WEDNESDAY
.
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
.
I have taken my seat at the high place of state
Sometimes I decided for life
And sometimes for death
I am the author of my own song
.
But then the stars shine
And I am small again
The flutter of my own heartbeat might carry away on
The whisper of the night winds
.
And I know nothing
But you
(Easter island image from here.)
.
TUESDAY
…my eyes are not haughty;
.
I walk with a purposeful stride
And people shuffle in my wake
Swaying at my turbulence
.
Because nothing is impossible for this man of God
No peak will remain unclimbed
No valley unseeded
None of your puny walls can stand against me
.
Why then Lord God
Would you mine my path
With these stumbling stones?
I have spent some time preparing some meditations on Psalm 131 as part of our continuing Aoradh project to prepare some common meditations, which we then e-mail around our small community (along with others who have asked to be included in the circulation list- let me know if you would like to be included too.)
This next week I have been rediscovering my way into a favourite Psalm of David-
Psalm 131
A song of ascents.
Of David.
1 My heart is not proud, LORD,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
2 But I have calmed and quieted myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.3 Israel, put your hope in the LORD
both now and forevermore.(NIV)
I thought it might be good to post my contributions on this blog too, so here is the meditation for Monday-
This week we will use the words of one of the shortest and most tender Psalms of David.
David- the all conquering King of an ascendant Holy Nation, whose deeds in battle will be sung for a thousand years.
Whose beauty, talents and wild edge of passion make him the admiration of every man, every woman.
Standing before JHWH.
Consumed by his frail humanity.
Creaking on his feet of clay.
(From Aoradh daily meditations- the first part is here.)
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.I am sometimes invincible
And forget my need for you
Even in the shallow certainty of success
Stay with me father
.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.And when I surely succumb
To the gravity of my human condition
Let the darkness be holy
Let the black become royal purple
And the shadows
Become your open arms
.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.This means that you are never
An accidental father
You have no bastards
No unwanted drains
On your holy resources
.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.Because there is a masterpiece you made
In me
Framed in this shabby shape
Are your majestic brushstrokes
.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.Unborn I was known
Unconceived I was expected
There was a space empty
Waiting for the shape of me
.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;And you became incandescent
With hope
.
23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.Weigh me on scales
Skewed towards grace
For my heart is heavy
With the unshed weight of my world
.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.Open me gently
To the new-
To the possibility
Of something deeper
And more beautiful
I previously mentioned that Aoradh are in the process of using an e-mailed daily mediation as a means of sharing a deliberate spiritual practice. We have a rota to take a week at a time for a six week trial period.
If you would like to receive the e-mail, then let me know.
I took the first week, and it came to me again how much a reason to create can become in itself creative. And how it can become a source of blessing in the actual creating…
Here are the first three days- a meditation on Psalm 139-
1 You have searched me, LORD,
and you know me.Yet still I hide
Still I believe that my hard disc is encrypted and password protected
Even from your
Benign virus
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.The road is long
And this day is full of demands
Let me rest too
On your soft grass verge
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, LORD, know it completely.So let my words be fat with grace
And my vowels be round with kindness
Let me make you smile
When I see you in others
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.For I am frayed at the edges
Like an old coat
Shaped and scraped by warm work
And I would be conformed
Around you
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?You are not alienated by my unbelief
Or driven away by my failure
You inhabit my hopes
And dance at the very centre of all that I dream of
I have decided to change the word ‘advent’ into an adjective rather than a verb.
Then, rather than being merely a calendic description, it might become a spiritual practice.
Instead of being a commercial break before the main consumption, it might then become a period of reflective anticipation.
Instead of being something to rush headlong past towards a glittering destination, we might start to savour the journey.
So tomorrow, the first Sunday of Advent- always on or around St Andrews day- I am going to begin…
…adventing.
Following a discussion about how we might build some deliberate practices into our community life, Aoradh are about to start an experiment where we circulate a daily meditation by e-mail. This will be for six weeks initially, then we will review things.
Each of us are going to take a week, and prayerfully offer something to the wider group. There will be no theme or common thread at the moment- but I expect a mix of all sorts of scripture/poetry/thoughts.
If you would like to join us and receive the e-mail, drop me a line and I will add you to the circulation list…
We had our monthly Aoradh family day meal tonight- which happened to coincide with the dreaded Halloween.
Dreaded in my case, as I find the increasing madness around Halloween difficult to stomach. The ‘traditions’ we are inheriting are very recent ones- which owe more to 1970’s American films than they do to any folk traditions native to these islands. This does not in itself make them bad- but in this case, I struggle to understand the point of the whole thing.
An evening to dress up as ghosts and mass murderers and walk the streets eating sweets and chocolate…
Actually, when you put it like that, it sounds rather fun doesn’t it?
And that is the other struggle. We took a decision years ago that as Christians, we wanted to keep away from it all. It had too much of the darkness, and not enough of the light. It sided with the wrong half of the tradition- preferring the celebration of devils and demons that was supposed to be a precursor to the celebration of All Saints Day– a day which passes unnoticed.
But this means that our kids have always missed out on the fun bit, although we are certainly much less strict than we used to be- William went to the school disco, and Emily is old enough to make up her own mind.
But then I see some of the things going on, and my resolve stiffens again.
In the middle of Dunoon, a local hall has set up a little fake graveyard. And above it, they have strung some stuffed white sheets, hung from the neck and splashed with red paint. Quite creative really. Certainly a lot of time was taken.
Except that when I saw them, it looked like ‘strange fruit‘.
And also reminded me of the people who killed themselves by hanging over the last year. Relatives of whom may well be driving past…
Tonight, we shared a meal with our Aoradh friends, and it was lovely. To mark the evening, we decided to play a game of pass the parcel.
We turned of the lights, and passed the parcel in the dark, and each layer of the parcel had a candle, and some words about light. The candle was lit, and the words read.
And as the game went on, it got lighter, as more and more candles were lit.
Eventually we got to the middle- a large candle, and some indoor sparklers.
Which we lit, and prayed.
It was simple and profound, and once more made me very grateful for my friends.
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1st collector for Silence…
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I have just watched this programme on the i player. I have been looking forward to it for some time, as our friend Maggie, who is a retreat director at St Beuno’s abbey in North Wales, had mentioned that some of the programme was filmed there.
It did not disappoint.
The format of the programme is simple- take a fairly random assortment of people and soak them in silence, led by Catholic monks who are able to guide them on the journey. It is reality TV that seems very real. Then end is not to make people Christian- rather to allow them to encounter themselves, and in doing so, to encounter God.
Here are a few things that hit me as I watched the programme-
Silence is a gateway to the soul, and the soul is the gateway to God.
Yet I find silence hard. For most of us, life is a process of constantly seeking distraction from- life.
It is a lifetimes work to find the silence that allows us to hear the voice of God.
Ah, well perhaps there is hope for me yet. How ever much life I have left…
Both the purpose and the means of the process is- purity of heart.
I know my heart a little- and it is not pure.
My spiritual encounters in the past have tended to revolve around repeatedly saying sorry for things that I know I will do again. As I became older, the pervasive guilt I felt as a young man trying to be Christian has ebbed away- which is good- but perhaps this might also mean that I am more comfortable with my impurity.
If you have not got a pure heart, you can not see God.
Is this true? How pure does it have to be? Or is it just something to do with desiring purity, and genuinely seeking to deal with all the things that get in the way?
The God of Surprises is going to give you some wonderful surprises.
I hope that this is true for these folk in the programme.
And I hope it is true for me, and you.
Because life without the surprise of God is half life, or no life.
`
So here is my little ten part sermon based on the stacking of logs.
You can make your own analagous links.
- Stacking logs can not be rushed
- There are no machines that can stack them for you- bend your back and get stuck in
- Beginning carefully is very important- you will be building on these foundations
- Neatness is not important, but a well stocked log pile will probably be orderly
- Fresh air needs to circulate in, over and through the pile or the logs won’t dry, and will go stale and mouldy
- The rigidity and strength of a log pile comes from the closeness- the proximity- of its individual logs
- The big ego-bulging logs are the hardest to stack- they tend to topple and teeter and can easily bring the whole thing crashing down
- The smaller logs tend to be the glue that hold together the whole structure
- The higher you build the pile, the more unstable it will become
- The pile is not an end in itself- no matter how decorous. It exists to store and dry fuel that can then burn bright in service of the other
this fragile tent 
