Continue reading…there is still
Mary Oliver, Morning Poem
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted…
Author: Julian Maddock (Page 2 of 5)
Audio Prayer: Revisiting a God moment
There ain’t no good thing ever dies
Tom Waits: Take It With Me
I’m gonna take it with me when I go
I have often talked about ‘repetition’, as Ignatius of Loyola calls it, in these writings, e.g. “Where to start?“, “The Kingdom of Heaven“, and “Repetition“. He invites us to revisit significant moments, “noting and dwelling upon the points where I have felt greater consolation or desolation or greater spiritual relish.” [62] When we do this, we become infused with the graces and insights given to us. This changes us. This is conversion, incrementally, daily.
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Christ is risen.
Alleluia
This is my third offering of recorded prayer. It is a version from the post, “The only 3 prayers you need,” in which I suggested that presence, gratitude, and kindness comprise the three important prayers.
Continue readingLast week’s morning guided prayer attracted about 30 people. I am going to continue to lead 30 minutes of guided prayer every Wednesday morning while we are in coronavirus lockdown. You can find details of this and other opportunities for prayer here: https://mailchi.mp/7865c2b9704a/prayer-in-a-time-of-plague-4863233.
With my prayers,
Julian
Here is my second offering of a recorded prayer. As I said in my last post, when I wake in the night, I wish there were some guided prayers I could listen to, to settle me, to connect me with God, to remind me that all is well and I am safe.
This is a prayer for when you lie down to sleep, when you wake in the night, or when you want to rest or have a nap in the day. This is designed to help you relax and find rest in God’s presence, such that you might drift off into sleep in a feeling of trust and letting go.
Continue readingIn this time of distancing, isolation, and quarantine, I am offering two opportunities for prayer.
Morning Prayer Zoom
I invite you to a free, weekly online time of meditative Christian prayer and reflection.
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Continue readingWe are all meant to be mothers of God. What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself? And what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace if I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I also do not give birth to him in my time and my culture? This, then, is the fullness of time: When the Son of God is begotten in us.
Meister Eckhart
The other day the friend of a friend posted on Facebook. His wife is in remission from illness and he expressed gratitude for “prayer, pills, and positivity” – a nicely balanced message I thought. Amidst predominantly supportive responses, two comments got my goat: “Don’t forget to give the doctors and drugs some credit!!” and “Why not give credit to the God we pray to?” Both of these suggestions were redundant: “pills” covered the first quibble, “prayer” the second.
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There comes a time when God appears to change. This may happen many times in a life. It is not so much that God feels distant or absent, though this may also be the case. It is more that you look for God in the usual place, or you think of God in the usual way, and this no longer seems to work. The usual is no longer satisfying, or now seems childish or naïve, or has become intellectually lacking. It is not that you no longer want God. It is not that you no longer want to pray. It is that you thought you knew and now you are not so sure.
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July 2018: I go with family to the observatory at Herstmonceux. We listen to a talk about the telescopes. We are shown pictures of starry skies from when the telescopes were operational. One photograph has a patch of dark sky. Or so it seems. More recently, the story goes, the Hubble space telescope was trained on that patch for three months to intercept lonely, long-distance-running photons. Like a magic trick, a teeming starfield appears. That dark patch is bright.
Continue readingApproaches to Prayer
The Approaches to Prayer website is sponsored by the Annunciation Trust. It is a repository of scores of ways to pray as an online version the book Approaches to Prayer compiled and edited by Henry under the auspices of SPIDIR.The God You Already Know
Henry Morgan and Roy Gregory, both part of Annunciation Trust, have edited a book which is a follow-on from Henry's Approaches to Prayer. It was inspired by their experiences of working together as Spiritual Directors at the Greenbelt Festival.
Originally published by SPCK, you can now read it here.