Spiritual Resilience

Have you ever wondered if prayers and/or other spiritual practices such as meditation or Centering Prayer, make any difference?  Those thoughts have sometimes snuck up on me when I am not looking.  They encourage me to be discouraged about those spiritual practices which I engage in.

I practice Centering Prayer regularly.  This can be best described as a form of meditation in which I empty myself and try to let go of intervening thoughts my ‘monkey brain’ produces to make room for an awareness of God in my existence.  I also pray daily to give thanks to God and to ask God for help for myself and others.  Help and thanks are two basic types of prayer as I wrote the last time.   However, sometimes I wonder if these spiritual practices make one iota of difference to anyone or anything or even to me.  Recently I attended the funeral of someone I have been praying to receive healing.  So, was there any point to praying those prayers.  That is just one example of many that can lead to doubts.

In the case of Centering Prayer, that doesn’t seem to be leading anywhere.  I still have thoughts flooding into my head at times – it doesn’t seem that I am making any “progress” at getting better at that practice.  And that is exactly what is wrong with this response.  It is not a question of making progress or getting anywhere as we often assess life.  We live our lives trying to make progress or get better at whatever, or working to accomplish goals.  If we don’t reach those goals or get to our appointed destination, we view it as a failure.  This is the way that our ego views our lives and the world.  However, that is not the point of a spiritual life.  God says somewhere, “my ways are not your ways.” (it actually Isaiah 55: 8 – thanks Google)   God does not expect or want us to be and become spiritual successes in that sense.   

However, there is a point – or probably many points to spiritual practice.  However, they are not the ones that the world usually uses to assess activities or undertakings.  One benefit (if we are judging the activity by benefits) is described by Brian McLaren.  He describes the radical trust and resilience that spiritual practices can offer in difficult times or apparent lack of ‘progress’:

We have to prepare ourselves to live good lives of defiant joy even in the midst of chaos and suffering. This can be done. It has been done by billions of our ancestors and neighbors. Their legacy teaches us to see each intensifying episode of turbulence as a labor pain from which a new creative opportunity can be born. Life will be tough; the only question is whether we will become tougher, wiser, and more resilient.… The communities that learn and teach … spiritual resilience will become vital resources for everyone. (We can hope that some Christian communities will take part in this work.) These individual and communal practices will help us dump bitterness, fear, disappointment, and toxicity and refuel with mercy, vision, anticipation, and equanimity. They will help us ignore what deserves to be ignored and monitor what needs to be monitored. They will help us reframe our narratives, so we can mourn, grieve, and lament … even as we imagine, celebrate, and labor for the birth of a better future.… To use familiar biblical language, we will need to walk by faith through the valley of the shadow of death [Psalm 23:4], always holding anticipative space for something beautiful to be born, especially during the most painful contractions.

Beyond that, or in addition to that, we can do what we can to open ourselves to the divine presence in our lives that is always present.  In doing so we can have faith that the results are in God’s hands and leave it there.  God’s ways may not be our ways but we can be assured that they are the way, the truth and the light. 

May we be blessed to be open to the divine presence in our lives on our journey.

 

Alone or Lonely

 Last week, a friend sent me a link to an article about Rosalind Cartwright, one of the modern explorers of the psychology of dreaming and the link between REM sleep and dreams.  She may be best known for her testifying as an expert for the defense in a trial of someone who murdered his wife in what he claimed happened while he was in a dream state.  The article was engaging for a number of reasons but I was particularly taken with the details of the first sleep lab which Cartwright established.  She converted an existing room into a sleep lab making it completely sound proof and found that subjects who lived in an urban setting were unable to achieve REM sleep because of the lack of the ambient noise they were used to.  Cartwright addressed this by piping in street noise. 

This, I believe, points out the increasing level of background noise which is pervasive in our culture.  There is often noise or, if I am more generous, sound which fills our waking and at least part of our sleeping hours.  I remember when Lorna and I moved to the small town where we now reside and were shocked by the sound of silence – to borrow from Simon and Garfunkel – as we had previously lived in an urban setting close to railroad tracks and a fire station and a busy street.  We grew accustomed to the sound of silence fairly quickly and certainly enjoy the general quiet of our little town.

 If the surroundings we find ourselves in does not provide a comforting level of ambient noise, people will often fill that empty space with noise to fill the sound of silence which makes us uncomfortable.  We cover up the state of loneliness with background noise of the TV or music.  That way we will not have to acknowledge or even recognize that we are lonely.  Mother Mary Clare SLG, addressed this in her book, Encountering the Depths:

Never before in history has there been a time when people have found it so difficult to be alone and so easy to be lonely.  Yet being alone does not constitute being lonely.  To be lonely is to be deprived of a sense of belonging and of being wanted…When people are lonely, they often try to drown their fear and sense of separation by making or listening to a lot of noise.

Joan Chittister in her book, The Rule of Benedict, also notes the need for people to fill the silence in our lives:

We live with noise pollution now and find silence a great burden, a frightening possibility.  Muzak fills our elevators and earbuds wire us to MP3 files and TV blare from every room in the house morning till night…Yet until we are able to have a least a little silence every day, both outside and in, both inside and out, we have no hope of coming to know either God or ourselves very well.

 

Chittister tells us that silence has an important place in our lives:

Silence has two functions.  The first effect of extreme silence is to develop a sense of interior peace.  The second value of silence is that it provides the stillness that enables the ear of the heart to hear the God who is, “not in the whirlwind.” 

I noted last week that Centering Prayer is a way which allows room for God’s presence to come to the fore.  However, it is a challenge to empty our minds and make room for the awareness of God’s presence in our lives.  In one way it is the simplest way of praying – just empty your mind of everything.  But in another it is the most difficult as the “monkey brain” want desperately to fill that challenging emptiness with unsought thoughts.   However, it is one way in which we can enable the ear of the heart to hear God. 

I will close with another statement from Mother Mary Clare which, I believe sums up why Christians and all people should have intentional silence in their lives:

Christians are people engaged on a search, not only a search for God, thought it is always that, but a quest which brings us to a place where we are exposed to a deep heart-searching, a listening awareness of the needs of the people around us.  In aloneness we learn to share in the emptiness and lostness of modern society.

 May you be blessed with aloneness on your journey.

Decoration or Foundation

 One of my daily spiritual practices is to engage in Centering Prayer.  This is a form of meditative prayer in which you empty your mind (as much as possible) and open yourself to God.  When I do this there are inevitably thoughts which come unbidden.  The idea is to not dwell on them but let them float away and return to the open mindfulness.  Recently one of the thoughts which came to my consciousness was the word ‘decoration’.  Now I usually don’t remember what the images or thoughts are as the practice is, as I noted, to let go of them and not dwell on them.  However, this one stuck with me.

What, then, could the word decoration signify?  My first thought was what it rhymes with foundation.  I also noted that we are on the cusp of the season of Lent.  Lent is a time in which we remove the decorations – the things which are not essential or foundational in our lives and deepen our relationship with God in preparation for the Easter Resurrection in our lives.

What, then, is foundational to our relationship with the divine?  Coincidentally – not that I truly believe in coincidence – I began reading – rereading actually – a small book on prayer and contemplation, Encountering the Depths, by Mother Mary Clare SLG.  I picked this book from my bookcase shelf while looking for something after finishing the book I had been reading – A Short History of Myth, by Karen Armstrong.  You could actually say that this book chose me as I had forgotten it was there and I don’t remember how it came into my possession but it was used and cost all of 25 cents.  I will quote from the part I have just finished reading which seem to answer this question:

Prayer and daily life are indivisible.  We must learn to pray as we are, and not as the ideal people we would like to imagine ourselves to be.  We must grow to understand ourselves and accept that it is at the time when our passions are most active, and our minds most distracted, that we can grow to a knowledge of ourselves as real persons.  That is the point of tension at which we must offer ourselves to God in prayer… Prayer, which is the fruit of true conversion, is an activity, an adventure, and sometimes a dangerous one, since there are occasions when it brings neither peace or comfort, but challenge, conflict and new responsibility.  This is why so many old ways of praying, and books about prayer seem to let us down.  Too often when we use them, we were hoping to get something for ourselves from prayer, perhaps security or a growing sensible realization and knowledge of God.  To seek such things in prayer is a mistake. The essential heart of pray

That seems to be foundational to me and a good Lenten observance.  I invite you to offer your true self as you are to God in prayer on your Lenten journey.  May it be blessed.

Wake Up and Live

 

Late last year I took part in a course on Benedictine Spirituality with the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine in Toronto.  Of course, in this time of COVID-19, we did this course via Zoom.  One of the books we used in the course was The Rule of Benedict, by Joan Chittister.  It provides daily commentary on the Rule developed by Benedict which I find to be a very good way to explore and inwardly digest the charters of the Rule.  The Rule has stood the test of time since it was written twelve hundred years ago. The Rule (rules actually) are very applicable to our world today and the commentary by Joan Chittister make them very accessible to the modern reader.

Today, I want to explore the commentary of the author on the Prologue to the Rule which begins, “Listen carefully, my child, to my instruction, and attend to them with the ear of your heart.”   Chittister writes:

Let nothing go by without being open to being nourished by the inner meaning of that event in life.  There is an Oriental proverb that teaches, “Take from death before is takes from thee.”  If we do not live life consciously (my emphasis), in other words, we may not be living at all.

The question that I want to explore from this statement is, what does it mean to live consciously?  Coincidentally, if you believe in coincidences, I was listening, about the same time as I read this, to an interview with Noam Chomsky, the famous (some might say infamous) linguist and philosopher.  He noted that people spend most of their lives in unconsciousness.  The concept of consciousness is one that has interested me for quite a few years.  In my view consciousness is the great gift of God and what it means to be created in God’s image as we are told in the book of Genesis. 

Chomsky was proposing that people - many, if not most - are not conscious most of the time they are in a waking state.  Your reaction to this may be one of rejection and you might well say, of course I am conscious when I am awake.  There is a simple way to test this proposition.  Think about the last time someone was talking to you.  How much of the time were you thinking of something else whether it is being somewhere else, or thinking of another person, of something that happened some time in the past, or anything else.  If you are honest you will admit that those thoughts, intentional or not, consumed much of the time you were ‘engaged’ in that conversation.  Another test you could engage in is trying to think about nothing.  Empty you mind – or try to – and see how long it is before some thought enters into you head unsought.

One of my regular spiritual practices is to engage in Centering Prayer on a daily basis.  This involved being in a state in which I empty my mind of thoughts for twenty minutes.  The idea is this allows God full access to my self without the day-to-day thoughts getting in the way.  If, or better when, thoughts enter I let them go using a “sacred word” to return my focus or non-focus to being open and receptive.  In invite you to give it a try and see how it works for you.

If you want an example of what happens when they are in an unconscious state, you only have to look at the videos of the mob which invaded the United States Capital building last week.  Many of them were there without being conscious of the consequences of their actions and or even their actual motivations.  It was a case of mob rule.  The collective consciousness of a mob is much lower than the consciousness of the individuals involved. 

If you want to practice consciousness and live more fully, one way you can do this is to pay attention for a set period and see if you can identify the times in which your mind wanders or times in which thoughts enter your mind unsought.  Do this for a perhaps five or ten minutes at ta time and be conscious of what is going on in your head.  Remember, if we do not live life consciously, we may not be living at all.

Blessing on your journey and be conscious of where God is on that journey. 

Let Go and Let God

 I receive a daily word – “Brother Give us a Word” - from the Society of St. John the Evangelist (SSJE)  https://www.ssje.org/  This is a short-focused comment, by one of the brothers, on a word to reflect upon for the day.  I find it quite a good way to start the day.  One of the words this week was “Let Go”; Okay for those who are that way inclined - it’s not ‘a’ word but it is a thought for you to ponder:

Each season of fall reminds us again of Jesus’ invitation to us to an autumnal experience of letting go and of dying – if we want to truly live, and be filled with the fullness of God.  - Br. Geoffrey Tristram

 

Rereading that this morning, what came to mind was the phrase ‘let go and let God’ which was so very popular a few years ago.  This seemed to me to be a good follow up to my reflection on Centering Prayer last week.  In Centering Prayer, we have, in my experience, the challenge of giving up the control that our ego wants to maintain.  We have the message that this type of activity should have a goal – we should make progress in the activity and should progress i.e. getting better and better with practice.  Otherwise what is the point of doing it?  You might even want to give each session of Centering Prayer a mark out of 10. 

Is there any point in just letting go and making space for God in our goal-driven lives?    I did not have much luck in Googling or origins of the phrase ‘let go and let God’ but I imagine it has some connotation that you put everything in God’s hands and all will be well.  I think that, as with any simple idea it can become simplistic so there not any need for us to be active in bringing about God\s Kingdom or following the commandment to love your neighbour through action such as feeding the poor and the orphans. 

To my way of thinking, the goal of letting go and letting God is to be silent and make room to listen to God - listen not with our ears but with our hearts and minds and bodies – our whole selves.  That is more and more difficult in these times when our lives – even in this time of the COVID pandemic.  There is so much we can fill our time with – so much that is accessible to us to fill up and minute where silence manages to break through the cacophony of social media. 

I will close for a quote by Cynthia Bourgeault, one of evangelists for Centering Prayer, “Silence is not absence, but presence. It is a “something,” not a nothing. It has substantiality, heft, force. You can lean into it, and it leans back. It meets you; it holds you up.”

Give time to let go and let God on your journey.

 

Prayer With and Without Words

 

Lorna and I have returned from our “home” in Prince Edward Island to our “home” in Parkhill.  This raises the question regarding my home i.e. where is my home and what makes a home a home.  However, I don’t want to go there this week.  I have written about that previously and perhaps I will again at some point.  However, I want to expound/explore another subject which is near and dear to me – prayer.  I have tried various types of prayer and use some of them on a regular basis both privately and corporately.  One which I find myself most in tune with is Centering Prayer.   I think that this type of prayer is most suited to me or perhaps I should say that I am most suited to this type of prayer.

I have made a concerted effort to practice Centering Prayer daily for many years since being introduced to it as part of my Spiritual Direction training.  There were times when it was honoured more in the breech than the observance. However, recently I have been able to reverse that and have managed, with God’s help, to be quite faithful in that part of my prayer life.  I look to that prayer practice to provide a grounding in my relationship with the divine.

Centering Prayer is a form of silent prayer in which you make space for you to be more aware of God’s presence in your life. God is always there but we often have difficulty perceiving it. The process is quite simple with just a few steps:

·         Choose a word or phrase that resonates with you as an expression of your intent and desire – I use the word ‘return’.

·         Sit comfortably and upright, eyes closed, breathing naturally, and begin to
repeat this sacred word silently. As your attention is focused on the desire behind the word, gradually let the word slip away.

·         Rest in silence. You will find that thoughts and image and feeling may come into your mind. We are not used to quiet in our culture – our brains want to fill silence. This has been called our monkey brains - which is very descriptive. When these thoughts, images or sensations arise, gently return to the sacred word as a symbol of your consent to God’s presence and action within you.

·         The recommended period for prayer is twenty minutes each day.

Cynthia Bourgeault, one of the leading proponents of Centering Prayer, writes:

Gradually, as we progress in Centering Prayer—or in any meditation practice, for that matter—we begin to reorient. Centering Prayer’s instructions to let go of all thoughts, regardless of content, directs us back to the silence itself, and we gradually learn the shape of the new terrain. As we stop grabbing for content, we gradually discover that silence does indeed have depth, presence, shape, even sound. As we mature in Centering Prayer, the perception that the emptiness is in fact the presence becomes more and more palpable.

 

I would encourage you to find a form of prayer that you find suits you and enables you to be in closer relation with the divine in what ever form you know and pray on your journey.

Kenosis part 2

On December 18^th, I wrote about Kenosis or self-emptying as a way of observing Advent.  I want to continue my thoughts on the subject as a way of observing Lent.  The Gospel reading for yesterday, the First Sunday of Lent, was Mark’s account of the baptism of Jesus immediately followed by Jesus spending forty day and nights in the wilderness (Mark 1. 9-15). 

I appreciate Mark’s account of Jesus going into the wilderness as the Gospel states that “the Spirit immediately drove (my emphasis) him out into the wilderness.”  The other two synoptic Gospels, Matthew and Luke, have a different description of this action by the Holy Spirit, they both say that the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness.  There is a significant difference between being led into the wilderness and being driven into it.  I have long preferred Mark’s version because it emphasizes Jesus’ humanity.  In my theology, if Jesus was fully human he had, to some extent, the human reluctance to fully embrace what he understood as the will of his Heavenly Father.   This is most dramatically demonstrated in the Garden of Gethsemane before Good Friday.  I’m sure that Jesus had a very good idea of the trials and challenges that he would face in the wilderness and did not embrace those with open arms.  However, he also knew that he would need to have the wilderness experience to prepare him for his earthly ministry.  Therefore, I appreciate the idea of the Spirit, shall we say, strongly encouraging Jesus to undertake that necessary journey.

In my scenario, Jesus was experiencing the dissonance between what we want and what we believe that God knows we need.  That is why Jesus had to be driven into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit―God in action.  This is an ongoing challenge for most, if not all of us; to do what we know we should be doing and do what we want to do.  St. Paul expressed this very well, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15). This is where the ego comes in.  The ego wants to be in control and wants what it wants.  It is an ongoing challenge to have the ego serve God and not the other way around―but that is a topic for another day. 

The challenge for my Lenten journey is to give up some of priorities set by my ego and to let it be in the service of God.  To do that I need to empty myself of some of the things that I want and allow space for God to enter.  Actually, it is more a case of recognizing God’s presence in myself and my life because God is always there.  However, I often am not aware of God’s presence as I am distracted by all the activities and wants and desires in my day to day life.

One way which I do that is through Centering Prayer.  This practice involves emptying you mind of all thoughts―or at least trying to because our western minds are not welcoming of having no thoughts.  In Centering Prayer, the minds tendency to fill up any empty spaces is referred to as “the monkey brain”.  I have practices Centering Prayer for some years now.  I was introduced to it in the Spiritual Direction training.  I have attempted to do it regularly but have not always been successful.  By regularly I mean one session daily for 20 minutes.  When thoughts come into your head during the prayer session, as they inevitably do, the idea is to not dwell on them, just let them float away. 

Hopefully, this respite from brain activity and thoughts will make me more aware for God’s presence in my life.  I have decided that my Lenten practice will be to engage in Centering Prayer every day in Lent.  I must admit I was not successful yesterday.  I did attend three worship services including a wonderful sung Evensong at St. Paul’s Cathedral. The others were at two congregations in my new parish where I preached at both services.  Fortunately, Lent does not officially include Sundays, so I guess I am off the hook.  However, I think that is my ego trying to justify the things I have not done that I should have done. 

I am eternally grateful that God is good and forgiving of all our shortcomings, both large and small.   

May you have a Holy Lent.

Greg

In Tune With God

Last week I reflected on why I pray.  I concluded with the statement that I pray because I know it is necessary for my salvation and the salvation of the world regardless of those theological questions which can be voiced by me within or by others in the outer life.  This week I want to reflect further on what I mean when I say it is necessary for salvation, mine and the world.  Perhaps this is where fools rush in because salvation is a topic which is fraught with possibilities and misunderstanding; Hence, my further rumination on the subject.

One of Richard Rohr’s daily meditations this week spoke of contemplative prayer as being like striking a tuning fork.  He notes, “All you can really do in the spiritual life is resonate to the true pitch, to receive the always-present message…Most simply put, prayer is something that happens to you (Romans 8:26-27), much more than anything you privately do”.

This begins to approach what I believe about prayer; or I should say trying to believe. Prayer of all kinds, contemplative, intercessory, thanksgiving, is, I believe, about becoming more in tune with God, what God is, what God’s intention for us is and what God’s intention is for God’s world. The challenge in prayer is that we try to have our intention take precedence over God’s. This is where the ego gets in the way.  We want different things in life; sometimes it is for the benefit of others e.g. healing from disease; sometimes it is for the benefit of the world e.g. caring for God’s creation; but often it is for our own benefit.  We believe that we can bring God’s will into line with our own because we know what is best for whatever it is we are praying for.  We can add at the end of our prayers, your will be done.  Jesus emphasized that in the prayer which he taught us, “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.  I do just that at the end of my prayers.  However, I question to what extent I or other people truly believe that they want God’s will to be done when it doesn’t coincide with ours. 

I have been practicing Centering Prayer for a few years now as part of my daily prayer practice (my daily intention in any case). Centering Prayer is a form of silent prayer in which you make space for you to be more aware of God’s presence in your life.  This can be a bit of a challenge because generally nothing seems to be happening, other than having many distracting thought as my “monkey brain” keeps interrupting my non-thoughts.  My ego wants to be able to accomplish something, to measure success or at least that I am becoming better at centering prayer; perhaps going the usual 20 minutes without any distracting thoughts.  However, that is not the point.  Distracting thoughts are not a defeat.  The goal is to just let them go; to not hold on to them and return to the centering emptiness. 

The goal, if it is not counterproductive to think of a goal, to become more in tune with God.  This in turn will, hopefully, bring all of my life more in tune with God’s intention for me and for the world.  It is not a replacement for living in the world; rather it is a tuning to God’s intention for the world and try to live in a way that is more in tune with that.  That, for me, is salvation. 

Blessing on your journey.

Learning the Language of God

Back at the beginning of the millennium I was trying to discern if I had a call to the ordained priesthood.   I thought that it would be great to have a “Road to Damascus” experience i.e., hearing a voice from heaven perhaps with even a heavenly light show to make sure I was paying attention.  However, I can say that I did not receive a message in any way that was like that.  In the end I decided that the only way to test out a calling was to make a commitment to the journey to ordination.  Talking to fellow students during my years at Huron College, I discovered that no one had that kind of a message either.  Looking back I think that I am grateful not to have gone through what Paul experience on that road including being knocked off my mode of transportation and having scales cover my eyes for three days. 

I did receive affirmation of my decision in many ways but not specifically in a Road to Damascus way.  God does speak to us in many different ways which are not necessarily as dramatic or as clear as what Paul experienced.  One experience I had which I believe affirmed my decision occurred just after I had an interview with the Dean of Theology, John Chapman (now Bishop of Ottawa) as part of the process to enter the M. Div. program.  The interview went well and when it was finished I got into my car to drive home.  The car radio was tuned to CBC as usual and the program involved an interview with three clergy who had been ordained later in life.  This certainly fit my experience as I was in my early fifties at the time. 

This experiences was for me synchronistic—a term coined by Carl Jung.  Synchronicity is, simply put, a significant coincidence.   They can be easily dismissed by skeptics as mere coincidence and of no significance other than pure chance.  However, I understood it as a pointer from the divine that I was on the right course.  By itself it would not be enough to make a serious life-changing decision in life.  However, it was one indication that I should continue on this new path and see other signs God might send me.

I believe and have faith that God is speaking to us in many different ways today as God always has.  However, we have not been taught to recognize them.  Our culture does not generally recognize many of these ways.  We need to relearn as a culture and individuals how God does speak to us and how to interpret what might be called the language of God.  One way which I particularly favour is the language of dreams.  Dreams have been called “God’s forgotten language”—a phrase of John Sanford’s, an Episcopal priest and Jungian Analyst and also a title of his very good introduction to dream work. 

There are many other ways such as Contemplative Prayer, Lectio Divina (Holy Listening), and walking the Labyrinth.  My approach to Spiritual Direction is to help directees to identify how God is speaking to them and to help them more fully experience and understand how God is working in their lives. We are each unique children of God and so we are each more receptive to different way in which God is speaking to us.  For instance, my wife Lorna, whose primary way of receiving information is through the five senses, uses that outer input in her inner world.  She is an ISTJ on the Myers Briggs Type Scale i.e. Introverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judging. 

I, on the other hand, am not as in tune with the outer world as many who know me will attest—especially Lorna.  My primary way of receiving information is by intuition, being an INFJ on the Myers Briggs Type Scale i.e. Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging.  This difference means that we are naturally oriented differently to how God is speaking to us.  For instance, Lorna finds walking the Labyrinth to be very meaningful as a form of walking prayer.  The experience of walking the labyrinth does not resonate with me to the same extent.  Rather I find Centering Prayer to be a very meaningful way.

This does not mean that we do not use both forms as a part of our spiritual practices.  I do walk the Labyrinth and Lorna does Centering Prayer.  However, it is not the preferred method in each case.  We both pay attention to our dreams as a way of see if our lives on the course God intends for us.  We both keep dream journals and try to understand the meaning of our dreams or as Lorna says, “don’t you mean the message”? 

The most important thing in all this is to be open to how God is speaking to you and pay attention to the things that you believe God is saying.  This is not always clear and it can be helpful to have someone to help you in that journey such as a clergy person, spiritual director or counsellor.  Blessings,

Sermon March 13, 2016 Lent 5

¹⁹I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. ²⁰The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, ²¹the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.

During Lent we have been exploring our journey with Jesus as we travel to the Easter celebration by exploring ways of Spiritual Renewal.  Spiritual Renewal is a way which can help us navigate through those times in life in which we feel as if we are tottering on the edge of the pit.  It can also help us to more closely follow our Saviour each day – in the good times as well as the bad times.  

Today Isaiah declares that God will give water to God’s chosen people in the wilderness.  Spiritual Renewal calls us to different ways of drawing  on the water of salvation.  This is an echo of what Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well:  “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Jesus tells us to draw of the water which he provides— that water of eternal life.  This is the goal of Spiritual Renewal.  The first way we explored was a method of reading scripture - Lectio Divina, Holy Reading .  This is not bible study in the traditional sense.  Rather it is a form of prayer using scripture.

We next explored walking the Labyrinth - the moving prayer in which we follow the twists and turns of our spiritual life to the centre and back.  Sometimes it seems we are getting close to the centre and then there is a sharp turn in our lives and we seem to be moving away from our goal.  However, if we follow the path that our savour prepares for us we will reach it.  Last Sunday we explored a way that God speaks to us which has been lost for many centuries—dreams which can be called God’s Forgotten Language.  Today I invite you to experience a form of prayer which also helps us draw the water of eternal life from the well; Centering Prayer.   Centering Prayer is a form of silent prayer in which you make space for you to be more aware of God’s presence in your life.  God is always there but we often have difficulty perceiving that presence.  The process is quite simple with just a few steps. 

Choose a word or phrase that resonates with you as an expression of your intent and desire - It use the word ‘return’.  Sit comfortably and upright, eyes closed, breathing naturally, and begin to repeat this sacred word silently. As your attention is focused on the desire behind the word, gradually let the word slip away; Rest in silence.  You will find that thoughts and images and feeling may come into your mind.  We are not used to quiet in our culture – our brains want to fill silence.  This has been called our monkey brains - which is very descriptive.  When these thoughts, images or sensations arise, gently return to the sacred word as a symbol of your consent to God’s presence and action within you. 

The recommended period for prayer is twenty minutes each day.  However, we will begin today with five minutes to give you a taste of the experience.  When the time is up I will close with a prayer.

Following God's Will

 do not usually give titles to my sermons.  However, my sermon yesterday could be entitled “Following God’s Will (part 2)”.   As we do not have Jesus with us in bodily form to guide us, we cannot know with certainty what God’s will is for us and for the church as the Body of Christ.  That doesn’t mean that we should not do all we can to discern God’s will.  There are many ways which can be helpful in that goal such as reading and studying scripture daily.  This, along with daily prayer is foundational in understanding God’s will for us and for the world.  There is no shortage of other ways such as connecting with God in nature or in non-biblical inspirational writing.  Another foundational way for me is in paying attention to my dreams which I consider to be “God’s Forgotten Language” This is John Sanford’s term and the title of his book on understanding dreams as a way that God communicates with us.  

As we are each unique children of God we will have different ways of connecting and listening to God.  Some people find different forms of prayer such as contemplative prayer or centering prayer to be most meaningful.  While other finds more active forms such as walking the labyrinth to be the way they can best connect with God.  Many people find Spiritual Direction to be very helpful to them in their journey with God.  I have had a Spiritual Director for some years and that person has been very helpful in my journey.  I would invite you to explore different ways of listening to God with or without the help of a Spiritual Director.  I would be very happy to talk with any of you further about exploring how you might do this.  Blessings on your journey.

Sermon March 30, 2014 Lent 4

During Lent we have been exploring Spiritual Renewal in our Lenten Journey and exploring different ways we can be open to how God is speaking to us and guiding us on our journey.  As we are each unique children of God we are each going to experience different ways in which we can connect with the divine so it is important that we experience different ways in which people have found helpful.

In the first three Sundays we explored Lectio Divino- Holy Reading, the Labyrinth which is a moving prayer, and Centering Prayer with is silent prayer.  Today I want to explore another way which has an long tradition of being a way in which God speaks to us - but one like the labyrinth was lost to our culture for many centuries.  This is listening to God through our dreams.

In the Old Testament lesson Isaiah gives us a vision of God’s kingdom.  This is not specifically a dream but visions can be considered a waking dream.  Many of the prophets of old received dreams and visions from God and shared those experiences with their people. 

Dreams as a way of God  speaking to the people of God  occur many times in the bible.  Can anyone give me an example of God speaking to people in dreams……..

One example that I especially like is Jacob’s dream of a ladder between heaven and earth.  Let me read it to make it fresh in your mind.  

10Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran.11He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place.12And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.13And the Lord stood beside him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring;14and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring.15Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

16Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!”17And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”18So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it.19He called that place Bethel; but the name of the city was Luz at the first.

I particularly like this passage because it is about a dream and it describes the way dreams work.  We have angels – messengers from God going between heaven and earth.  It is interesting that the angels are ascending first and then descending.  My understanding of this is that Jacob was initially ready to receive a message.  He was therefore prepared for receive the messages that came to his from heaven.

Although dreams were recognized in biblical times and in the early church as a way God communicated with people it became discounted and lost to us in modern times.  This happened for many reasons.  The church hierarchy did not like the idea of people having direct communication with God.   This bypassed the authority of the church and the clergy wanted to maintain control over people’s understanding of God’s message.  In addition the enlightenment began to discount anything that could not be measured and weighed and had a material foundation.  Dreams became what can be called God’s forgotten language.  

In the modern era there began to be a recovered understanding of dreams as a way of receiving messages about ourselves.  Beginning with the founders of depth psychology – Freud and Jung - a new understanding of dreams and a rediscovery of the meaning of dreams has occurred which I want to explore with you briefly.

How many of you dream?.....  I should probably have asked how many remember their dreams.    Everyone dreams but not everyone remembers them.  Everyone can with the right conditions.   It is also important to understand how God speaks to us through dreams.  God can speak to us as God did in the bible – with direct messages – these might be called big dreams.  God also speaks to us through dreams giving us information about what we need to know about ourselves.  Dreams can help us become the people that God intends us to be.  Dreams provide information when our lives are out of balance.  They can point to how we can develop more fully the part of ourselves aspect of ourselves that we have not acknowledged even though they are part of who God creates us to be as unique individuals.

In understanding dreams a good way to begin is to be aware that all the aspects of the dream – from individuals you know and individuals you don’t know to inanimate objects such as cars or houses are usually aspects of the dreamer.  It is important to know where the energy is in the dream and where the movement is.    In remembering your dreams the most important aspect is having the intention of remembering and paying attention.  Have a pen and paper available to record your dream.   That is the next step – write it down and consider the images in the dream.  What is your associating with them?  Write down any associating with the people or the other images.  

Of course there is much more to say on the approach but I will stop there.  If you would like to find out more I would be most interested to talking to you at another time.  Finally it is important to understand that all dreams come in the assistance of health and wholeness of the dreamer – even ones that don’t seem that way.  I will close with the prayer we use in dream groups.

Holy Dream Maker, creator of all,

Be with us as we open our hearts and minds

To the divine wisdom of dreams

you have blessed us with.

We thank you and honour you

who nurture, tend, and guide us,

You show us the way to health and wholeness

not only in our waking hours

but even as we sleep. Amen

Sermon March 23, 2014 Lent 3

With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.

⁴And you will say on that day:
Give thanks to the Lord,
   call on his name;
make known his deeds among the nations;
   proclaim that his name is exalted.

During Lent we have been exploring our journey with Jesus as we travel to the Easter celebration.  IN the first two Sundays of Lent we explored ways of Spiritual Renewal .  This is the renewal which is unique to the church in a culture that looks to action and activity in how it renews itself.  Spiritual Renewal is a way which can help us navigate through those times in life in which we feel as if we are tottering on the edge of the pit as Isaiah spoke of in last Sunday’s OT lesson.  It can also help us to more closely follow our  Saviour each day – in the good times as well as the bad times. 

Today Isaiah speaks about drawing water from the well of salvation.  Spiritual Renewal calls us to different ways of draw on the water of salvation.  This is an echo of what Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well:  “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

 Jesus tells us to draw of the water which he provides that water of eternal life.  This is the goal of Spiritual Renewal.  On the first Sunday in Lent we looked at a way of reading scripture - Lectio Divino, Holy Reading .  There are four steps in Holy Reading.  The first is to read the passage – the Lectio.  The second step is meditation – meditatio. The third step is Responding – Oratatio.  Finally there is Rest – Contemplatio. 

Last Sunday we walked the Labyrinth - the moving prayer in which we follow the twists and turns of our spiritual life to the centre and back.  Sometimes it seems we are getting close to the centre and then there is a sharp turn in our lives and we seem to be moving away from our goal.  However, if we follow the path that our savour prepares for us we will reach it.  Today I invite you to experience a form of prayer which also helps us draw the water of eternal life from the well.  It is centering prayer.   Centering Prayer is a form of silent prayer in which you make space for you to be more aware of God’s presence in your life.  God is always there but we often have difficulty perceiving it.  The process is quite simple with just a few steps. 

Choose a word or phrase that resonates with you as an expression of your intent and desire - It use the word ‘return’.  Sit comfortably and upright, eyes closed, breathing naturally, and begin to repeat this sacred word silently. As your attention is focused on the desire behind the word, gradually let the word slip away. Rest in silence.  You will find that thoughts and images and feeling may come into your mind.  We are not used to quiet in our culture – our brains want to fill silence.  This has been called our monkey brains - which is very descriptive.  When these thoughts, images or sensations arise, gently return to the sacred word as a symbol of your consent to God’s presence and action within you. 

The recommended period for prayer is twenty minutes each day.  However, we will begin today with five minutes to give you a taste of the experience.