Category: Uncategorized (Page 1 of 13)

Recently I went with my friend James to an art gallery to see a small exhibition of just three paintings. One of them we both knew well, the other two less so. We spent a long time looking & talking about each painting in turn, and the more we looked the more we saw, and what we saw went beyond a simple description of the painting itself. We began to see what I would call “the painting behind the painting,” an awareness that the painting was about something more than just its surface subject. As the artist must have spent weeks if not months working on it, it was difficult to imagine that he was not aware of what we had begun to see. It must have been something he had glimpsed or become aware of and felt duty bound to share, while knowing that not everybody would understand it.

I suspect that all creative artists, be they poets, novelists, composers or whatever, would recognise this process: of creating something that hints of a reality behind the surface reality of what they have created. Indeed it may have been an awareness of this deeper reality that they were primarily concerned to communicate.

This is a process that I recognise. I enjoy reading poetry, for example, and a good poem has not only a surface meaning but something deeper that requires serious probing to reveal itself. The same is true of a good novel. Music often causes an immediate pleasure behind which lurks something deeper. But the same can be true of a meeting, or a conversation, a view of a landscape. Potentially it can be found in anything, and by anybody, although some people have a particular sensitivity to it.

The Irish writer Noel Dermot O’Donoghue in his book ‘The Mountain behind the mountain’ writes of this ‘hidden reality. In it he sets out to explore “the possibility that there is a region or regions of reality which are discovered by way of an imaginative inner perception that is not simply projective but delicately and profoundly receptive of a world or worlds of reality normally concealed. This faculty that perceives what is really there, comes as a fruitful marriage of what is in the mind and what is outside it. It involves a deep attunement not available to all.”

“Thematic and systematic thought may close the doors of perception. Primal perception, for all its elemental realism, leaves those doors open, or at least ajar, so that the light of imagination……may shine through & illuminate, for a moment or as a constancy, the mountain behind the mountain.”

Prayer invites us to do something similar: to be aware of a reality present in everyday reality but also beyond it, a reality that we are invited to trust and place at the centre of our lives.

Any activity that takes us there is prayer. Activities that lead us into stillness and silence take us there. It is an area of reality that we can try to stay open to and which enriches and deepens us. We find ourselves opened to a reality that opens itself to us, inviting us to trust it, to have faith in it, but over which we have no conscious control. We can only submit to it or choose not to as Lord Kenneth Clarke once did.

He described: “A curious episode……. I had a religious experience. It took place in the Church of San Lorenzo, but it did not seem to be connected with the harmonious beauty of the architecture. I can only say that for a few minutes my whole being was irradiated by a kind of heavenly joy, far more intense than anything I had known before. This state of mind lasted for several months, and wonderful though it was, it posed an awkward problem in terms of action. My life was far from blameless: I would have to reform. My family would think I was going mad, and perhaps after all it was a delusion, for I was in every way unworthy of receiving such a flood of grace. Gradually the effect wore off, and I made no effort to retain it. I think I was right: I was too deeply embedded in the world to change course. But that I had ‘felt the finger of God’ I am quite sure, and, although the memory of this experience has faded, it still helps me to understand the joys of the Saints.”

I shared this blog with my friends James and he commented:

“One of my reflections after our visit to the gallery was the astonishment at how long we had spent and I wondered whether a destabilized sense of time is common to all these experiences and is in some ways a confirmation of them…”

I think that’s he’s spot on.

First posted in http://contemporaryspirituality.blog

In one of her excellent newsletters [newsletter@themarginalian.org] Maria Popova wrote some words that touched me deeply not least because they appear to me to be profoundly true. I quote them here, not in full but without further comment from me.. She wrote:

“Somewhere along the way of life, we learn that love means very different things to different people, and yet all personal love is but a fractal of a larger universal love. Some call it God. I call it wonder. Dante called it “the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars.” 

Because the capacity for love may be the crowning achievement of consciousness and consciousness the crowning achievement of the universe, because the mystery of the universe will always exceed the reach of the consciousness forged by that mystery, love in the largest sense is a matter of active surrender (to borrow Jeanette Winterson’s perfect term for the paradox of art) to the mystery.  It may be that we are only here to learn how to love.”

She went on to quote words of the palaeontologist, philosopher of science, and poet Loren Eiseley:

“The venture into space is meaningless unless it coincides with a certain interior expansion, an ever growing universe within, to correspond with the far flight of the galaxies our telescopes follow from without… That inward world… can be more volatile and mobile, more terrible and impoverished, yet withal more ennobling in its self-consciousness, than the universe that gave it birth.”

She then went on to describe how walking to his office afternoon, deep in thought while working on a book, Eiseley trips on a street drain, crashes violently onto the curb, and finds himself facedown on the sidewalk in a pool of his own blood. In the delirium of disorientation and pain, he looks at the vermillion liquid in the sunshine and suddenly sees life itself, suddenly feels all the tenderness one feels for the miracle of life whenever one is fully feeling. And then, with that wonderful capacity we humans have, he surprises himself:

Confusedly, painfully, indifferent to running feet and the anxious cries of witnesses about me, I lifted a wet hand out of this welter and murmured in compassionate concern, “Oh, don’t go. I’m sorry, I’ve done for you.” 

The words were not addressed to the crowd gathering about me. They were inside and spoken to no one but a part of myself. I was quite sane, only it was an oddly detached sanity, for I was addressing blood cells, phagocytes, platelets, all the crawling, living, independent wonder that had been part of me and now, through my folly and lack of care, were dying like beached fish on the hot pavement. A great wave of passionate contrition, even of adoration, swept through my mind, a sensation of love on a cosmic scale, for mark that this experience was, in its way, as vast a catastrophe as would be that of a galaxy consciously suffering through the loss of its solar systems. 

I was made up of millions of these tiny creatures, their toil, their sacrifices, as they hurried to seal and repair the rent fabric of this vast being whom they had unknowingly, but in love, compounded. And I, for the first time in my mortal existence, did not see these creatures as odd objects under the microscope. Instead, an echo of the force that moved them came up from the deep well of my being and flooded through the shaken circuits of my brain. I was they — their galaxy, their creation. For the first time, I loved them consciously, even as I was plucked up and away by willing hands. It seemed to me then, and does now in retrospect, that I had caused to the universe I inhabited as many deaths as the explosion of a supernova in the cosmos.

It is often like this, in some small sudden experience, that we awaken to reality in all its immensity and complexity. Any such awareness — whether we attain it through science or art or another spiritual practice — is an act of ‘unselfing‘, to borrow Iris Murdoch’s perfect term. And every act of ‘unselfing’ is an act of love — it is how we contact, how we channel, “the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars.” It is the self — the prison of it, the illusion of it — that keeps us trapped in lives of less-than-love. But a self is a story, which means we can always change the story to change, to dismantle, to be set free from the self — and it might not even require a bloody face.”

First posted in http://contemporaryspirituality.blog

I woke early one morning last week, and being wide awake, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to doze off again, I got up and performed my usual morning tasks before getting dressed and going out for my morning walk.  It was quieter than usual, and I saw nobody.

I decided on a whim, that while I’d do my usual walk, I’d do it in reverse order. I was surprised and slightly amused at how different everything seemed. It wasn’t different of course it was exactly the same as it always was, but it looked and felt different because I was coming at it from a different direction. I came up a slope when usually I’d be going down it, and the view was very different. It felt like a new walk, seeing something familiar but as if for the first time, with the anticipation of, perhaps a fresh start is too strong, but certainly of a refreshed vision.

All this reminded me of something I often say to myself when I find myself trapped by a seemingly intractable problem with either no obvious solution or one I don’t care for. “There’s always another way of looking at it” I say. There always is, possibly several other ways. They may be no better than the one I’m feeling trapped with, but to discover that there are alternatives and that I have choices, takes away the feeling of being trapped & leaves me feeling empowered rather than disempowered. 

The trick is learning to become good at looking at things, & life in general, in ways other than with our habitual assumptions. The New Testament word ‘repent’ mean change direction, look at things differently, and Jesus’ announcement of the presence of God’s Kingdom is an invitation to view the world differently. Wise religious teachers, many comedians including clowns, novelists, poets, artists and creative women and men, anybody somehow other than us, can provoke us into doing so for that may be their gift to us. 

First posted in http://contemporaryspirituality.blog

Increasingly I feel uncomfortable with the term ‘spiritual direction’, with its implication of a one-sided meeting with an authoritative person. Instead, I prefer to talk of a ‘spiritual conversation’ which implies to me a mutual meeting of friends. Both terms are concerned with a meeting in which God is felt to be present. An obvious Biblical example of such a thing is the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth described in Luke’s Gospel

When I was a young man beginning to study The Bible, the story of The Annunciation always left me cold and mystified. I was very doubtful about the existence of angels, and the idea that one might ‘appear’ to Mary to announce her forthcoming pregnancy sounded ridiculous. The story made no sense.  But all that changed when I saw a print of Fra Angelico’s painting of it

We are soon to have an election, and many people are pressing that it should be about policies and not personalities. I think that Jesus would agree with that.

His preaching was not about himself, [He claimed no title save the that of ‘the son of man’] but about what He had learnt of God in the overwhelming experience He had after His baptism. He had come to repent to God of His sin and found to His astonishment that God spoke to Him saying ‘You are my dearly beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” Unconditional love seeks reconciliation rather than repentance. His knowledge of God was turned on its head.

He became aware that this was true not just for Him, but for everybody. He set out to demonstrate that to those who had not had the experience that He’d had, and especially to those whose experience rather was that they were told that God judged them negatively, and that society excluded them. 

The risen Jesus called His followers to continue His mission, which was not primarily about Himself but about God’s unconditional love for all, and especially for those who felt themselves to be unworthy & excluded. For Jesus, God’s policies were more important than His personality.

First posted in http://contemporaryspirituality.blog

I recently travelled to Morocco to visit my daughter who lives in Casablanca. Six years ago she converted to Islam, and has settled amazingly well into her spiritual home. In our family we’ve always known her as Kate – a spirited, not always easy human being to live with! She has changed her name to Maryam Kate, and with that change of name has come an amazing transformation. Maryam means ‘beloved’ – which she is; it also carries a sense of ‘rebellious’ – which she was, and I guess can still be, but in a much nicer and kinder way!

Anyway, during my stay we set out to visit a local souk, and passed one of Maryam’s neighbourhood mosques just as the muezzin was calling the faithful to midday prayer. “Do you mind if I go and pray, Dad?” No, of course not. Look, there’s a chair there by the gate; I’ll wait here for you. “Thanks. I’ll just check it’s OK with the caretaker.” A conversation ensues in Dārija, the local form of Arabic spoken in Morocco. Maryam has managed to learn it well enough to understand and be understood most of the time! “He says no, you must come in Dad! Follow him; he’ll look after you. I’ll go to the Sisters’ entrance.”

I duly follow this upright gentleman dressed in grey kaftan and topi. His smile is warm and welcoming. He offers me a bag for my sandals, and shows me where to put them. I assume he will sit me unobtrusively at the back. But no, he beckons me towards a chair at the far edge of the vast hall, picks it up and beckons me forward. He places it at the far end of the front row, invites me to sit on it, and bows slightly and graciously.

As I sit in silent prayer to my God other men come alongside me, either spreading their prayer mat before them, or taking a few tissues from the boxes provided on which to rest their heads when prostrating. I am aware that I find the rhythm of their prayer calming and helpful: standing, bowing, kneeling, prostrating – with the barely audible murmur of words learnt by heart at madrasa.

I am also aware that I am completely comfortable in that space, where I am drawn close to holiness. I find it an utterly authentic, spiritual experience praying – albeit in a different way – alongside these devoted men. And I find it impossible to believe we are praying to different Gods.

If there is one true God, then there can surely be only one true God. As we Christians say, ‘Hallelujah!’, and as Muslims say, ‘Alhamdullilah!’

Regular readers will know that I like John Henry Newman’s words: “No revelation can be complete and systematic, from the weakness of the human intellect; so far as it is not such, it is mysterious … The religious truth is neither light nor darkness, but both together; it is like the dim view of a country seen in the twilight, which forms half extricated from the darkness, with broken lines and isolated masses. Revelation, in this way of considering it, is not a revealed system, but consists of a number of detached and incomplete truths belonging to a vast system unrevealed.”

But I have gradually come to see that what Newman calls ‘religious truth’ is not confined, as I’ve tended unconsciously to assume, to the propositions of theologians. It includes that but goes far beyond it, and in doing so takes my breath away.

There is a strong Christian tradition that speaks of God being revealed in creation, to the point of describing creation as a second Bible. For many God is revealed primarily through the natural world.

I’m aware that for me God has been revealed through my own experience. I know the God Who loves and sustains me: God has revealed God-self to me directly & personally.  This ‘God Whom I already know’ is the same God that I recognise as revealed in Jesus, and the same God Whom I recognise in creation.  But there is more. This creative God is also revealed in all human creativity.

I’ve quoted the poet Alice Oswald saying about her own creative process: “The poem is not necessarily coming from inside you but is already out there and you’ve just got to listen & find it.”  It’s “A voice that is simply there and speaking and that I listen to.”  In order to do this, she has to concentrate very hard. And “When I write a poem, I try not to be aware of what I think, I don’t know if the poem thinks that.”   I’ve shared her words with two friends who are also poets, and they recognised what Oswald was saying from their own experience.  Is this not also revelation, in which something is revealed seemingly from outside oneself? 

Some sculptors describe a similar process to Oswald’s when they say that what they sculpt already exists in the wood or stone that they’re working with, and that their job is to find it.   But isn’t any creative process that we engage in, and we are all engaged in creative activity of one sort or another, much the same?  

The cook standing over a dish they are preparing & searching for the necessary additional ingredient to complete it, that they can sense already exists & that they seek to find.

The gardener pondering on the particular plant that needs to go in that space in their garden and sensing that it exists if only they can recognise it.

The decorator seeking the right colour for that space to achieve the effect that they want, and knowing that it’s there if only they can become aware of it.

The composer who talks of being given the music they write, as if it in some sense already exists ‘out there’.

Always there seems to be a sense that what is needed already exists and simply has to be sought for it then to be revealed. “Seek and you shall find.”

Whatever comes to us in this way reveals something of God and when trusted leads to faith.  It’s a God Who is revealed for most people personally and more powerfully through music, the arts and the natural world, and in our own acts of creativity, than in the words of theologians.  Crucially we need to recognise and name this, and then to trust it, to have faith in it.  As Newman said: Revelation……consists of a number of detached and incomplete truths belonging to a vast system unrevealed.”  This vast system is vast beyond our imagining and yet actively present in the life of each of us in a multitude of different ways. We both know it and also know that it is beyond our knowing.

First posted in http://contemporaryspirituality.blog

The season of Lent is an opportunity to deepen our relationship with God. Last week I was sat in my shed listening to some Bach and floating prayerfully on it, when looking out of the window into our garden, I saw Sylvia tending a plant. To my eye the plant looked healthy enough if a bit droopy. Sylvia bent over it, some feat for a woman of 80, held the stems of the plant in her left hand and with her right cleared the ground at its foot, removing dead bits of plant and other detritus. She took the rubbish and added it to the compost, before returning with a cane, some green gardening string & a pair of scissors. She pushed the cane into the ground and then tied a piece of the string around it and the plant, thus holding the plant upright.  

I thought to myself that’s quite a good image of what Lent is about: clearing away what has died & encouraging new life. Traditionally Lent has been seen as more about the former than the latter, but both actions are necessary. I recall preaching at the beginning of Lent, many years ago, and encouraging a congregation to mark Lent by setting some time aside each day for a simple act of wanton pleasure, on the assumption that such an activity would almost certainly nourish their soul and thence deepen their relationship with God.

This Lent one of my wanton acts of pleasure [you are allowed more than one!] is to sit and listen to the music of Bach, and also Einaudi.  One of Sylvia’s, of course, might be tending to droopy plants.

John the Baptist preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Jesus went to John to be baptised so he must have had something to repent of.

After his baptism, Jesus had a powerful spiritual experience in which God spoke to him.

The baptism & the spiritual experience were separate events. The latter is the main event.

John’s preaching and baptism was based on the assumption of a vassal relationship between God & Israel. God gave them land & a role, on condition that they abided by certain laws. Jesus must have felt that he’d broken them.

Jesus’ spiritual experience inaugurated a quite different relationship between God & humankind, one based on unconditional love, like that of a loving parent to their children.  It undercut the assumptions on which John’s call to repentance were based, and changed everything in our relationship with God.

Jesus ministry was based entirely upon his experience of feeling himself out of relationship with God & needing to repent, and then suddenly finding himself accepted unconditionally by God Who loves & delights in him.  It led him to see that with an unconditionally loving God there are no outsiders, only a human family whom God loves. 

His preaching flows from this experience. He sought to share it by treating other people as God had treated him, a process that would lead over time to His followers believing  that he had ‘incarnated’ God.

The Good News He preached invites us to hear those words “You are my beloved son/daughter in whom I am well pleased” addressed to each of us, and in response to try to live out of it as Jesus did, to incarnate God to others, as he did.

First posted in http://contemporaryspirituality.blog