Musing #10 The End of the Summer

As someone who remains caught up in the rhythms of the academic year, the end of the summer is a time that evokes a mixture of feelings.  The freedom that enabled me to set my own pace has come to an end: I step back into the structure of a school day and a working week with all the restrictions and pressures that brings.  And yet that structure is also reassuring and familiar and, at the beginning of a new year there is the hope for the year ahead: new relationships; achievements; projects.  Another opportunity for a new beginning.

This year, as I came to the end of my summer break, I observed a different feeling, that has been there before but is difficult to name.  It is a sense of being scattered.  My summer weeks were packed full of activity and connection.  Each meet up, with family and friends, old and new, was a cherished time and yet somehow it feels like I left a part of myself out there, at each meet up.  And I am left with this sense of being scattered.

I am reminded of the wisdom which teaches that we need to stop and rest because we need to give time for ourselves to catch up with ourselves.  It is like these parts of myself have got snagged into the lives of the people I met with and it is difficult for them to untie themselves and make their way back to me.  There is a delay in the re-grouping.  And there is then a need for me to gather, not just wait for them to turn up.

Autumn, of course, is a time of gathering: we gather up the fruit of the seeds we earlier planted (and the seeds that planted themselves!).  In recognising this I reflected on all the meeting-ups and re-connections I had over the summer in a different way.  Each of them has produced fruit of some kind.  I spent some time looking through my diary and remembering my summer days.  I identified some of the fruit that they had produced: a new insight; a piece of knowledge; a deepening connection; a reconciliation; a felt empathy; a source of support.  These fruits are life giving and yet I nearly left them strewn across my summer.

So, my work now is to gather in the fruit.  Some of it I will eat with relish now: it will bring me joy as I step back into the routine of another school year. Some of it I will preserve and use to sustain me through the winter ahead.  Some of it is small and sweet and easy to swallow.  Others of it are complex: giving me something to chew on and mull over.  All of it gives me strength and becomes a part of who I am.

As you reach the end of your summer maybe you also feel scattered: maybe you equally have a harvest that needs to be gathered and relished, so that it doesn’t rot where it was left.  As we step into Autumn let us gather the fruits of our summer sowings to strengthen and encourage us on the road ahead.

 

 

Musing #9: Reality

“Our hardest and holiest work is to not look away”

Yesterday evening I went to the shops and when I got home my 15-year-old daughter was watching a Dispatches program on Channel 4 entitled, Kill Zone: Inside Gaza.  The graphic footage of what has happened and is happening to people in Gaza was harrowing.  There were no advert breaks during the program but, where the adverts would have been, a notice warning viewers that they may find some of the images distressing and that they included footage of injured children. I asked my daughter: Do you want to watch this? She nodded.  So, I sat with her, and we watched the horror that is reality for so many unfold before our eyes.  Knowing that this reality is only one of many around the world which seem impossibly inhumane and unliveable.

What should I do as a parent?  As a mother my primary concern was for my daughter: how would she respond to these images?  And yet I watched children with multiple injuries and listened to them talk of the multiple family members they had lost.  Their reality is so bleak.  As I went to bed I looked out my window and thought that in another part of the world, somewhere I can not see, that reality continues.

A couple of days ago I was listening to a radio discussion about a novel set in the near future, or may be the present, which deals with climate change.  In the novel one of the characters observes people laying out their towels on a British beach in the sunshine and says to another character: How can they do this?  How can they carry on as if nothing is happening? Don’t they realise that this is our planet falling apart? (or words to that effect).  In the discussion the author and the other participants talked of how we live in two different realities: most of us are fully aware of the effects of climate change and the suffering and radical changes they will bring, but at the same time we have to carry on with life, so we do. 

The realities of our own life in the here and now tend to supersede any other realities that we know of.  We tune out some of the news we hear: we numb ourselves to the pain that we know exists.  And, often, we have pain and anxiety in our own reality which can not be easily brushed aside: it is as real as the suffering on the other side of the planet and as real as the suffering that is coming.

The quote above is from Rabbi Sharon Brous.  These words - our hardest and holiest work is not to look away – struck me as true on so many levels.  It is easy to look away; to carry on as if nothing is happening; to let things happen to other people; to ignore the person I had an argument with.  But is it right? What is hard is also holy work: when we face the ugliness of humanity something shifts in us.  If we can stay with that pain we open up cracks that let Love in, even in the midst of the suffering.

We can not function and take on all the realities that exist on our planet at the same time: the pain would break us.  But neither do I want to ignore them.  I know that when I sat down to watch that program last night – doing so not because I wanted to but because I wanted to see what my daughter saw – I opened myself up to the suffering of other human beings.  I witnessed other lives and, in some intangible way, I let their souls speak to mine.  Did anything change?  In the horrendous situation I was watching, the news this morning would seem to say a resounding no.  But, did anything change?  Somewhere inside me I think something did, because I recognised and acknowledged another human being in pain.

At the beginning of Rabbi Sharon Brous’ reflection that I read this morning she says: A Rabbinic text from the ninth century declares that every person is accompanied, at all times, by a procession of angels crying out, “Make way, for an image of the Holy One is approaching.”

Every person… My prayer is that we will know that for ourselves, and that we will honour it in each person we meet and in those that we see in their suffering on our screens.  Let us not turn away from them but do the hard and holy work, reaching out – in what ever way we can – into the pain of our kin.

 

Sermon: Acts 17:22-31 and John 14:15-31

Theme: The Lord of the Dance

Yesterday at church those leading the service talked of how our faith is like a dance, in which we are learning to tune into the music of God’s love and move in response.  In looking for what to share on my blog I found something I wrote in May 2017 on these two passages which feels like it is exploring the same theme.  How do we understand God? How do we tune into the music of love and join in his dance?

In the verses in Acts Paul is talking to the people of Athens.  They ask him to explain ‘this new idea’.  They are thinking people but what Paul is saying is something different – I love that they want to understand.  I find myself standing with them saying, ‘Yes, Paul, please explain!’ 

Paul in his ‘tuned-in-ness to God’ understands their desire, and he speaks to them because he  wants the unknown to become known (v 23); he explains that God does not live in temples built by hands (v24): he describes how God wants humans to seek him out, reach out for him and find him, ‘though he is not far from any of us’ (v27).  In verse 28 he uses the Athenian’s own words to explain that God is with them: ‘For in him we live and move and have our being’ ‘We are his offspring’.

I sense that searching for God in my own soul.  I sense the presence of God when I slow down and pause.  I feel like my life’s journey is to return home to the place inside myself where God/Love dwells and this is a journey that we are all on however eloquently or uncomprehendingly we articulate and understand it.

Then we come to Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John. We see that Heaven’s strategy is relationship and starts with the relationship ‘within’ God – between the three parts of God.  Jesus says in verse 16: And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another counsellor to be with you for ever – the Spirit of truth.

God is ‘three in one’.  Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The relationship between these three is at the heart of our faith.  The Holy Trinity is a difficult concept but as we struggle to understand we find the deeper truths and the mystery that is God.  We will never fully understand ‘him’ but that shouldn’t stop us trying and, in the process, beginning to unwrap that bit of God’s kingdom which lives within us.

The relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit is sometimes understood as the ’Divine Dance’.  There is movement and harmony and it is centred around Love. Jesus says in verse 20: ‘you are in me, and I am in you’.  Jesus is in the Father and we are in him, and he is in us, and the Holy Spirit ‘lives with us and will be in us’ (v17).

The intertwined nature of the relationship reminds me of a Celtic knot within which we find no ends.  The flow of the ‘three in one’ is beautifully illustrated in this ancient art.  And that image is deepened when we realise this is a static symbol of something that is moving and flowing.  It is a dance of love into which we are invited: we are invited into that Love energy.

Yesterday at church we sang ‘The Lord of the Dance’.  I tend to associate this song with my 70’s Primary education – a favourite in assemblies.  But yesterday I heard its truth.  Jesus is the Lord of the Dance and invites us to join in.

“I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me: I am the Lord of the Dance said he!”

I would encourage you to listen to ‘The Lord of the Dance’ and to consider Jesus’ words: You are in me and I am in you.  What does that mean to you?  How does that reality sit with you?  God lives in you…  Have you found ‘him’ in there yet?

Picture by Caleb Woods on Unsplash

 

 

Musing#8: Love is everywhere: Love is mystery

There are three pictures of Love that I find helpful.

The first is Love as water.  The nature of water: the way that it flows; the way that it can reach into the smallest of places; the way it is absorbed.  That reminds me of Love.  Jesus talks of a spring of water that is inside us – that gushes up and brings life and joy.  And then there is the image of the water in the marshes – it rises up from the ground unseen, but when we switch on our awareness to it we find that it is growing and doing its work.

The second is Love as light.  Light helps people to see.  The smallest light in a dark place will have an impact: the blindness the dark brings is broken as grey edges are revealed.  Light brings clarity, warmth and comfort. That reminds me of Love.  And then there is the way that light reveals beauty: whether it be in the sunrise; as it shines through a stained-glass window; as it brings the colour in the natural world alive. 

The third is Love as breath.  The very air we breathe.  Keeping us alive and enabling us to do all that we do.  There are times when we find ourselves literally gasping for air.  There are other times when the gentle rhythm of breathing can lull us into a spiritual moment: from the sleeping child, to the ‘dying’ breaths of a loved one.  That reminds me of Love.  Jesus appeared to his followers and breathed on them, saying, “peace be with you”.  Our breath can teach us about Love.

Then one day, musing on these pictures of Love, a realisation.  How had I not thought of this before? Love is so much bigger, so much more present, than these pictures can portray, because…

Love is not only found in water but also in the desert; in the parched places.  In the book of Genesis we find the story of Hagar who runs away to the wilderness where there is no water.  In this place Love finds Hagar: sees her, recognises her and sustains her.  In our ‘desert places’ Love finds us: sees us; recognises us and sustains us.  She finds us where there is no water to refresh us and gives us what we need.

Love is not only found in light but also in darkness.  Darkness is often used as a metaphor for times when Love seems absent.  These times can feel ‘dark’: it can be difficult to see the way forward. Things come crashing down on us and we feel alone.  The writer of Psalm 40 describes this as being in a pit. But Love is present in this darkness – in the pit: she has not gone anywhere.

And – this is a gut feeling – Love is not only found in breath but in the lack of it.  Something in me feels sure that in the literal nothingness of a vacuum we will find the essence of Love.  And when our loved one takes their final breath, that is not only the end of something but also a beginning: a step into something new.  Love is there in her own absence.

And so these words in Psalm 139 make complete sense:

Where can I go from your spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

And the light become night around me,”

Even the darkness will not be dark to you;

The night will shine like day,

For darkness is as light to you.

Love is everywhere and in everything.  That is what Love longs for us to know, so that she can reach out to us and into us.

Then another question; another realisation.

Is Love the water? No.  Is she the light or the breath? No.  Is she the desert, the darkness or the nothingness? No, no, no.

All these are metaphor.  They help us to understand and perceive Love, yet Love is beyond our understanding and our ability to perceive.  We get snatches; we catch glimpses, but Love is mystery.  She stays beyond our control; outside of our boxes; free from taglines and soundbites.  Closer to us than we are to ourselves; infinite and infinitesimal; beckoning to us in silence.

Love is the mystery that holds us, and whose only requirement of us is that we let ourselves be held.

Photo by Karolina Kolodziejczak on Unsplash

 

Musing#8: God is everywhere: God is mystery

There are three pictures of God that I find helpful.

The first is God as water.  The nature of water: the way that it flows; the way that it can reach into the smallest of places; the way it is absorbed.  That reminds me of God.  Jesus talks of a spring of water that is inside us – that gushes up and brings life and joy.  And then there is the image of the water in the marshes – it rises up from the ground unseen, but when we switch on our awareness to it we find that it is growing and doing its work.

The second is God as light.  Light helps people to see.  The smallest light in a dark place will have an impact: the blindness the dark brings is broken as grey edges are revealed.  Light brings clarity, warmth and comfort. That reminds me of God.  And then there is the way that light reveals beauty: whether it be in the sunrise; as it shines through a stained-glass window; as it brings the colour in the natural world alive. 

The third is God as breath.  The very air we breathe.  Keeping us alive and enabling us to do all that we do.  There are times when we find ourselves literally gasping for air.  There are other times when the gentle rhythm of breathing can lull us into a spiritual moment: from the sleeping child, to the ‘dying’ breaths of a loved one.  That reminds me of God.  Jesus appeared to his followers and breathed on them, saying, “peace be with you”.  Our breath can teach us about God.

Then one day, musing on these pictures of God, a realisation.  How had I not thought of this before. God is so much bigger, so much more present, than these pictures can portray, because…

God is not only found in water but also in the desert; in the parched places.  In the book of Genesis we find the story of Hagar who runs away to the wilderness where there is no water.  In this place God finds Hagar: sees her, recognises her and sustains her.  In our ‘desert places’ God finds us: sees us; recognises us and sustains us.  He finds us where there is no water to refresh us and gives us what we need.

God is not only found in light but also in darkness.  Darkness is often used as a metaphor for times when God seems absent.  These times can feel ‘dark’: it can be difficult to see the way forward. Things come crashing down on us and we feel alone.  The writer of Psalm 40 describes this as being in a pit. But God is present in this darkness – in the pit: he has not gone anywhere.

And – this is a gut feeling – God is not only found in breath but in the lack of it.  Something in me feels sure that in the literal nothingness of a vacuum we will find the essence of God.  And when our loved one takes their final breath, that is not only the end of something but also a beginning: a step into something new.  God is there in his own absence.

And so these words in Psalm 139 make complete sense:

Where can I go from your spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

And the light become night around me,”

Even the darkness will not be dark to you;

The night will shine like the day,

For darkness is as light to you.

God is everywhere and in everything.  That is what God longs for us to know, so that he can reach out to us and into us.

Then another question; another realisation.

Is God the water? No.  Is he the light or the breath? No.  Is he the desert, the darkness or the nothingness? No, no, no.

All these are metaphor.  They help us to understand and perceive God, yet God is beyond our understanding and our ability to perceive.  We get snatches; we catch glimpses, but God is mystery.  He stays beyond our control; outside of our boxes; free from taglines and soundbites.  Closer to us than we are to ourselves; infinite and infinitesimal; beckoning to us in silence.  Metaphors help but they are not Love.

God is the mystery that holds us, and whose only requirement of us is that we let ourselves be held.

 

Photo by Karolina Kolodziejzczak on Unsplash

 

Musing #7: God as a slippery fish

I have an image of God in my head as a slippery fish. Let me try to explain! I believe that God is mystery and beyond our comprehension – our words and our thoughts will never capture who God is.  But words are what we have.  So, in our human-ness and our desire to understand we try to explain God: we pull him into our perception and, in so doing, we fail to see who he really is.

I’ve never held a fish that is still alive but, in my head, I see a fish thrashing around as I try desperately to hold onto it.  Until I realise that if I continue to hold onto this beautiful creature, it will die.  I will have the fish, but it will have lost its life.  My experience of God is that when I hold onto him too tightly – when I think I have understood and can explain God – he ‘dies’.  God becomes something else – a set of beliefs and rules - and is no longer alive.  I need to hold on to God lightly and let him slip out of my hands.  The thing with God is that we will never fully understand him.  The point is to keep seeking.

Free from our hands God, the fish, slips back into the water.  Water that spreads and seeps into the tightest of corners.  Water that is deep and broad and holds treasure beyond our imagining.  When God slips out of our hands he doesn’t want us to walk away: stay at the water’s edge and seek him.  As we stare into the depths we may catch a glimpse – the flick of his tail as he dances beneath the surface.  If we keep gazing, he may leap like a flash of silver to capture our attention again. 

Contemplation is in the gazing and the seeking.  Contemplation is coming to realise that God is not just the fish but the whole expanse of water.  And as I seek God I may also paddle in the shallows of his very being. Or take a deep breath and dive into him. Or feel, as I gaze, the spring of his spirit rising up in me.  God can not be held tightly and understood but he is constantly inviting us to dance with him in the waters of his spirit.

Photo by Mael Balland on Unsplash

 Musing #6: Let feelings be your teacher

How do you feel today? Maybe if you pause for a moment you can tune in and sense that you’re just ok.  Or maybe there’s an anger inside you, or an anxiety or a fear bubbling up.  What do you do with that emotion?  Does it consume you: eat away at you? Or do you consume it – bury it or repress it? Ignore it?

The way I respond to my emotions and feelings differs but what I am finding myself more able to do is to observe them: notice what I am feeling and be aware that it is just that – a feeling.  Feelings come, and feelings go.  An image was given to me of a mountain that stands solidly as storms pass, as snow falls, as sunshine lights up its beauty.  I am the mountain – you are the mountain.  Our emotions are the weather – they come, and they go; sometimes just what we needed, sometimes exactly what we didn’t want; sometimes a storm will last a while but not forever – the storm will pass.  Another day or season will come, and the feeling will be different. 

I find this picture helpful: it speaks to me of the equanimity I find through contemplative practices; it speaks to me of the peace that is beyond understanding.  But I am encouraged not to ignore these emotions.  A different image is found in Rumi’s poem ‘The Guesthouse’. This speaks of us as houses to which all manner of emotions arrive as guests, and his encouragement is to invite these guests in because they have their work to do: they are gifts from the beyond.  And I think, yes, let me listen to how I am feeling – let me welcome that feeling and let it teach me.

Some emotions are painful, and our instinctive reaction is to push them away or to deny them.  But what is that pain trying to communicate to you?  Just as physical pain can alert us to an injury, a danger or a disease, I find myself seeing emotional pain as a pointer to something.  And I want to listen and find what that something is – what is that messenger from beyond trying to say to me?  Is it alerting me to an ‘injury’ that I have suffered or inflicted? Is it aware of a danger that I could prepare for? Or has it seen a habit that is becoming like a disease in me – incapacitating me in some way?

The world is not an easy place to live at the moment with the effects of climate change ever more apparent; and wars; inequalities; violence.  In all this suffering I know I am not the only one who has retreated from the news – it all feels too much.  But something has been nudging me recently to re-think this decision.  I do not wish to sit in the 24-hour wash of news without an awareness of its impact on me.  But I do feel a need to take some time to sit with the news – however horrendous it may be - and feel the emotions that emerge.  Oftentimes my response to the news is one of powerlessness: I don’t know what to do about all that is going wrong in the world at the moment.  I wonder, if I sit with the emotions that the news evokes, will they become my teacher?  If I can welcome those emotions into my guest house what work will they do?

Many of our physical ills result from our attempts to numb ourselves from painful emotions and feelings – numb ourselves from our human reality.  What if we were to stop numbing ourselves, feel the pain and let it teach us?  I honestly don’t know what would happen, but I am confident that it would draw us nearer to the Love that sits at the centre of the universe.  The Love that does not wish us any harm but wishes to transform us and turn our pain into joy.

Photo by Angel Barnes on Unsplash

Rumi’s 'The Guest House' being read: https://fb.watch/pWBz_S7Ujz/

 

 Musing #5: Baby

What is it about a baby?

What’s so magical?

The mystery of something that has grown in a hidden place.  It’s been felt, but not fully seen: only the grainy black and white ultra-sound image, or the eruption of a limb, pushing against its mother’s flesh...

And then the baby comes, and the world around it shifts; changes; makes room for this new life.  The baby comes and suddenly you have a new name: mummy, daddy, granny, grandad, aunty, great uncle, great grandma…

There’s never any shortage of love.  Love multiplies, grows: enfolds the baby.  The family reconstructs itself around this new life, and the wider community respond.  People, who were strangers until now, want to help, to support, to share in this wonderful miracle.  Because every birth is a miracle; the beginning of a new life; a new expression of God.

The baby is mesmerising: those tiny feet and hands; the peacefulness of sleep; the heart-rending cry.  A being so small. So vulnerable. So dependent – it catches the hearts of all around.

When the parents look back they can’t imagine what life was like before – how did they fill their time? What did they do?

What’s so magical about a baby?  They remind us of where we come from; of what we have lost; of the on-going circle of life.

When a baby arrives, love is born.

   

                 So, what is it about this baby: the Christ -child, Love incarnate?

What’s so magical?

The mystery of Love can be hidden – seen only in a mirror dimly.  The muffled movements not fully understood.

But, when Love is born, the world around shifts; changes; makes room.  And you are given a new name: beloved, daughter, son, child of Love.

And there’s no shortage of love.  Love multiplies: grows: enfolds itself.  Love draws us together as family and opens us up to the stranger, the outcast, the persecuted.  They embrace, and are embraced by, Love.  

Love is a miracle: the beginning of new life: a new expression of God.

What’s so magical about this baby, born into poverty?  

So vulnerable; so small; so dependent.

He reminds us of where we come from, of what we have lost, of the on-going circle of life.

God came as a baby because that’s where Love is born.

 

 

Musing #4:  Light

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. (Isaiah 9:2)

I have always found these words from Isaiah a comfort and encouragement at Christmas-time.  With all that is going on in the world it very much feels that we are ‘walking in darkness’ and in a ‘land of deep darkness’.  As we move through this week leading up to Christmas, and on into the winter months of the New Year, can we consciously hold on to God’s promise of light?  Can we be alert and looking for the light that is dawning?

And can we consider the other meanings of ‘light’?  Light is the opposite of darkness, but it is also the opposite of ‘heavy’.  Jesus says in Matthew 11: “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light”. God does not want us to be weighed down – by our anxieties and concerns, by the worries of the world, by our possessions, our obligations, by life.  He offers a yoke that is light. When we wear his yoke he enables us to let go of those heavy things.  This reminds me that we are called to a simple life – maybe this is something we can embrace as we move into 2024.

Light is also the opposite of tight.  There are some things that we tend to hold onto too tightly.  It might be our self-image, it might be certain possessions, it might be a way of doing something or a certain belief.  It might even be a loved one.  A familiar song says: if you love someone, set them free.  If love is causing us to hold onto something or someone too tightly, we need to loosen our grip: be willing to change; be willing to share; and sometimes be willing to let go.

Finally, light is the opposite of serious.  We are prone to taking ourselves too seriously.  I honestly think that part of God bringing us light is enabling us to laugh.  And an important part of this is being able to laugh or smile at ourselves.  We all make mistakes, we all mess up – I’m not saying try to do this, but God still loves us exactly how we are, and when we realise this we can lighten up a bit and smile and see the bright side.  Managing to do that will bring light to those we live with and meet during this festive season and in the year ahead.

God brings light in the darkness – let’s live out that light as we move through Christmas and into the New Year.

Musing #3:  Lessons from Harry Potter (i)

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Harry Potter let me describe to you a scene in the first book.  Harry, Ron and Hermione are attempting to find the Philosophers Stone which they know is hidden through a trapdoor under a huge three headed dog.  They manage to get past the dog and drop down through the trapdoor into the unknown.  Their fall is broken by a plant, which seems fortunate until the plant begins wrapping its tendrils around them and they recognise that they are in huge danger.

Hermione is the one who recognises the plant as ‘Devil’s Snare’ and has to wrack her brains to remember how to free them.  In the book Hermione is not caught by the plant and orders the boys to ‘stop moving’, in the film Hermione is trapped too but releases herself by relaxing – Harry follows her instructions, but Ron continues to panic and the plant grips him tighter.  The words that echo in my head are in the film and said by Hermione to Harry about Ron: He’s not relaxing is he?

I feel like I can hear these words being said about me.  Sometimes it’s like I’ve tried to drop down into that deeper place and something has caught me – maybe an idea, maybe a meeting or an activity, maybe a book or a person.  At first being caught seemed like a good thing but then that distraction starts, metaphorically, attacking me; stopping me from dropping deeper and actually ‘killing’ me.  And the way out of this situation? I need to relax.  I need to disengage.  I need to still my mind – find what Rumi calls ‘that pure bead in the centre’ – and then all those things that have been clinging onto me will release me and I can drop deeper.  Letting go of things that are not important is a vital practise, but sometimes the practise is one of relaxing and finding peace, so that the things that cling to us will let us go.  Sometimes the way to the deeper place is to stop struggling and relax.

In both the book and film poor Ron finds it impossible to relax and the plant grips tighter, threatening to take his life.  I feel his pain! Hermione has to come to the rescue by remembering that – in the book – the plant does not like warmth or – in the film – that the plant does not like sunlight. 

So, if we find it practically impossible to relax, the way that we can be helped is through warmth and light.  Powerful elements from which the ‘Devil’s Snare’ shrinks.  For me, this is a potent image of the powerful energy of love which loosens the grip of the things that hold us and stop us dropping deeper into love.  Sometimes we need the light and the warmth of love to free us so that we can drop into its arms.

Interesting that the plant is called devil’s snare.  Interesting that it is possible to free yourself from it by relaxing. Interesting that it shrinks away from light and warmth.  Lots to ponder: lots to learn!

 

 

 

Musing #2:  Soul Searching

Last Sunday I was listening to the news on the radio.  A reporter was talking to a man in Derna, Libya, where the catastrophic flooding took place – as I write it is known to have taken 11,000 lives.  The man had travelled to Derna with a group of his friends.  They were taking a boat out to sea, diving and looking for bodies.  They were bringing the bodies back one by one.  The reporter asked how he was coping with what he was doing.  He talked about his spirit being broken but he added: There’s something inside that keeps us going.

I’m not totally sure what I understand the human soul to be.  It is not a physical organ and, as far as I am aware, it is not something that psychologists have named as such.  What I notice is that there is this ‘something’ inside us as human beings.  And if you’re listening, and noticing, you start to see it and hear it: you start to become aware of a whole world that is going on at a different level – a deeper level.

I love words, and the word soul is one to look out for and savour.  If you are someone who reads the Bible look out for the word soul.  Consider how it is used; what it is meaning.  But you don’t have to open a sacred text to find soul: soul-mate; soul music; soul food.  When I hear the word soul I find it is good to ponder why it is being used – what is it getting at.  There is, of course, a dictionary definition but I’m not sure that really helps us feel what soul is about.  As we ponder its use I think we edge around it – gradually closing in on it; we add layers to its meaning and give it its intrinsic depth; and we feel it in our own souls.  Our souls echo back that understanding.

Yesterday I was cleaning, and I spotted a spiders web.  Not the pretty kind – the kind that hang around like an elongated piece of dust.  Once I’d removed it I spotted another, and another… I’d tuned into spider webs and suddenly I saw them everywhere!  I think we can do the same with soul.  Noticing it in one place will help us to observe it in other places.  And observing it ‘out there’ in other human beings will encourage our own soul: in some intangible way that eternal part of our self will know it is seen and cherished.  Which speaks of our connection, as human beings and creatures, at a soul level…

Is it something you feel?  I’d love to know!

 

PS Had to go and listen to this wonderful song by Labi Siffre:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B-4Lsrx8IA

 

 

 Musing #1: Life as a Journey

I find the metaphor of life as a journey helpful: there is a beginning and an ending, and I am finding my way between them.  It is also helpful in understanding what living a contemplative life is about. 

I don’t think that it is just because I am getting older that life seems to be speeding up.  Childhood has been curtailed; there is an eagerness to experience as much as possible as soon as possible; there is the bucket list which emphasises things that need to be fitted in; there is the constant stream of information.  It seems to me that on our journey of life we have so much to fit in that we have jumped into a car, or maybe onto a plane, to make sure that we get everything done.  We are living life as fast as possible so that we can cram everything in, whatever ‘everything’ is for us.

It concerns me that we get into that car.  We get into a car with people we know – family and friends: people who think like us and want to go to the places we want to go.  We speed past the people who are different to us – we have no time to stop and get to know them.  We are happy and content in our car, but there’s a whole world out there that we have no contact with.  It is not often that we stop to give someone a lift, especially someone we don’t know.

So, maybe, contemplation is like getting out of the car and walking.  Letting go of all the things I want to do and places I want to go and putting my feet on solid ground.  Taking my life one step at a time.

When I walk through life I have time to notice the world around me, wherever I find myself.  To observe the beauty and be in touch with my surroundings.  To notice my fellow pilgrims: to strike up a conversation and connect with someone who is not like me – to hear their wisdom and be encouraged. 

When I walk through life I notice footpaths that lead to places I had never thought of visiting – paths that are too narrow for a car to use; places whose beauty is hidden away from an airport or a landing strip.  I can only get to those places by walking.

And maybe sometimes on the journey I take my shoes off and feel the ground beneath my feet.  Maybe sometimes the path gets too rough and I step off it for a while: onto soft, springy grass or into a pool of crystal water.  Maybe I sit for a while and watch the journey of life pass by or maybe I lie down and simply listen.

It’s ok to slow down; it’s ok to be still.  All that we need is here in this moment.  When we can be still in this moment it opens to us and gives us everything we need.

Life is a journey: it is not a race across the world! Can we learn to walk through it and wake up to all that is around us to help us on our way?