Does God appear when you want Him to or, to put it another way, how do you authentically celebrate the Epiphany?
In our local churches we celebrated the feast of the Epiphany today (6th January). This festival celebrates the appearance of God, or his "shining forth," or his glory. In the western church the event usually associated is the visit of the Magi to the baby Jesus bringing gifts.
On this Sunday so soon after Christmas it often seems to be a challenge for those constructing worship and choosing hymns to know whether to retain the feel of Christmas or to try to do something different. Most of the hymns seemed to conjure up an image of trudging slowly through snow, and the sermon sought to encourage us to set New Year's Resolutions to do with being more environmentally responsible (too late, I'd done mine, but I do hope that they are responsible). So the set of compromises used this time round didn't seem to lift me to a sense of the presence of God's glory... until we got to the middle of the service.
At the customary handshake called "The Peace" everybody seemed to come alive and it struck me that (as well as everything else it means) the image of the baby Jesus speaks of the presence of the glory of God in each one of us - people - how special we are!
Sometimes I think I know too much about life as a vicar in the Church of England, so I was suprised to find myself watching a short documentarty about one on television last night.
Peter Owen Jones used to be in advertising, so I think he enjoys being in front of a camera. He says we've lost the plot about "spiritual enlightenment" in Britain, and that the church is too intellectual. So the one hour programmes follow him as he chooses three wildly different religious experiences. Last night was a Buddhist mountain monastery in China, from which Zen Buddhism later developed, and where the religious way - meditation - is a very physical martial art like Kung Fu. Apart from scenes of this guy of about my own age nearly killing himself by learning Kung Fu alongside seventeen year old youths, I liked the footage of him with other monks sweeping a terrace in a way that was really a dance.
I can feel that British Christians who want a more contemplative or less intellectual way of faith should first explore the rich depths of our local Christian heritage. I'm thinking for example of Celtic traditions, Lectio Divina, and the ways of St Ignatius (all of which crop up in the Spiritual Direction course that I am doing).
However I found this programme enriching. I liked the reminder that all life, including physical activity, should be worshipful. I liked the enlightenment that he seemed to discover as he found a sense of belonging with the monks, recognised that his worries were inside himself, and discovered that he was able to be more in tune with creation around him.
Anthony de Mello (yes I know I'm a fan of his) seems to have a similar perspective when he writes that happiness is something you have to discover inside yourself, rather than expect to come from external circumstances.
To continue this journey, watch the remaining two parts on BBC2 tv on Fridays at 9:00 p.m.
Lovely imagery in the daily readings I sometimes use, for December 9.
The author, drawing on Amy Carmichael, talks of our hopes for the future as pictures we paint. Some fade, and as they do so they sap our energy. We need to leave behind our old hopes/pictures/images and notice the new ones that God is giving us.
He moves on to the idea that our whole lives are like a picture that God is painting.
A verbatim quote would be even better, but I'm cautious about copyright - so, what can I say? Buy the book! (Much of their material is on-line, but I have not been able to track down the comments on the daily readings, which the above is an example of.)
All this is from Celtic Daily Prayer, published by the Northumbria Community and printed by Harper Collins (in the U.K.) 1994 onwards. My edtiion is ISBN 0 557 02845-9, but later editions also include Night Prayer. The short orders for Morning, Midday, and Evening Prayer are easy to use, and over the twelve or so years that I have been using it I have found the daily readings inspirational.
As I renew my subscription, I realise that it is a year since I started this blog, care of Blogharbor. It's been fun to develop an on-line journal, although I sometimes lose the plot of why I am doing it!
This is probably because I always intended it to be a "whole life" blog, for me to chat about what I'm up to and what is interesting me. I'm not sure what this does for you the reader, as I realise that the kind of things I talk about keep changing!
When I started the weblog I had a quote from Anthony de Mello in mind, from his book The Song of the Bird.
The disciples were full of questions about God.
Said the master, "God is the Unknown and the Unknowable. Every statement about him, every answer to your questions, is a distortion of the truth."
The disciples were bewildered. "Then why do you speak about him at all?"
"Why does the bird sing?" said the master.
There is a postscript to this, which you'll have to buy the book to read!
I enjoyed watching the last episode of the current series of Dr Who on t.v. at the weekend. Mankind, trillions of years hence, finds a disappointing Utopia and then travels back through time to today to kill off its ancestors. (Doesn't that mean that they kill themselves too? That's the paradox.) For them, chasing the dream of Utopia did not work.
So I was surprisingly interested by a radio interview* I found myself listening to yesterday morning. According to philospoher John Gray, the idea of Utopia derives from the Christian Myth that there is a better life hereafter. He sees much death having come from attempts to create Utopia - for example by seeking to enforce a particular democratic vision of Utopia on the people of Iraq. He sees the Enlightenment, a secular movement, dangerously colluding with religion by continuing with the idea of Utopia, which he also sees in Marxism. Instead of Utopia, John advocates his version of Realism: working in the present with the reality that we discover. Fascinating stuff!
In the past there has been debate amongst Christians about whether we should be trying to create Utopia. The usual Christian language is about whether we seek to build God's kingdom now, or whether we don't bother with that because all this will be burned up anyway to be replaced by the "new heaven and new earth." I believe that most Christians see a role in trying to improve the world we live in; but it seems that some are trying too hard by seeking to impose it on others.
All this misses out the perspective of the mystic (Christian and other). That perspective is less concerned with the future, and more concerned with attention to the present, and attention to God. The motto** "All is well" (from Julian of Norwich and others) encourages not the enforced change of others, but a desire to understand others. This sounds like John Gray's Realism to me. Maybe he is a modern mystic.
* BBC Radio 4 Start the Week with Andrew Marr 09:15 - interviewing John Gray with Eric Hobsbawm (historian) and Pat Barker (author). John's new book is Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death or Utopia (published by Allen Lane). For more detail see the review in The Independent. **A quote from Anthony de Mello in his book Awareness.
I found myself remembering today that William Wilberforce committed his life to two objects: "the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners." Manners in his language may translate better as moral values today.
This year we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade (although there is still work to be done). What about the second object?
I feel a call to this. In Britain today people moan about bad behaviour, such as "road rage" and "binge drinking" while at the same time struggling to reinvent values to improve British society. I don't see that we need to reinvent values: the core Christian values, that we once inherited and developed, seem to appeal to all "people of goodwill" regardless of what religion they claim. What is sometimes called the Golden Rule summarises part of this, the way that people should relate to one another: "do to others as you would like them to do to you."
It seems to me that when we note what is good manners, or bad manners, we are well in touch with our own values and the values that our society aspires to. So it would be a good way forward to share Wilberforce's second object as well as his first: the Reformation of Manners.
This is not a crusade to change others: like all good leadership it needs to start with "me" and the example that "I" set. Let's go for it!
Just weighing the "pro's and con's" is not the whole answer! Here's my review of Ignatius' approach from the book "Weeds among the Wheat," read during my Spiritual Direction course. more»
In the church we tend not to ask the question: "Does it work?" Perhaps this is because we imagine that then we should need to have measurable goals: opposed to a preference just to enjoy one another's company, or to do the things that we have always done.
So I was surprised when I read this morning's Bible reading (for the festival of St Mark, from Ephesians ch4 vv7-16 - Revised Standard Version).
The author compares the church to a human body, and writes that "when each part is working properly" the church will build itself up in love. The idea, from earlier in the passage, is that God has placed his gifts, or grace, inside us so that we may do this useful work of building up God's people. So hand in hand Christians need to expect to make a difference, and trust that God has given the ability to do so.
This helpful book by Dennis Tongoi gives practical financial guidance, relevant to all, as well as insights into particular issues in African Culture. more»
I had chosen to review this book, as a task within the Spiritual Direction course, because I had at times found helpful the imagery of probably the most famous extract. more»
