Tuesday 30 June 2009

but today

I fret and fret anyway

Monday 29 June 2009

valley of death

today and yesterday:
among the worst days of my life?
yes
tonight though: help.
'my path for you':
your words.

tonight you smiled:

I saw how you bend time.
in my hands it shatters into sharp-edged pieces:
in yours time yields: flowing free.
not disappearing, but encircling.
and then
the thousand ways you teach me
that I am yours and you are mine:
so many fiery angels along the way!

but your plans for them are different.
my path would be a lonely, impossible path without you.
but I am not; no need to fret!

no . . . more a command than that:
'stop the fretting!' perhaps

yes my prayer must be for faith more than healing.
[though both would be nice]

Friday 26 June 2009

person

I have never considered myself a real christian,
because, for me, christ is not destination but gateway.
but perhaps I wasn't so far off as I thought.

my search must always be God
but I do recognise that my only way to you is through christ.
the key word: person
the three persons;
the one;

because how can a God who lives alone
[sufficient unto himself]
be a god who loves?

creating nothing

creating nothing is much harder than creating something
and yet it is still the 'yoke easy to bear'

emptiness

the problem of moving from the computer into prayer:
from the world of things we can see and touch into the world of things that we can neither see, nor touch nor even often feel.
fr.tim radcliffe [in a sermon] writes of the sacred emptiness at the core of the life of a monk.

the temptation to idolatry (the love of things) knows no bounds:
the battle must be taken up afresh each morning.

Sunday 21 June 2009

my journal

I have been keeping a journal for the last few days.
at first this seemed to help
but I realise now that it has been damaging my prayer.
quite why I am not sure.
the journal perhaps is too much about my own tiny life
whereas you call me into something I cannot see or understand.
something less about me.
the call inwards then is perhaps not a call inwards at all.

the problem of kingship

although, if understood aright, it might be possible to call christ king.
if we do not understand aright, then the word leads us astray.
just as he transforms the law, so does he transform the nature of kingship:
turning it upside down.
he stands, not as king, but as brother.
[together we address God as father].
the christian community is less a kingdom
more a brotherhood.
(just as the moslems understand it come to think of it.)

one more thought on this:
it has always seemed essential to understand that,
whilst we are called individually to look inwards,
the christian brotherhood is called to look outwards;
always.

the eye

when I was blind, deaf and dumb
then you opened the inner eye
with which we can see God.

language is a problem because we overestimate its capabilities,
just as we overestimate our own.
it surprises me very much that the place where you are to be found
is a place of no words.

Saturday 20 June 2009

sister wendy becket

"There are no concepts in music and of course there are no concepts applicable to God - you just sort of float free. If you have a concept, then that is not God because God cannot be bound. Art of its nature is material and it makes shapes and once you've got a shape you haven't got God. Art can only point the way."

democracy

My first thought on waking this morning: what a disaster it will be if the house of lords becomes a democratically elected body!
The principle of democracy has become a demagogue which nobody dares to question. The extreme form of democracy is the USA where most states have capital punishment, penal systems that Gengis Khan would have been proud of, a legal system riddled with corruption and excess, little state health care, and an enormous number of people who live, either in an underclass, or well below an acceptable poverty line.
Far from being a solution to all of these basic social problems, over-democracy exacerbates them.
The concept of 'people ruling' is based on an idealised notion that those people are thoughtful and objective about their politics. Oftentimes this may be the case, but every now and again, when the chips are down and everything seems uncertain, a wind of change can sweep through a population like a raging hurricane sweeping all common sense and thoughtful wisdom before it. Even in my life I have seen many examples of this. It is at such times that democracy stops being a 'good thing' and becomes a dictatorial tyrant. I am thinking of two examples: the election of Tony Blair in 1997, and of Margaret Thatcher in 1979. There are many more. In both cases, the overwhelming mandate handed to the new government for changes in policy were often successfully checked by a House of Lords which had not been drastically altered in shape by the raucous voice of the people. If however the House of Lords had also been democratically elected then that same raucous voice would have swept into that chamber a rubber stamp for every drastic policy change that the new government was advocating.
One reason why our democracy has 'worked' over the past couple of centuries is because of the way in which the Second Chamber acts as a stopper against an over-powerful government. Were the lords to be elected isn't it all too clear to see that it could no longer work like that?
I repeat: when things are chugging along nicely and everyone feels ok democracy can and does work. (any system would probably work come to think of it.) When things go wrong - as they frequently do - the Voice of the people will become negative, eager to overturn any status quo, and determined to elect a bright young thing who promises the earth. When the bright young thing is then given the enormous mandate for change, it often turns out that people realise, all too late, that they had never understood what that bright young thing intended to do in the first place. The bright young thing is turned, overnight, into a potential tyrant by the very people who voted for him, not because they understood what he or she was about to do, but because they were sick of the mess they had previously been in.
The role of the house of lords. (and I cannot see any other) is to prevent an overwhelmingly powerful government from getting its way too easily. It is an essential buffer. That is its sole purpose in life.
My great fear, in the current crisis, is that people who haven't read their history books carefully enough, and havent fully understood the role of the Lords (and no government will want to do that because of way in which it blocks their power) will make sweeping changes that can never be undone, and the balance of democratic power in Britain will be seriously damaged, perhaps permanently.
I am a democrat. Churchill said that democracy was the lesser of two evils and I think he was right. Someone must be given power to do things and obviously it is better if the people feel that they have had their say. But democracy is not a perfect solution to all ills. Like a great sea, a gentle happy crowd can turn into an angry irrational mob given sufficient provocation.

Wednesday 17 June 2009

brother emile of taize

from his book 'never a stranger'
'It is his gaze resting upon me that allows me to be myself.'

and a few lines further on, he quotes from a novel by paul-andre lesort:
'For a long time I needed a mirror much more than I ever thought I did. Why this need beyond self-satisfaction or self-accusation...? I thought it necessary to see myself as I really am. But if by this the illusion of self-sufficiency is dispelled, a truth more subtle than illusion is dispelled also. The truth of love which actually makes us other than our own view of ourselves. The natural view of the self in the mirror of actions and memories nourishes despair, cynicism and magic. It was from Isabelle that I learned (but forgot again so many times) that we are infinitely more than what we are.'

my music?

st cyprian

in a sermon about the lord's prayer one line struck me:
'to stand faithfully and bravely by his cross'

isn't that the whole of it perhaps?

Sunday 14 June 2009

holistic

I restarted my journal and typed away furiously this morning after a difficult night.
mostly about the place of music in my life
over and against the prayer . . . .
the essence here:
"my music too . . . . died for want of faith. I lost faith in music, not just my own music; in its healing nature; in its ability to carry me even one step closer to you."

I've been keeping an 'illness diary' anyway:
tracking what I eat and other circumstances in search of an explicable cause
but I am not throwing my net wide enough:
after yesterday's turmoil and the ensuing night
this is clearly as much a spiritual problem as a physical one.

and even then I am not throwing my net wide enough.
'spiritual' must be more inclusive of the rest of my life.
[I have misunderstood something essentially christian here].

yes there is rejection and isolation.
partly sought; mostly not.
if there is not a physical way out
(I cannot presently see one)
then I must search more deeply for a spiritual one
and that must include my writing and my music . . .

"I had decided at some point that my prayer was the most essential aspect; that by prayer alone could I come closer to you; that by silence and solitude I might reach a point of what might feel like ‘authentic communication’. At the same time, the sudden draining away of my need to keep a journal at all (or to write music at all) seemed a step towards fulfilment. Except that all it has actually done is to isolate me further . . . .

that was this morning.
there can be no going back.
the way of prayer lies open before me.
but the place of music and writing in that life
must also remain open.
let God be God
and let the music be what it must be

Tuesday 9 June 2009

newness

many memories tonight during prayer: and all about you.
sometimes you to whom I was turning,
and sometimes you from whom I was running;
but always you.
source of all of my musics

Sunday 7 June 2009

an argument from the forum

I spent quite a while on this. it's long and it's messy, but I will keep it here for reference. It sounds sort of right at the moment anyway . . .

I am not in the least suggesting that the early church got the area of sexual morality wrong. As I've tried to explain before I am not a liberal in that sense. In following Jesus who says that 'not one jot of the law will be taken away' we are certainly called to a life of complete purity and complete love. But I don't think that the passage in Matthew 19 is about morality at all. It's what the lawyers want it to be about: they are the ones who are squeezing him into making legal statements and he simply doesn't: he will not be drawn into clauses and exceptions . . . he states the law of God and there's an end to it. Having said that, I think that the reason for this is that human law is all about justification. 'If the law says its alright, then it must be alright and it stops being an occasion for sin' is the way that the lawyers think, and the legalism of the old Judaism (and much old Catholicism too for that matter) is redolent with examples of self-justification. In believing that they have kept within the law all their lives (and many of them probably had), the lawyers had no understanding about why they might need to repent. Despite spending their lives keeping within the law the kingdom of heaven is closed to them. The call of the gospel reaches far beyond what man can actually accomplish: the wall between God and man is pulled away which is why the gospel is such desperately uncomfortable reading. Constantly, Jesus pulls the rug from under our feet, leaving us no place we can call safe . . . . in the eyes of God we are all doomed to fail. All the safe places that Moses and the lawyers had been creating for themselves for centuries are wiped away. And yet above all Jesus proclaims the good news. We are doomed to fail in the eyes of God and yet this is supposed to be good news?? . . . . the moment that we think to ourselves (I am thinking here of the parable of the lawyer and the publican) that we have 'done alright today and kept within the law' then we are separating ourselves from God. There can be no justification in the eyes of God. When we try to justify ourselves we are telling God that we don't need him anymore. The Jews sought justification and could never find it and the psalms are full of references to this and our own journey to God will be no different . . .Sorry to go on about this, but I do hope I am making my position a little clearer.From the Christian's point of view, the problem with 'the law' (morality) is exactly the same as for the Jews: we are so easily drawn into thinking that, provided we are obedient enough and keep to the rules, that somehow this will please God and we will move a few steps closer to Him. (I always think the fight that the disciples have about who will get the nicest seat in the kingdom of heaven is about this. When we read the gospel and we chuckle to ourselves thinking 'how silly these disciples are!' we have already fallen into the very trap of believing ourselves one step ahead of them!!).What I believe Jesus is calling us to do is to fix our sights, not on the law and the rules, but upon the only 'reason' (the Purposeless Purpose??) for our lives which is Relationship. Relationship with God (whoever he actually is) and relationship with the family of God.(whatever that actually is) . . . We are not called to be "moral beings", we are called into relationship with God and when we fix our eyes upon Him we become moral beings despite ourselves. If we focus upon anything less than God himself, (morality, the law,philosophy, theology, canon law, blah-de blah) we are immediately in danger of losing our way and, if we find ourselves judging others because of their shortcomings we have already lost our way . . . .(do not judge that ye be not judged)and yet of course we are constantly asking ourselves, 'Am I doing alright? Am I doing alright?' The answer will be no, but God says yes, if we repent: that's the good news. . . . but the repentance never stops and this is what makes living the Christian life so difficult at times, but only when we fall back into the 'justification' trap . . . . sorry this is so long . . .

Thursday 4 June 2009

mother teresa

mother teresa said...
I always begin my prayer in silence, for it is in silence of the heart that God speaks. God is the friend of silence - we need to listen to God because it is not what we say but what he says to us and through us that matters. Prayer feeds the soul-as blood is to the body, prayer is to the soul-and it brings you closer to God. it also gives you a clean and pure heart. A clean heart can see God...and can see the love of God in others.

Tuesday 2 June 2009

response to a radio broadcast: Martha and Mary

this was linked here on a forum
my response ran as follows:
Thank you for the link Nicholas. It was a long recording and sometimes grim listening but absolutely worthwhile: it raises issues which are important to all of us. I found the lady lecturer in pastoral theology at the Jesuit college in Melbourne particularly lucid, and inspiring too. Her positive recognition of the way in which the Spirit is at work in the church today really made me rethink my view on the 'problem' of the lack of religous vocation in many parts of the world. Perhaps it is not the 'problem' that we tend to feel, but, as she bravely states, a very slow but sure response to the original call of the Second Vatican Council. I was aware however that the creep of secularism - with religious living busy, integrated lives cheek by jowl with social workers, well-meaning government officials, and teachers is a Very Present Danger, and I was once again acutely aware of the essential, urgent and sacramental place of the contemplative community in the church. This perhaps takes us back, Nicholas, to where I think you were starting this thread - as a response to the apparently irrelevant subject of hairshirt and negation?
The busier and the more involved religious become with the society which they are serving, (and let it be this way!) the more essential it seems to be to keep our eye fixed firmly on God: first in the Sacramental nature of the Church (and especially the Catholic Church which has such a unique and essential part to play in the life of the Christian Church in its broadest sense) and second in Prayer. Carthusians, hermits, Camaldolese, Carmelites, and, dare I say it, we 'Hidden Praying Laity' too have an essential role in all of this.
This leads me on to ponder the way in which the internet (through forums very much like ours) is opening up new arteries through the fabric of our church, reaching parts of it that were before perhaps unreachable, thus transforming, almost before our eyes, the way in which the church both lives, bears witness, and sees itself. The future, far from being a bleak decline, seems bursting with hope and possibility - if only we can stay open and listen.

the call

the call to prayer:
relentless

Monday 1 June 2009

silence

I need to commit to this
if nothing else.
stay silent.
and for the moment:
the less I do the better.

I blew it

starting over