Tag Archives: spirituality

Rule of Life

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In today’s Celtic Lent reading we are introduced to the concept of a rule of life.
I have followed my personal rhythm of life for many years and, if needed, I update it annually after a period of reflection.

David Cole references Pelagius who states:

In a single day we make so many decisions we cannot possibly weigh up the good and evil consequences of each decision. We are liable to make foolish and wrong decisions. …. we need a rule …a simple set of principles we live our life by. This won’t be foolproof but our decisions will more often be right than wrong.

Elements of my rhythm repeat daily, weekly, monthly and annually. For example, daily I aim to spend time in prayer and meditation, weekly I aim to run 3 times, monthly I volunteer for a local project and annually I go on retreat.

I have taken those ideas and principles from monastic communities and made them work for me. Hopefully this week we will get to look a different rules and rhythms and see which we might gain benefit from in our personal journeys with God.

Inspired?

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Today’s reading asks us if we have been challenged or inspired by the Green/White actions of the saints we’ve considered over the last week?

I think I’ve been challenged to look at new ways of discipling and living out my faith in the spheres that are nw available to me. I don’t quite see what this looks like at the moment. Maybe that’s because the in Lent journey I often find myself surrounded by fog. As I keep moving forward the fog eventually clears and I get a great surprise when I find out where I am.

into the unknown

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Todays reading shares the story of Brendan’s voyage.

Brendan was amazing. After a time of prayer Brendan, and a few friends, decided God was calling them to literally go into the unknown. They took the words of Jesus in John 3:8 seriously and decided to simply put themselves in the way of God through the wind and sea and be taken wherever it was that God would have them go. This is classic Celtic spiritually of green and white martyrdom with a solid reality check of knowing this could so easily end up as an act of red martyrdom (see my previous post if you need a reminder).

Sometimes I have felt God calling me to do something, or rather to explore something, that seems impossible to do. These have been both exciting and scary times. Brendan and his friends had no idea where they were going and must have wondered if they were going to fall off the end of the sea. Sometimes that sea would be calm and they would be drifting while others they would have experienced massive waves and just clinging on for dear life as they waited for calm.

Today, are we able to take those kind of risks for the gospel?
Today are we willing to step out into the unknown, not really knowing where we will end up or what will happen?

This resonates quite strongly with me and my journey at the moment. My journey is in no way as scary or as brave as Brendan’s. I am, however, in a situation where I am simply placing myself in front of God on a daily basis. Each day I ask that question ‘where do you want me to be?’ I have not heard any answers yet … so I , as most of us do, will continue to drift and ride waves until I see where God wishes me to be present. Id love to hear from others your experiences of stepping out into the unknown.

Consequences

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In today’s reading from the book we learn of and consider Columba.

Columba had to start again due to the consequences of his actions, which caused him to be banished from Ireland. Today we are asked to contemplate and consider that sometimes we do things that cause us to have to give things up.
It’s not the end.
It can be massively painful as we have no one else to blame other than ourselves.
By returning to God we can rise again, from the self inflicted debris around us.
Just like the phoenix, which I believe to be a Lent creature, as she rises from the ashes of past dreams, mistakes and broken lives

We can thank God that, even when there are consequences of our actions, we can rely upon God’s grace and discover a new path ahead.

To give up or to hold on …. a ‘choice’ or ‘both and’?

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Celtic Lent today introduces the story of Cuthbert.
After a vision Cuthbert gave up his old life to start anew as a monk with God. He journeyed on a horse with a spear and a servant walking beside him to the monastery door. When there he gave the servant his spear and horse and walked into the monastery with just the clothes on his back.

I have struggled with this question over the years because I think there is a bit of a balancing act to do here. I wonder if giving up everything to follow God is all that is required if we are to learn and change on our journey.

During my early Christian life I believe I gave up too much. I gave up a career, which I still believe was the correct thing to do; but I think I also gave up my true character and social class. This was due to a desire to fit in but it resulted in me denying who I was and am.

I have come to understand that Jesus called me as me. Jesus called me as the very left wing, working class, dancing, drinking, loud, dreaming and challenging, and often annoying, character that God created me to be. I may say more about this at a later date. God called me as me, with my faults and sharp edges, because God wanted me to meet others with similar faults and sharp edges so that we could learn more and travel further together.

So, as we travel today and think of Cuthbert and the others we have learned from this week; yes … let us think about what we can lay aside or give up. But let’s also commit to keeping, growing, forming and allowing those bits of our characters that God wants to use to become what God wants them to be.

Sundays are slow …

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… as in during Lent they are not fast days … which is just as well as we are all out today celebrating Sarah’s 60th birthday and there will defiantly be food! Sundays are always, even during Lent, days of celebration.

The thought to carry through this day from Celtic Lent is to consider how we can become more green in our everyday lives. That is, what spiritual disciplines can we take on in our everyday life? If you are not sure, there is a great article here from the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity outlining some to experiment with.

its all about the green

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In January 2025 I decided I needed to do something to improve my health. I had seen a photo of a friends wedding in Weymouth and asked ‘who is that fat ******* on the left’ whilst coming to the horrific realisation that it was me. I was an incredible 125kg which classified as obese. I joined Beginners 2 Runners who are a great encouraging club that takes beginners, like me, and helps them to run 5K over a period of weeks. Many in my family were sceptical of my commitment, which encouraged me even more to reach this goal.

The first evening I could only run 3 minutes before stopping. It didn’t help that it was snowing! Each run hurt incredibly but I continued due to the great encouragement of others. To cut a long story short, I was running 5k after 10 weeks. I now run 5k three times a week and a few Sundays ago ran the London Winter 10k in an hour and 5 minutes (as shown in the super-proud pic!) Today I weigh 93kg and feel a lot happier and healthier.

Obviously none of this has come easy. It’s been painful and flipping hard work. Ive needed the encouragement of others in the club and I have needed to want to achieve the target myself which saw me running in snow, ice, hail, rain, heat, storms …. anything creation can throw at us! It’s taken commitment, a stubborn refusal to give up, a desire to progressively move one step further and an understanding that , if it is a competition, then the only person I am racing against is myself. B2R measures this in going just one step further next time.

Today’s Celtic Lent reading focusses on the green martyrdom I spoke of yesterday. It asks the question ‘what spiritual practices are you going to commit to? Like my running, successfully adopting a spiritual practice or two requires commitment, a stubborn refusal to give up, a genuine desire to want to see success.

Too often, in my personal and humble opinion, is that Christianity can be expressed as light and fluffy celebrating the victory and love of Jesus ….. and that is part of it. Also, though, to develop a strong relationship with our creator, to hear the creator speak into our lives, and to allow the creator to take some (or total!) control then we also need to adopt spiritual disciplines that will train us and allow us to stand before God and hear what God has to say.

What spiritual disciplines am I going to adopt?
For me that will be contemplative meditation, which I sometimes pair with my running, and silent retreats. These work for me when I am determined to practice them.
What works for you … I’d love to hear in the comments?

just dust …. or a whole lot more?

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This mornings thought from Celtic Lent has caused me to consider throughout today the ‘who am I’, ‘how was I created?’ question.
Were we created from dust, or were we created from a whole lot more?
Celtic christianity has a beautiful story of us not just being created from dust (and to dust we shall return) but that we, or strictly speaking, Adam, was created from earth, sea, sun, clouds, wind, stones and the light of the world.

I totally love that! The idea of being created from all aspects of creation. If that is so it explains the resonance many feel towards the rest of creation. If that is so it means humankind is inextricably liked with the whole of creation, and not just placed alongside to be a steward. Creation is broken, which isn’t a surprise as humankind is broken. We are part of creation and creation is part of us.

Over the last few years I have been experiencing a time of being broken. Thats another story for another time but I can share now that it hurt.
I have needed to be recreated.
Rebuilt.
Restored.
Being smashed into tiny pieces, like a really complicated jigsaw, obviously takes great time and effort to fix.
Only God has the patience and ability to do that.

I am not there yet. But I will be!

During my contemplation today I was reminded of the practice of Kintsugi.
Slowly I am allowing God to rebuild me.
Like someone that fixes a broken vase.
God has started the work, has continued today and will do more tomorrow.
As there are so many little pieces to fix back together God is needing to use a lot of gold.
Today, that simple thought reminds me that despite everything, I am precious to my creator.
So are you.

experiencing the holy

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Todays daily meditation from Richard Rohr…On these “thin days,” as the ancient Celts called them, All Saints Day and All Souls Day (Nov. 2), we are invited to be aware of deep time when past, present, and future time all come together as one. On these pivotal days we are reminded that our ancestors are still in us and work with us and through us. Protestants thought it was about “worshiping” saints, but that largely missed the point.

Actually this is a Christian meaning for reincarnation, which Christians also called “the communion of saints” in the Apostle’s Creed. This was the common and corporate notion of the human person. It realized that our ancestors are indeed in us and with us (as modern DNA studies can now prove), and then early Christianity added maybe even for us! We were quite foolish to make fun of many Native and Eastern religions, which we dismissed as “mere ancestor worship” who usually had the more corporate notion of personhood, far removed from the myth of modern individualism. All Saints Day is a celebration of all of us precisely in our togetherness, which is why the New Testament (in twenty places!) called all God lovers “the saints.”

Discuss ….

in the right place

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The blog has been quiet, not this time due to business necessarily, but rather due to the reading, contemplation and the need for space to mull, think and reflect.

I have completed a lot of reading recently. I recently started Nicholas Vesey’s Developing  Consciousness and am enjoying the reflection this forces me into. Nicholas has set up the Norwich Christian Meditation Centre. I like what they are doing and it grabs me in a way that has caused me to part with money to but this book that contains some of the journey and lessons from that journey that these people have been on.

I’m really enjoying the book and the way it is challenging me to think and slow down and wonder. A flavour of the book can be summed up in this quote from page 4:

You are always in exactly the right place to be able to take the next step.
It is an amazing realisation, that you are, right now, in exactly the right place to begin this journey.
Your whole life has brought you to this point. Everything you have ever done has brought you to the point of reading these words now. And everything has conspired for you to be in exactly the right place. You could not be in a better place.
And that is true for every single moment of your life.
You are never in the wrong place. All you can do is to not recognise you are in the right place, and then automatically you miss the point and opportunity of that moment.
To be in the right place at the right time you simply have to acknowledge  the rightness of the moment, and thus the moment become yours.
Do it now, without qualification.
Whatever our circumstances, wherever you are. Trust this moment as being one that is right. One that has meaning. One that is setting you on a journey outside the box, and it will be so. And what is the next step? Well … ask yourself that …. what is the next step? What do you do right now as the next step?

There is a liberation in being free to recognise that I am in exactly the right place, where I should be, right now … this very minute. Sometimes I have struggled to accept that, and over the last 5 or 6 days I have wrestled with that thought. But, I have come to realisation that I may need to embrace and accept this so that I can claim the moment, rather than miss the opportunity before me.

In that embracing of the moment, I am discovering a freedom to move forward. This seems to echo well with much of the stuff that has challenged me over the last few months, such as being rooted, Chardin’s trust in the slowness of God, Taylor’s total presence.
Accepting the moment … seems to be the way forward!