of the daily cycle. We know that God’s people saw the day starting at sundown. I was aware of this , but not really fully thought through what this meant.
If the start of the day is when darkness starts to descend, and God created that day, and lives within that day he created, then God is in the darkness as well as the light. It’s easy to think of ‘other powers’ having some rule over the night, or subconsciously thinking God is not in the darkness. Part of Israeli faith, and the first century faith of Jesus, saw very much that God was everywhere, including the darkness.
That brief conversation has opened up a whole new dimension of God for me. I’m now wondering how you recognise God in the darkness!
God sound, Christ mystery, Spirit Rhythm
looks interesting (if you click on the image it should enlarge to a readable size)- more info at Contemplative Fire.
Burdens
Another Desert Father saying for today:
We have abandoned a light burden, namely self-criticism and taken up a heavy burden, namely self-justification.
On the face of it it seems much easier to justify what we are doing or have done when things go wrong. The result is we back ourselves into a corner. The result is a much heavier burden.
Self-criticism is flipping painful in the short run, it hurts and we feel dented. But, with the issue in the open, we can look ahead to the next time and get on with making more mistakes, rather than spending time on consuming avoidance strategies.
MBS re-visited
I was back at the dekhomai stand at the Mind Body Spirit Festival again today and had that same sense of privilege. Again people spoke and shared concerns, again people asked for prayer, again God blessed what was going on.
Today someone came back to say thank you as she had been healed through the prayer one of the team prayed earlier in the week. She was amazed and wanted to share more and receive more prayer. While praying with someone else I had a vivid mental picture of Mary and Martha and when I shared it the woman was amazed as it spoke to her on a level that only God could be aware of!
Today was an amazing time and privilege again.
I have some thoughts and in particular how my charismatic upbringing enables me to relate and offer prayer in this ‘spiritual supermarket’ – we were discussing this with Steve when the stand was at a very rare time of quietness. It’s interesting that I need to use the gifts that came from that experience but yet reframe them so that they fit into the MBS setting where people are spiritually searching and wish to avoid much of what established church is all about, preferring to take what may work from a variety of different spiritualities.
It’s an interesting situation which I am going to ponder on over the next week or so – we are off on holiday to (hopefully) sunny Cornwall!
The Shiny Headed Prophet 