I was sore
Abraded by the road gravel
And you wrapped me
In a soft bed
Of kindnessI was weary from the world
And like a soothing embrocation
You took these road weary feet
And slippered them
In front of a warm fireI failed
Again
And stared down low
Until the soft music in your voice
Brought to me possibility
That I too
Could be lovedThat I too could love
In returnSo may you be showered with blessings
Like blossom petals
Butterflying about you
In this beautiful breeze
I had a tough meeting yesterday- one of those where you suddenly find yourself isolated and scapegoated by people who appear to be out for blood.
But the drive to Lochgilphead was stunning.
I spent some time thinking and chewing and grinding my teeth on the drive home, forgetting again the peace of the Spirit, losing my anchor for a while. Forgetting to bring these things to God.
Not that I believe that God waves a wand to make all the tough stuff go away. But I think that the possibility of a deeper and more loving life is present within all our encounters- and the seeing of these is the work of the Spirit, should we allow this.
As for me, i am blessed by landscape- by the stunning perfection of the Highlands in late autumn.
It is no small compentation
After the rain squalling
And the bombs falling
After the back stabbing
And the tongue lashing
After love is betrayed
And dreams disarrayed
When the knife cuts and slashes
After sackcloth and ashes
Comes the peaceAfter the tumours
And cruel vicious rumours
After bodies broken
And evil words spoken
After guns cease their shooting
Troops no longer jack-booting
With the grave trodden down
And the trees now turned brown
Comes peaceEven after the failure
Of life-long labour
And after deadlines missed
After the getting pissed
When the pressure’s done mounting
And it’s all over-even the shouting
When the race has been run
In the setting of sun
Comes the peaceWhen anger burns out
After faith turns to doubt
When we give up on walking
And wolf packs are stalking
When the money is spent
Safety curtains are rent
At the end of all coping
Even Polyanna’s done hopingEven then
Will fall
My peace
I had a good evening last night with our friends Nick and Lindsay- Nick fresh from travels to the USA. he had been to a conference for outdoor education/leadership types, and seems to have had a ball.
We have a project underway looking to create opportunities for meditation and reflection in the outdoors- using elements of the spaces we find ourselves in to bring deliberate attention to God, and to our journey with him. Some of this will hopefully become a book, if we ever get our acts together to get it finished.
Some of the meditations can be found here…
As part of this, I have been thinking a lot about the great traditions of pilgrimage.
People of all faiths seem to recognise pilgrimage as an essential spiritual practice. In researching WHY this should be the case, there seems to be very little complex theological reasoning involved. Pilgrimage, it seems, can not be easily deconstructed into theological structures- rather, it has to be walked, and experienced.
Pilgrimage appears to have meaning only in the life of those who walk it. It may have shaped whole counties and cultures, but it has not easy yardstick.
Some walk to escape, others walk towards.
Some walk in companionship, others alone.
Some always have an eye on a destination, others live for a far horizon.
For all- there is the outward symbolism of an inner journey. A decision to walk towards God…
We are all of us, sojourners. A long way from home.
What’s so important is the attitude of the pilgrim. And the attitude of pilgrimage is one of openness, one of allowing the unexpected and the surprise to be present with you, and to not be caught up in what your plans were, or the way things should be going, but rather what’s happening, and what the experience is giving you. I think the sense of coming to a pilgrimage site, it’s so awesome that you can’t but feel complete, or you can’t but feel invited in and a part of the millions and millions of people down through the ages, who have made a sacred track.
Lauren Artress
We (aoradh that is) are just home after spending most of the day dismantling a worship/mediation space on Dunoon pier on the theme of Angels, as a celebration of Michaelmas
We used a vacant pavillion building on Dunoon pier- it used to be a bar/disco but has been largely unused for years. We have used it in the past as a 24/7 prayer room, and also as a space for a mediation labyrinth (check this out for more info on the labyrinth- you can get a kit from Proost also…)
It is a lovely liminal space- out above the water, close by the town centre, with the passing of many feet as the ferries disgorge their passengers. In the daytime, it is bathed in a lovely light, and at night, it becomes a beacon out on the dark waters.
This time we worked with Kimberley Bohan – minister of the local Episcopal church, who brought the idea of Michaelmas to us. As with all of these community things we have done, we wanted to offer a place where people could just come in and encounter God. With no other agendas- no hard sell. Just hospitality and the rest up to the Holy Spirit.
The stations we set up in this space included a community collage, ‘messages’, The story of Raphael, a holy space, and a way of responding using post cards with Angel words.
I hope it was meaningful to people.
Here are some photos;
We have used quite a lot of Rob Bell’s ‘Nooma‘ DVDs in our group. There are about 20 of them at present- each one a little package of creative film making, Bell’s unique presentation style, and subtle reframings of things we thought we knew…
Bell’s high profile (his church is huge and his books and films are known the world over) has meant that he has also come in for a lot of criticism. For many, he is a heretic. For me, he is a man with something to say, who says it well.
I found a copy of one of the films on-line. They cost about £10 to buy, so this might be a way to enjoy one of them (in low quality, with the annoying subtitles) and find out what the fuss is about. Then you can save up and buy some for you and yours!
May it bring to you something new about the wonders of God.
Time for some schoolbook philosophy!
I read something recently about the philosopher Rene Descartes – who was fascinated by what it meant to be, what it was possible to know and what could be described as truth?
Descartes decided to begin by doubting everything he possibly could – to see if he could reduce the knowable to an essential core. He found he could doubt everything – God, the existence of the world about us (which could be an elaborate deceit placed on our consciousness by some demon – a kind of precursor to The Matrix), the rules of science and gravity – all these were dependent on our perception, and perception was ultimately unreliable and subjective.
This led him to his ultimate point of truth – his own ability to ask these very questions – it was not possible to doubt this, as in order to doubt, then this too involved thought. Hence, his famous phrase, “I think, therefore, I am.”
Descartes then turned his mind back to time. We live our lives in the passing of time – in a finite space. We have our beginning, and our ending, and find our existence in between. He was convinced that God was infinite – outside our understanding of time. However much we might think we know of God, we must equally realise that there is so much more. He concluded that as our experience is formed in our finite world, then the very fact that we could imagine the infinite must be proof in itself of the very existence of God – for no finite being could, of itself, think of the infinite.
Descartes thinking influenced an age. Whether or not you agree with his conclusions, the very questions he asked have dominated modernity. They are perhaps being asked again as we stand on the brink of a new age.
What am I?
What can I know, and how do I know it is true?
Perhaps for we Christians, there remains another set of questions – perhaps the greatest ones of all;
Who is God?
Can God be known?
Can God ever know me, in the vastness of this apparently infinite universe?
If so, what should be my response?
Are we all heading home anyway, one way or another?
Or is there a responsibility that we are called to – a way of life that is more vital, more blessed, more beautiful?
In the Bible, we read of generations of people of faith – from the nomadic wanderings of the people of Abraham, to the subjects of the mighty (but ultimately fragile) Roman Empire – asking these questions.
The amazing thing about all these stories was that apparently, God, as well as existing in infinite space, was also always there.
There he was, moving across the face of the waters when all was formless and void.
Walking in the garden in the quiet of the evening.
Speaking out of burning bushes (and resting on people with tongues of fire later.)
Even being willing to dwell inside a tent, or an unwanted temple building.
Ultimately, coming himself, in fragile human form. Walking amongst us, revealing something of his heart – inviting participation in a new way of being.Then promising that the eternal will dwell within us.
That we would become temples of his Spirit – capsules containing something uncontainable, immeasurable, unfathomable.
Kind of amazing, ain’t it?
A few weeks ago, we took the canoes out to Loch Striven, round the other side of the Cowal peninsular. We paddled for a while out along the loch, until we found a landing spot next to a raised beach of soft stones. A perfect spot for a picnic.
As with all our coast line, the tide had left its usual selection of plastic, old rope and broken fish boxes on the beach- but I do not think anyone had been there for years.
William and I saw what looked like some old walls in the distance, and went off exploring.
what we found used to be someone’s house. A crofter perhaps, or a fisherman- now long gone.
Much of our small crowded planet can no longer be regarded as true wilderness. As you walk to the hills, you will almost certainly walk over a landscape marked everywhere by man.
Fields and field boundaries – some new, some ancient, shaping the subsequent developments.
Hedgerows and dry stone walls.
Old signs of settlement, perhaps still in use, perhaps now redundant, abandoned, remaining only as a growth of bracken and nettles, rising in ground fertilised by the nitrates left behind in the passing.
The very paths we walk upon have been made by the passing of other feet walking their own walk, into their own unknown uncertain futures, now past and gone.
We humans have transformed the planet in the last few thousand years of our ascendancy. Forests gone, rivers diverted. Roads made straight across mountain and valley. Many of these marks are irreversible, at least in the foreseeable future. The land may clothe them in green, but the marks will remain for thousands of years to come.
As I write, the debate about how our patterns of living might have contributed to accelerating climate change continues to rage.
Humans have been of significant influence on my islands for a mere 5000 years or so. In some parts of the world, they can trace the mark of man further, in many, much less. What a legacy we inherit from our forebears – both great, and fearful.
Our lives have been shaped by this legacy too. We stand on the shoulders of those who gave the land its present shape.
Others will stand on ours.
I have come to think that this beautiful creature that God made ‘…a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honour…’ has a special place in this wonderful world.
But we are such a small part of all the good things that he made.
The sweep of land from forest to crags peering through the shroud of mist.
The wild beauty of a summer storm as lightening splits the night.
The cold flickering of the northern lights in the dark winter.
The smell of spring on fresh April mornings, when all things seem possible.
These events will happen whether or not we observe them, whether or not we participate within them. But in experiencing them, perhaps we bear unique witness to the artistry of the Creator. Perhaps we alone can tell at least some of the story, some of the shape and size of what this thing called Earth really is.
Sometimes it seems to me that we overplay our place as the top of nature’s food chain. After all, we are so small, and other life-forms on this planet may yet outlast us.
But then it occurs to me yet again that we beautiful creatures are alone in our ability to understand, to measure, and ultimately to choose to raise our voices in concert with the angels in a unique song of praise…
All around us, life is circling.
Some circles are big, some very small.
Insects that live a whole life in one of our days. Breakfast sees the end of childhood, lunch the weight of middle age responsibility, tea time the creaking of age, and with night, the sleep of the dead. Until the next generation comes into being.
Or consider the life of the
se tall trees.
Each slow forming ring of growth, evidence of their elevation over our own anxieties.
Each falling leaf layering the soil, laying down the food for the coming spring.
Each spreading branch offering the arm of shelter to a thousand lesser creatures. And me.
Seeding slowly and deliberately.
But even the tallest trees
Will one day
Fall.
And what of us?
What of our life time? We tend to see our journeys as linear. Even then, perhaps we are comfortable with the now, less so with the tomorrow, and the future is a foreign country, were be dragons.
Away we go, off into middle distance – always forward, but often acting as if we are standing still.
But we are born not to die,
But to live.
To trace our own arc through this space of ours –
To windmill wide and open,
To love this life
And let it love us back
Perhaps unlike any of these other circles, we humans have this gift (this curse) of knowing
Knowing and seeking to know more
Seeking to connect and to overlap these circles-
Seeing where they depend one on the other
Seeing where they smash into one another
Vulnerable to the sharp jagged things
But capable
Of such joy
this fragile tent 