Tag Archives: contemplation

Words and silence…

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A lovely poem appeared in my inbox today courtesy of Minimergent (a more or less daily e-mail from Emergent Village.)

It hit a nail on the head.

I have been thinking a lot of how I struggle to pray- how words tend to be hollow- presumptuous, pompous, self seeking. How it seems as though I am speaking more to myself than to God at times.

And how I tend to fill everything I do with words- because words are the medium of my understanding, my meditation, my artistic endeavour.

So this poem makes a suitable prayer. Wordy though it may be;

I who live by words, am wordless when

I try my words in prayer. All language turns

To silence. Prayer will take my words and then

Reveal their emptiness. The stilled voice learns

To hold its peace, to listen with the heart

To silence that is joy, is adoration.

The self is shattered, all words torn apart

In this strange patterned time of contemplation

That, in time, breaks time, breaks words, breaks me,

And then, in silence, leaves me healed and mended.

I leave, returned to language, for I see

Through words, even when all words are ended.

I, who live by words, am wordless when

I turn me to the Word to pray.

Amen.

 

Madelaine L’Engle  ‘The Weather of the Heart’

Archbishop suggests adding meditation to curriculum- shock…

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Well, not quite.

Rowan Williams spoke to some Catholic Bishops at the invitation of an unusually reconciliatory Pope Benedict. The meeting focussed on how the Church might be more relevant to an increasingly secular world.

The good Archbish offered up the idea of teaching kids to meditate;

“To put it boldly, contemplation is the only ultimate answer to the unreal and insane world that our financial systems and our advertising culture and our chaotic and unexamined emotions encourage us to inhabit,” he said.

“To learn contemplative practice is to learn what we need so as to live truthfully and honestly and lovingly. It is a deeply revolutionary matter.”

“Having seen at first hand, in Anglican schools in Britain, how warmly young children can respond to the invitation offered by meditation in this tradition, I believe its potential for introducing young people to the depths of our faith to be very great indeed.” Dr Williams added that for adults who had “drifted away” from regular attendance at Church, the style of worship practised in places such as Taizé could offer a “way back”.

From the Telegraph.

What do you think? Can developing a contemplative life really have such a transformational effect on the next generation? Can you really inculcate the practice of spiritual contemplation at an early age in this way?

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.