Author: Henry Morgan (Page 11 of 13)

I find myself keep coming back to a question that my body posed to my mind during the conversations we shared after the operation for bowel cancer and before we decided whether or not to proceed with chemotherapy [see ‘Listening and Deciding’]. My body asked: “Why am I doing this to myself?” i.e. ‘why is a part of my body, the cancer, seeking to damage the body itself, and possibly bring about its death?’ It’s as if my body was at war with itself. Why?
One answer is that I don’t know, and I doubt anybody does. But I’m aware that my body is not alone in behaving thus: my mind often chooses a course of action that it knows is unwise, so does my heart and even my soul. I seem to possess this self-destructive capacity within me. And again, I wonder why?
Another answer is that our bodies seem created to decay, run down, cease to function. It is simply the reality of the matter that our bodies die. Death may be internally caused, as with cancer, or externally, as with an accident, but it will inevitably come. And this is true of all of creation: all things come to an end, everything has its ‘sell by’ date. Why?
I’m reminded of the hymn ‘Abide with me’ and its line; “Change and decay in all around I see,” written by a man dying of tuberculosis as he watched the glories of the setting sun.
We are each of us going to die one day, and we find the notion difficult to take, sufficiently so that we spend a good deal of our lives ignoring its reality. And again, I wonder why? Is there something within us that rebels against the finiteness of everything, and especially of oneself? It might simply be an unwillingness, or an inability to accept that ‘I’ will one day cease to exist. But I’ve come to suspect that its something other than that.
I have for a long time been fascinated by the idea of consciousness: the inner life that goes on inside our heads and which we think of as our ‘real’ selves as opposed to the external image we present to the world. There is a spectrum of consciousness in our inner world, ranging from rational, problem solving thinking at one end, through feelings & relationships, and our sensory awareness interpreting the external world, into our use, at the other end of the spectrum, of imagination and intuition that take us beyond the objective 3D world, and where we dream, have visions, listen to music, appreciate art, and literature, can enter altered states and encounter mystery.
All parts of the spectrum appear to be ‘wired into’ the human brain and can be accessed by most of us, and there seems no obvious reason why we should not accept them all as equally genuine and basically reliable: which in itself is pretty astonishing! They provide us with a fascinating set of tools which we can use to negotiate and make meaning of life, and the trick is surely to trust that we need the full range of options to maximise life and to learn to use all of those on offer rather than assuming that a favoured tool should be used for almost everything.
I’m reminded of some words of Zoe Heller: “Increasingly, I regard my atheism as a regrettable limitation. It seems to me that my lack of faith is not, as I once thought, a triumph of the rational mind, but rather, a failure of the imagination – an inability to tolerate mystery: a species in fact of neurosis.” Our imaginations, dreams, spiritual experience, take us beyond the rational and the physical and show us something more, which amongst other things, fuels a sense that death is not the end. We trust our rational consciousness to deal with life’s practical problems, are we not invited to trust the imaginative end of our consciousness spectrum to access wisdom beyond where our rational knowing can take us? Indeed is that not why its there?
Suppose that we assumed that death is a part of the plan rather than a sign of the failure or absence of a plan, where might that take us? What creative part might death play in such a plan? How about these for a starter? It makes life precious: our most precious gift; it focuses our attention upon the here and now with an element of urgency; it encourages creativity; and it makes us yearn for something eternal, something beyond ourselves.
Suppose that we took on board Deepak Chopra’s sense that every life is framed by two mysteries: birth and death. But we only consider one of them, birth, as a miracle. The reality, I suspect, is that death is equally a miracle. Maybe we should view death as a gateway into something beyond, just as birth was? Do you know the story of the twins in the womb?

In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?” The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”

“Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”

The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”

The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”

The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”

The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”

The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”

The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”

Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”

To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”

Perhaps the primary part of the body’s task is to provide a context in which we can grow and then to let us go: to send us out into what comes next, just like a wise parent. Life is certainly constantly teaching us to learn to let go and to embrace the new, the different, the other., and we might reasonably wonder why? It seems to be the way we grow. And life is full of these little deaths, as if it was preparing us for………….for what? Maybe for death and for what will seem like a final letting go: although hopefully by then we will have learnt that it will be a letting go into something new, and that we can trust that it will be alright.
John’s Gospel has a vision of Jesus being a part of God from the beginning, before His incarnation as a human being, and then of being reunited with God after suffering, death and resurrection. I sense that this is the vision for each of the rest of us too: in this as in much else Jesus shows us the way. We come from God at our birth and return to God at our death.
I’ve been finding this line of thinking increasingly persuasive for some time, and am grateful that my body’s question has challenged me to try to articulate it in words. Even as I write though I am aware that I cant prove that what I say is true. Proof in a rational sense is simply not the primary language of this sort of reflection. I am trusting here in my intuition and my personal spiritual experience, on the basis of which I’m happy to say that I confidently trust that there is truth in what I am saying. It’s not the whole truth, it cant be, but its true enough to be trustworthy. Trusting in this I can move forward in faith, and whatever else I need to know will, I know from experience, surely be shown me in due course provided I stay open.

I’ve just had my first dose of chemotherapy.

I was initially quite opposed to the idea of chemo. I consider my body to be a valued and trusted friend, and he had just gone through a hard time. He had been in pain for some months and then faced major surgery from which he seemed to be recovering well. I was very reluctant to put him through a course of chemotherapy.

Two things changed my mind: the conversations I had with an oncologist whom I trusted; and those that I had with myself. And it’s the latter process that I want to write about. I have a dear friend who is also suffering with cancer, and who is handling it with a similar process but to a different conclusion, and quite rightly so I think. So I am writing to commend a process and not an outcome.

Many years ago God gave me an insight that I greatly value, and frequently use. I think of my body, mind, heart and soul as members of a board of which I ‘Henry’ am the chair, and in order for me to make good decisions about matters that affect me, I need to consult my board, and to listen carefully to each of them. Experience has taught me that it is easy for one or more of my board members not to be heard, and indeed on a bad day for one of them to have effectively staged a ‘coup d’etat’ and to have acted without consulting any of the rest of us. So my role as chair is very important [I’ve described this exercise in more detail in ‘The God you already know’].

So faced with a decision about chemotherapy I knew that I must ask my body what his views on the matter were, and not make assumptions on his behalf. And I then sought the views of my other board members as well. Reviewing it now I have found it both a fascinating and an encouraging process.

Some of my board members articulated things that I hadn’t heard from them before.

They each said that this is not just Body’s problem, his distress was felt and owned by them all, and they each felt that they may have had some responsibility for its arising. They expressed regret and sought Body’s forgiveness for not responding more quickly to his distress.
They proposed light duties for all through the summer in order to support & care for Body

What I heard Body say:
I was surprised to realise that I was giving myself this problem? Why am I doing this to myself? Can Mind offer an explanation?
I could not solve this problem myself. If I cannot digest food I will slowly starve to death. So I’m very grateful to the others for getting the outside help I needed and could not access myself. The others have saved me from dying.
I didn’t enjoy the surgery but accepted it as necessary.
I am aware that I feel guilty, that I have failed & let the others down. I have a need to apologise.

What I heard Heart say:
I felt Body’s pain and discomfort at not eating, but didn’t understand what was causing it & so felt helpless, shared his vulnerability & tried to encourage him to rest, which is what I felt he needed.
I found the journey back from Yorkshire difficult & was glad to get home. I felt an increasing sense of isolation & loneliness.
It was a relief to go into hospital, where it felt as if Body’s suffering was being taken seriously at last. The registrar’s report on the CT scan with the use of the word ‘cancer’ for the first time was a shock, but I felt in safe hands. I felt that Soul took over at that point & did a good job on behalf of all of us through the operation.
I was impressed by the care and kindness shown us in the hospital. I felt safe there in the hands of kind people who understood our problem & were dealing with it competently and caringly. But it also felt good to go home.
I was moved by my wife’s care and love, and that of my 4 daughters who were and are quite wonderful. It felt very good to be back amongst familiar and well loved things.
I felt moved to tears by all the cards, emails, phone calls, texts and visits of love, prayer and careful support. I remember feeling that I didn’t deserve it, that if people really knew me they would feel differently. But Mind, quite rightly, reminded me straight away, that I would challenge anyone else who said that. Love is not deserved, that is the whole point of it, it comes as unexpected gift.
I was not keen on chemo & the damage it might do to Body, but I was reassured by Mind. I struggled for a time with thoughts of our mortality that Body’s plight brought on, & of the possibility of our time being cut short with still so much to live for. I have learnt over the years to look fears and anxieties like these in the eye: its always uncomfortable but its better on the other side having gone through them. I feel that its something that we do together, with Body, Heart, Mind and Soul all contributing, which is probably why it is so valuable. I’m now feeling much more positive about the future.

What I heard Mind say:
I must admit that I think that a good deal of all this rather slipped under my radar! I thought that Body’s pain in December was probably linked to the back pain he was also feeling then, and I was, with hindsight, too willing to accept the doctors suggestion that we wait and see in January and February. I wish I had been more insistent then, though I’m not sure it would have made much difference: systems move slowly especially under current financial constraints.
Until the end of February I also felt that I should to continue to travel and see friends as part of my ministry. I was reluctant to cancel the trip to Poland at the beginning of March, until I realised on returning from Starbeck that the trip would be beyond me. With hindsight I pushed myself harder than I should, and neglected Body’s needs when Heart was already aware of them. I apologise to Body and the rest of you for that.
Once the seriousness of Body’s situation became clear to me I clicked into action. Heart was distressed, as was Body, so we saw doctors twice in a few days and was admitted to hospital. I felt a great sense of relief to be there and in the capable hands of kind people who seemed to know what they were doing: there was nothing more I could practically do for Body, but I spent some useful time before and after the op reflecting on ‘Letters of Love’ [to be found elsewhere on this site], ‘Cancer of the Colon’, ‘Insights when ill’, and ‘Life not in hospital’. There were also several profound mystical experiences which Soul experienced. I think that my reflections and his experiences linked together and combined to help us through.
I was not expecting the offer of chemotherapy, and in my post-op slow gear, found it difficult to take in the information we were given. I understood it rather gloomily at first, but after a second conversation with the oncologist took a more optimistic view and could see the good sense of accepting it I sought to persuade the others of the wisdom of this, and Henry decided to consult us all on the matter.
I am intrigued by the questions Body asks. Where does the cancer come from? It appears to originate in Body, but why does Body attack Body? Do the rest of us have some responsibility too?
How do we handle our mortality in a society which wont face the matter, and which obliges us to do so individually, while scorning religious insights? Is rational thought much help here? Do we not need to rely rather on the mystical insights that Soul describes? Most of these questions are in a way unanswerable, but they are important nevertheless.
But I have been helped enormously to find that my questionings alongside the different insights of the others have allowed us to find a sense of unity which allows us to face the future whatever it holds. It seems that good, deep relationships are key. It reminds me of my favourite ikon, Rublev’s Trinity.

What I heard Soul say:
I’ve written at length elsewhere, [ ‘where is the gift in all this?’] so I wont repeat myself.
But looking back I am struck by the way I found myself reflecting on ‘the letters of love’ soon after Christmas. This theme sustained me through these months in an amazing way. And I wonder if I had some foreknowledge that something difficult & challenging was on its way and was being prepared to meet it? I’m encouraged by the notion that that’s true, but I also berate myself for not making the connection with what Body was then facing, earlier: perhaps if I’d been listening better?
I’m also struck by the way that I seemed to take over in the time leading up to and following on from, the operation. And was gifted with a profound sense of the other/the divine/God, holding all of us and indeed all of creation, in love.
I am grateful that I was able to be of service to the others in that way, and indeed looking back, I’m full of wonder at the way that at different stages of our recent journey one of us has been able, appropriately, to take the lead for all of us. It brings tears to my eyes as I see that I feel proud to be a part of such a fine team. Thank you all.

And what Henry now says:
And so the wonder of the process [not rocket science this but splendid to experience] was that while we didn’t have the answers to everybody’s questions, it really didn’t matter, for the beauty of it was that simply listening to each other was all that was needed for each of the board members to be aware of a deep and welcome sense of being in this together, of it not just being Body’s problem; and in the end a decision just seemed to fall into place without much effort, that we were all comfortable and at ease with. Certainly as chair of the board I feel a wonderful sense of relief and peace about it all.

The chemo has begun. We’ll never know if we’ve made the ‘right’ decision. Statistically the treatment increases the chances of the cancer not recurring. If the cancer doesn’t recur that might be because of the treatment but it’s possible that the treatment was never actually necessary. If it does recur, then that doesn’t necessarily mean that the treatment was a failure, it might have slowed its coming, reduced its severity etc. We’ll never know for certain: there are no guarantees.
And one way or another death will certainly come sometime: we can’t put it off forever. But I sense that whatever happens I [we] will face it together and in good heart. Meanwhile, the task is to care for Body as best we can through the treatment, to continue our regular board meetings, to use the time as an opportunity to be gently caring of each other and of others who pass our way, and to grow deeper in our trust in the God Who loves us all, and Who is our beginning and our end.

On a Thursday in mid March of this year my GP referred me into our local hospital in Worcester because I clearly had a problem and it was getting worse: I hadn’t eaten much for some time and was losing weight, digesting food was very painful, I had little energy and spent more time than usual sleeping. I was very glad to go into hospital: I knew I wasn’t well and I needed help.

They gave me a CT scan and the Registrar came to give me the news. The bad news was that I had a tumorous cancer in my colon, the good was there was no sign that it had spread and it ought to be removable. It took me a while to take that in!

The doctors operated on the Sunday morning, I was back on the ward that afternoon, and went home on the Thursday, where I am gradually recovering and now await a course of chemotherapy. I feel much better, my appetite has returned, and slowly life is returning to normal. It has been quite an experience, and a profoundly spiritual one.

One of my favourite questions in spiritual direction is ‘where might the gift be in all this?’ So, not surprisingly, friends have been asking me where the gift has been for me in all this? And my answer has been that this has been a time full of gifts: a time of rich blessing. Not what I might have expected, and not all of them either welcome or recognised at the time, but gifts nevertheless. Let me name some of them.

[1] The overarching one was the gift of finding myself vulnerable, weak and largely passive. I recall a book by W H Vanstone that I read years ago. In it he noted that for most of His ministry Jesus was active: calling, teaching, challenging, healing, feeding, moving from place to place. And then He was arrested in Gethsemane and that all changed: He became passive, done to by others; He initiated nothing. Yet we tend to think of that time after His arrest as the most significant of His life. Most of the gifts I received came through my being passive, weak and vulnerable.

[2] The first was the pain. I didn’t experience it as gift at first, of course, but it was in fact my body’s way of letting me know that it had a problem and that it needed outside help to deal with it.

[3] I have preached just one sermon this year, on Valentine’s Day. From the beginning of the year I knew intuitively that I wanted to talk about the different languages of love. I had thought about it, offered my sermon to our small congregation, and then continued to mull on its content up to and including my time in hospital and beyond. I know that most of my sermons are preached primarily to myself, and this one keeps on nourishing me spiritually. It seems as if something unconscious in me knew what was going to happen, at the beginning of the year, and was preparing me to face it. I have heard many different languages of love while I’ve been ill, but I’m not sure that I would have recognised them without that sermon! [I’ve written about the subject elsewhere on this site]

[4] There was the practical love, kindness and care of my wife and my four daughters: each incarnating it differently.

[5] There was the love, concern and prayer of more friends than I thought that I had, expressed through cards, emails, phone call and small gifts.

[6] There was the earthy, practical care and teamwork of the nursing staff in the hospital.

[7] There was the skill of the surgeons and doctors, with all their technical equipment.

[8] There was the gift of being prodded to review my life in the face of the reality of my mortality: there’s nothing like a major operation in hospital, and the word ‘cancer’ to kick that process into action. It wasn’t welcome, it was sometimes dark and uncomfortable, and it was mostly lonely work because you face the prospect of death alone. But gradually I experienced it as gift: it prodded me to focus on what is really important, of the value of setting time aside for reflection, and to write pieces like this.

[9] There was the gift of being gently stimulated from outside when I lacked the energy to stimulate myself. I couldn’t read for long, I hadn’t the concentration, but I could listen to the radio [something I otherwise rarely do], podcasts and music. I could look at art and watch a film. I thank God for mobile phones, tablets and my ipod!

[10] Rather like my sermon, it was amazing how what I seemed to need came my way without my having to do much except recognise and accept it:
waiting for my operation, on a whim, I listened to Daniel Barenboim playing Bach’s ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier’ and found myself taken into a place of stillness and peace where I experienced my unity with all of creation and a deep trust in God.
a friend who was also unwell, told me how he was listening to an audiobook of a Jane Austen novel, and I thought that’s just what I need. So I downloaded it, listened to it and was entranced.
gazing blankly out of a window an image of a painting by Giotto came to mind [from where I don’t know, but I’ve learnt to trust these things] and I went to a lovely book of Giotto’s paintings in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua that I have, and was hugely nourished by reflecting on one particular sequence of images.

[11] Having to move more slowly and gently: being less active, I found myself noticing things that I would otherwise have not noticed: the glorious signs of spring in our garden viewed through the window; the beauty of the surrounding countryside during my first short walk outside; the smell of good coffee; a decent cup of tea, my own bed, my shed.. etc etc….

[12] I know from experience that if I’m not well and take to my bed, then as I drift in and out of consciousness, unable to get my mind into gear, then sometimes everything can be seen with great simplicity and clarity, I know that I and all creation is held in love by something much greater, and I know that there is nothing to be worried about. There is no greater gift.

And I received it from time to time while ill this time too. Barenboim took me there, as did the zombie-like weariness of the post anaesthetic, waking up in the middle of the night can take me there, as do religious experiences. I guess that fasting has traditionally taken people there, and I certainly effectively fasted during my illness.

[13] My wife Sylvia showed me her copy of the autobiography of Oliver Postgate who some may remember as giving us, with Peter Firmin, such wonders as ‘Bagpuss’ ‘Noggin the Nog’, ‘Ivor the Engine’ and other childrens TV programmes. There is a section towards the end of the book [entitled ‘Seeing Things’] in which he described an experience he had whilst ill in hospital similar to what I have described above. He writes: “I knew that I was seeing clearly for the first time in my life……seeing how things are……..I had found something that had been lost, something I had known all along but in some fear or confusion had mislaid.” I intuitively felt that I knew what he was talking about. His life was not the same afterwards, as I suspect mine won’t be either.
I am reminded of what William Blake wrote: “If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is. Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ the narrow chinks of his cavern.”

This speaks of contexts where the rational mind is somehow bypassed and we access a deeper wisdom which we’ve usually mostly lost contact with. Illness has gifted it again to me.

On one level all of the above simply affirms what God has already taught me. The challenge, as always, will be to keep it nourished and alive, and above all to deepen my trust, my faith in God. As luck would have it [is it luck, or just another gift?] I have a course of chemotherapy ahead of me through the summer which I hope might provide a fertile opportunity.

Some years ago I read a book that suggested that there are five different languages of love: five different ways of expressing love. It named the five as:
1] touch: ranging from a light touch on the arm through to sexual intercourse;.
2] words of affirmation, affection & encouragement;
3] practical actions of service: men of my parents generation with memories of the Depression often did paid work that they hated because it paid for a roof over their family’s heads, clothes on their backs and food on the table. Women of the same generation saw it as their loving duty to stay at home, do the domestic chores, care for the children, and make sure the house was ready for the return of their husbands after work, often at the neglect of themselves. Both were offering practical acts of service as a language of their love.
4] giving of gifts; from tiny gestures upwards
5] time together: presence, quality time together; just being there for each other.

The suggestion was that different people tend to favour one or two languages to the exclusion of the others, either not valuing other languages of love for what they are, or dismissing them entirely. The result is that people who speak languages other than the ones we favour ourselves are seen as not loving us, when the reality is that they are simply offering that love in a language we haven’t learnt to value. Whereas, the more languages we are open to, the more we will be aware that we are much more loved than we imagined, which would be a plus!. And the more languages we can learn to speak, the more loving we will become for each other. Simple when put like that, and it opened my eyes no end!

Now this seems to be transferable wisdom to our relationship with God, Whom we address in a cacophony of different languages, Babel like! This was brought home to me when I served for a time in a well to do parish with a large churchyard, it employed David from a nearby council estate to come and look after the churchyard on a couple of days each week. David, to my knowledge never entered the church itself but he took meticulous and loving care, well beyond the call of duty, of the church yard. Watching him week by week I came to realise that this was the language in which he offered worship to God, [although he would have never put it like that]. Moreover the language we used for worship in church could not have been more alien to him: it involved words [he was a man of few words], books [and I doubt he read books], singing [which I never witnessed him doing], sitting in rows facing the front as if in school [of which I doubt he had happy memories] and dressing up [which was not his style at all]. David and the church congregation were using different languages of love in addressing God, without much mutual awareness or appreciation of each other.

I used to say that the door of the church should be wide enough to allow any to enter who wished to do so. I realised that it also needed to be wide enough for the folks inside to see those outside worshipping God in a multitude of different languages of love.

God of course addresses us in an astonishing range of languages, but most of us only hear a few of them. Let me list some of the more obvious:

1] ‘the God Who takes care of me and mine’. This may serve us well until tragedy strikes, when this language of God’s love either no longer speaks or, may seem to have disappeared altogether.
2] ‘the God Who touches us through the love languages of :
other people & animals
all of creation; its beauty
through the story of Jesus
through holy books, worship and prayer;
through the arts: music, poetry, literature, painting and sculpture
direct religious experience
3] the God Who provides a planet that can meet all our needs & enable us to flourish
4] the God Who bestows the gift of life, our senses, and a variety of other creative gifts that nourish us

We need not be dependent on just one of God’s love languages and we are not well served if we do so, because there will likely be times when it will seem to fail us. Better by far to be open to the God Who speaks in many languages, and Who’s love reaches out to us in so many different and varied ways. Both our vision of God and of love will be that much the greater.

If God speaks many languages then there cant be one ‘Word of God’ can there? Unless of course, its a word that appears in all of them, like love. So the Word of God is love. God is love, and wherever love is God is. The problem is that just as our vision of God is always too small, [how can it be otherwise?] so our vision of love is always too small. Yet life is constantly challenging us to leave our comfort zones and embrace a love strange beyond our current knowing.
Another thought occurs to me. Jesus commanded His followers to love one another: indeed He said that people should be able to recognise His followers by the way that they love one another. Of course He exemplified this teaching Himself: no word of condemnation for Judas or Peter or the others who abandoned Him, just acceptance, tolerance and words of forgiveness.
He never commanded His followers to believe particular things or to hold particular points of view. Indeed, He was often frustrated by their failure to understand Him and by their constant misunderstanding of Him. But He seems to have embraced, accepted and loved them nevertheless. Love was more important to Him.
Jesus’ community was based on a love that rose above intellectual conformity, that accepted and transcended all manner of human differences. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if churches were like this, and to be fair some are. But I am still appalled by the recent meeting of Anglican Archbishops from around the world who seemed to place greater importance on doctrinal agreement, than a truly Christian spirit of loving acceptance of differing opinions and practices.
Why can we not see that the Spirit is calling us to accept that Churches in different parts of the world will take different positions on certain matters and that that is OK? We can live with our many differences if we fulfil Jesus’ call to place primacy on loving one another. Why is this so difficult? We manage it with Christians from the past: they took views on a whole range of matters with which we would strongly disagree, but we accept them as fellow Christians. Why can we do this backwards through history but not in the here and now? Indeed why can we not see that this is of the essence of our calling as Christians?

A friend of mine, Les Acklam, recently introduced me to some words by John Spong in the introduction to his most recent book “The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic”. I found these words compelling and have shared them with others who have also found that they speak to their experience, so I share them now with you:

“I have wrestled with the Christian faith for all of my (now 82 years) life and I find myself at this moment, to the surprise of my traditional critics, I’m sure, more deeply committed to my Christ and to my faith than ever before.
My commitment is, however, to a new understanding of both the Christ and Christianity. I am increasingly drawn to a Christianity that has no separating barriers and that does not bind me into the creeds of antiquity.
It is a Christianity that cannot be contained by or expressed through traditional liturgical forms. I have no desire to find certainty or to embrace religious security. I choose rather to live in the unbounded insecurity that is the nature of human life and by doing so to discover that I am in fact walking the Christ path.

I also have no desire to walk any other faith path. I have discovered, however, that if I walk the Christ path deeply enough and far enough, it will lead me beyond anything I now know about Christianity. I see that not as a negative statement, but as a positive one.
Jesus walked beyond the boundaries of his religion into a new vision of God. I think that this is what I have done, and that is what I want to celebrate. God is ultimate: Christianity is not.
The only way I know how to walk into the ultimacy of God, however, is to walk through Christianity. I claim not that the Christian path is the exclusive path, but that it is the only path I know and thus the only path on which I can walk.
I claim for myself without equivocation the title ‘Christian’. I define human life through the lens of the Christ experience and that satisfies me.

I can honestly say with deep conviction that I am who I am because of my relationship with one called Jesus of Nazareth, and that it is through him that the meaning of what I call God has been opened for me.’
Faith is not believing in creeds, doctrines, and dogmas; faith is trusting the divine presence to be in every moment, in every tomorrow.
Faith is having the courage to walk into the unknown, to confront whatever life brings one’s way without having our humanity destroyed in the process.

There is no such thing as “the faith”. No claim by anyone to possess the only way to God, to be the single infallible authority empowered to speak for God, or to hold the only inerrant source of God’s revelation, is ever valid.
Those things have been historically nothing more than human idols, designed to provide us with the religious security for which our hearts yearn.

Faith does not, cannot, and will not give us peace of mind, security and certainty. Faith gives us only the courage to put one foot in front of the other and walk into tomorrow with integrity and walk into tomorrow with integrity even though we know that in this world there is no peace
of mind, no security, and no safety.
Faith calls us to recognize that we are all in this quest we call life and that our human defence- barriers of tribe, race, ethnicity, and even gender and sexual identity cannot finally separate us from one another.
Faith calls us to understand that to be human is to be part of who and what God is and, in the oneness of this God presence, to find that our understanding of life is enhanced and all human barriers fall into insignificance”

Another friend, Frank Willett a Third Order Franciscan, on reading these words responded thus:
“I had not read them before, but they certainly resonate. They touch on a superb paradox, which suggests to me that the deeper one enters the Christian faith, the more one can see God in all people, whether they claim to be Christian or not.

There is another related matter, and that is the place of humility, which is supposed to be a quality that is very dear to Franciscans. Not all Franciscans would agree with me, but if I insist that my faith is the only valid one, then this seems to be the opposite of humility – it looks more like arrogance. Having said that, like Bishop Spong, for me God is most real through Jesus. But if I try to limit God to how he is revealed in Jesus then my view of him is greatly diminished. “

I reckon Frank puts it very well.

I’ve been thinking about the terrible events that have taken place in Paris and have found myself wondering why we are so stirred up about them. Don’t get me wrong, it has been a terrible tragedy, but why are we so shocked?

Innocent people were killed and that’s awful, but it’s not uncommon. Only two weeks ago on Remembrance Sunday we were honouring millions of innocent people who were killed in wars. Today people in horrifyingly large numbers are being killed in Syria and in other wars around the world. Others are dying of hunger. Daily, innocent people are killed in car accidents. So why does a relatively much smaller number of deaths so horrify us?

In Paris a small group of men and women carried out this killing and then died themselves, and that’s not so unusual either. Again, on Remembrance Sunday we were honouring men and women some of whom set out to kill large numbers of innocent people knowing that in all probability many of them would die in the attempt. It happens regularly in times of war. So why are we so horrified at the events in Paris?

Again, don’t get me wrong: the events in Paris were a terrible tragedy and it’s appropriate that we ask ourselves why they happened and how we should respond.
But there seems to me to be a much deeper question that is being asked of us and which we are not wanting to hear.

We in the West live in a very materialistic culture: it is all about having things, now; it is about the immediate gratification of our desires. We shop for things ‘to die for’, like chocolate, not recognising the irony of our language. For what it’s not about is any serious consideration of the reality of death and dying. We avoid death like the plague [which of course is very much how we view it] or we trivialise it.

We prefer people to die out of sight; and when they do die we don’t want to attend a funeral and witness the burial or cremation of their body. We prefer a thanksgiving service which celebrates their life and makes little mention of their death. It’s not wrong to celebrate someone’s life but it is not healthy to avoid the reality of their death with all its implications for us: namely that we too will die; that life for all of us is finite; that shopping and pleasure seeking will one day end and there is nothing we can do to prevent it. Death may well take us totally by surprise and quite unprepared, but it is the fact of our death which most powerfully asks the deep question of the meaning and value of our life.

Faced with the prospect of imminent death our priorities change, and we realise what is really important to us, often they are things that we have given insufficient time to before and that are not much valued in our materialistic culture. A nurse in Australia who cared for dying people wrote a book about her experience. She wrote about the five chief regrets of the dying. In her experience men and women faced with imminent death said:
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier

Now the events in Paris portrayed on our television screens and in our newspapers have thrust the reality of death, the precariousness of our grip on life, and the shallowness of our materialistic preoccupations, right full in our faces, in our own backyard, and we don’t like it. It challenges some of our most dearly held assumptions. It obliges us to face something we otherwise spend a lot of time avoiding: this might happen to us; there is no hiding place. No wonder we are so shocked and angry. No wonder we vent our anger on those who have made us look at these things. No wonder we want somebody to blame for having done this, and of course those who did the killing are an obvious target. They must be punished, not only for their actions, but even more because they are drawing our attention to an achilles heel that we prefer to ignore, thank you very much. It won’t be long before we are blaming God!!

But we could respond differently. We could see this as a ‘wake up’ call. We could allow God to use it as a ‘wake up’ call to us. And the upcoming season of Advent would be quite a propitious time to do that, n’est pas?

On holiday in Falmouth this summer, and wandering through the town, I was irresistibly drawn in to a bookshop, as I sometimes am. And there on the shelf I saw a book by George Monbiot who writes for ‘The Guardian’ on environmental matters. In it he makes an eloquent plea for the re-wilding of some of our moorland areas.

But what drew me was the book’s title: ‘Feral’. I wasn’t sure why I was drawn in until I read his definition of ‘feral’ as being “in a wild state, especially after escape from captivity or domestication.” And then the lights came on.

Of course I am a feral priest: called to escape the captivity of the institutional Church many years ago by God, and who has since exercised a ministry mainly in spiritual direction outside its domestication. I remember well how scary it felt to leave. A friend described me ‘as a man about to jump off a cliff’ and so it felt. And yet it also seemed that there was no real alternative. And I remember to my great surprise how no longer being a stipendiary clergyman of the Church of England felt a huge relief. I was free: scared but free! I remember how it seemed as if scales fell from my eyes and I beheld a world in glorious colour which previously had been in black and white. And I realised something of what captivity and domestication had done to me.

As a feral priest I had to learn a different set of skills. I had to learn to place my trust in God where previously the unstated assumption was that I should trust the institution and its leaders. I had to trust God to provide, through the agency of Her children, enough money to survive, a roof over my head, and the means to exercise the ministry to which He was calling me.

I also had to learn to trust myself, my own intuitive sense of what priesthood meant. I often talk about ‘internalised’ priesthood as the state in which I have learnt to trust that because God has called me to be a priest there must be something essentially ‘priestly’ about me and that if I try to be truly myself then that priesthood will flow out through me without much conscious effort on my part. I no longer need the external props of ‘priesthood’ as once I did. Don’t get me wrong, I continue to enjoy leading worship and preaching when invited to do so, but my priesthood is not dependent on my doing those things.

Jesus, of course was ‘feral’. He exercised His ministry on the edge of, or outside the religious institution in which He had grown up, and by implication challenged it. So did Francis of Assisi. So do increasing numbers of men and women today: and not just priests, indeed mainly not priests. It is one of the joys of spiritual direction to see someone escape the domestication of what they’ve been taught they should think and do, for the freedom of what they know deep down themselves. There are large numbers of ‘feral Christians’ on the loose. George Monbiot might be encouraged. The process of ‘feralisation’ is a bigger one than he perhaps imagined.

I’m reminded of a phrase of, I think, Richard Holloway, who spoke about feeling himself to be part of a church ‘in exile’. But the two phrases don’t carry the same sort of energy for me. To be ‘in exile’ in a Biblical sense carries overtones of being cast out against one’s will, excluded from what feels like home, and sent to a place to which one does not want to go and where one feels a stranger. It’s a place of pain. To go ‘feral’ may include experiencing all of the above, but for me it also meant a sense of call rather than exclusion, and it points to a sense of discovered freedom and delight in what has been newly discovered. It’s a place of precarious, gracious joy.

Indeed it surely does not need to be like this. Surely something more creative and real could be devised? Let me dream a little.

[1] The 24 tasks in the ordination liturgy together make up a fine statement of what the aims of the Christian Church should be. Why not reframe the language to make it clear that these are the tasks of the whole Church ?

[2] Why not make it plain that this is so by setting the ordination of priests and deacons alongside the licensing of other Church workers, and the confirming and baptism of lay members, in one service? Maybe each Anglican Deanery should have an annual service at which all new clergy, lay workers, and confirmation candidates to be authorised to serve in that Deanery are welcomed and have hands laid upon them. Make sure there is at least one baptism too to complete the cycle.

[3] Why not have a section of the liturgy in which Bishops, Archdeacons and other diocesan officers commit themselves to the resourcing God’s people for these tasks, and accept responsibility for so doing.

[4] Why not have a penitential section in which the Church recognises that while its record over the centuries has been quite good with respect to some of these tasks, in others it has failed miserably, and needs to confess its failings and seek God’s forgiveness?

[5] Why not name that the Church is not the only instrument that God has called to address these tasks, and those being authorised to act in the Church’s name will find themselves working alongside people of other faiths and none who are equally agents of God’s grace and should be treated respectfully and in a spirit of mutual co-operation.

A service along these lines feels to me to be much more in touch with current realities. It links the authorising of the whole of God’s people with a vision of the task to which they are collectively called, and the bigger picture of God’s work in the world of which the Church is but a part. It would not surprise me if people attending such a service with no great Christian commitment might feel called by God to join in this visionary activity; and others already caught by the vision might feel affirmed and encouraged.

I have recently attended Ordination services in two Anglican Cathedrals and I have to admit that it was a mixed experience! I went to support women friends who were being ordained as priests: they are lovely women, who will be excellent priests and the Church is richly blessed that God has called them to serve in it. It was a joy and privilege to be present. The Church of England tends to do these services rather well, and these occasions were no exception.
You can sense that there is a ‘but’ coming and indeed there is, because for me there was also a sense of hopeless unreality, verging on madness, about both occasions which left me feeling thoroughly depressed.

Let me quote what the liturgy required these newly ordained men and women to agree to do as priests: it’s a long list!

They are:
1] to proclaim the word of the Lord and to watch for the signs of God’s new creation.
2] to be messengers, watchmen and stewards of the Lord;
3] to teach and to admonish, to feed and provide for his family,
4] to search for his children in the wilderness of this world’s temptations, and to guide them through its confusions, that they may be saved through Christ forever.
5] to call their hearers to repentance and to declare in Christ’s name the absolution and forgiveness of their sins.
6] to tell the story of God’s love.
7] to baptize new disciples in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and to walk with them in the way of Christ, nurturing them in the faith.
8] to unfold the Scriptures, to preach the word in season and out of season, and to declare the mighty acts of God.
9] to preside at the Lord’s table and lead his people in worship, offering with them a spiritual sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.
10] to bless the people in God’s name.
11] to resist evil,
12] support the weak,
13] defend the poor,
14] and intercede for all in need.
15] to minister to the sick and prepare the dying for their death.
16] to discern and foster the gifts of all God’s people, that the whole Church may be built up in unity and faith.
17] to be diligent in prayer, in reading Holy Scripture, and in all studies that will deepen their faith and fit them to bear witness to the truth of the gospel?
18] to lead Christ’s people in proclaiming his glorious gospel, so that the good news of salvation may be heard in every place?
19]] to faithfully minister the doctrine and sacraments of Christ as the Church of England has received them, so that the people committed to their charge may be defended against error and flourish in the faith?
20] to strive to be an instrument of God’s peace in the Church and in the world?
21] to endeavour to fashion their own life and that of their household according to the way of Christ, that they may be a pattern and example to Christ’s people?
22] to work with their fellow servants in the gospel for the sake of the kingdom of God?
23] to accept and minister the discipline of this Church, and respect authority duly exercised within it?
24] to, in the strength of the Holy Spirit, continually stir up the gift of God that is in them, to make Christ known among all whom they serve?

I have a number of problems with this list.

Firstly, it contains 24 things that they agreed to do with God’s help. You could focus exclusively on just one of these 24 and be fully and usefully employed all week and yet be painfully aware that much had not been done. But to imply that priesthood requires you to try and do all of them is hopelessly unrealistic and damaging to the health and welfare of clergy. Such a list sets the clergy apart as a race of elite super Christians equipped to do everything, it can’t but lead to a sense of guilt and failure, and is likely to encourage a culture of workaholism. It also inevitably devalues the laity.

Secondly, it’s inconsistent. Anybody attempting to honour just a few of these commitments
is likely to become a largely absent partner and parent, and thus to be in breach of number 21: ‘to endeavour to fashion your own life and that of your household according to the way of Christ, that you may be a pattern and example to Christ’s people.’

Thirdly, it makes no mention at all of what in practise takes up the bulk of most parish priests time today: namely church administration, concern about attendance figures, paying the Diocesan share, and keeping the buildings serviceable.

So this language describing the priestly calling is totally out of touch with the reality with which they will find themselves having to contend. It reminds me of those First World War campaigns to recruit young men for the army with idealistic slogans, when in reality they were going to be sacrificed as cannon fodder in the trenches.

Just to make things worse both services were presided over by smiley Bishops who acted for the most part more like TV quiz show hosts with their cheerful repartee and enthusiasm for how wonderful all this is. They appeared to be either in complete denial of the realities of parish life, which I doubt, or acting what they must surely know is a lie. The strain upon them to behave like this must be awful.

And yet……I’m sure that my two friends will be fine priests: they will serve faithfully and well as do most parochial clergy. But why burden them with this dishonesty? It need not be so.

I’ve been thinking more about what I have already written about in ‘Has the English church a future’ and ‘The spirituality of Jesus and why it matters.’ I’d like to develop my ideas a little.

The Church of England is in decline. But so are the other main-line churches in England. So its not a peculiarly Anglican problem. The same thing is happening across much of western Europe. So its not a peculiarly English problem. There’s a massive loss of confidence in institutions generally, be it the press, the politicians, the bankers, the judiciary etc, so its not a peculiarly religious problem. There is something bigger, much bigger, going on here.

So what is a loving God up to? Where is the gift in all this?

A common theme in spiritual direction, and why many people are seeking it, is that they are looking for support and encouragement in trusting their own experience of God, their own inner voice, rather than what those in power are telling them.

These two themes seem to me to fit together: the loss of trust in the corporate wisdom of the institutionally powerful and the discovery of an inner God-given wisdom which people are wondering if they can trust. I discern the activity of God in these two complimentary movements: together they sound rather like an updated rendering of The Magnificat.

And as in The Magnificat, there are all manner of signs of the New Thing that God is bringing into being. I have previously described those that I hear as a spiritual director.

Jesus was faced with a very similar situation I sense. God spoke to Him at His baptism, telling Him of a loving, accepting, encouraging God of few words. A God Who didn’t tell Him what to do. Jesus had to go away to a quiet wilderness place to discern what it meant and what He had to do, and to learn to accept and trust it as being of God.

Having done so He had to live and act out of it, and He soon discovered that while some ordinary people responded to what He said, the religious authorities of His day did not. Indeed they were more preoccupied with maintaining their religious and national institutions than in responding to the authentic voice of God that He had heard. So they opposed Him and eventually sought His death, arguing “that it is more to your interest that one man should die for the people, than that the whole nation should be destroyed.” [Jn 11:50]

My experience is that as with Jesus, so with many today: trusting in one’s own experience of God is likely to lead to the new and exciting things of the Kingdom, but it often comes at a price, as it may well bring you into conflict with the hierarchy of the church. Prophets are rarely welcome!