Well we have just returned from 5 days visiting two of our children and their four children in the Newcastle-0n -Tyne area. It was a really good and interesting experience. We hadn't been there for almost 5 years but it was nearly 40 years ago that we actually lived there. What a change since then! First is the very noticeable amount of cars and in spit of all the many roads that have been built as express ways and by passes there is still jams in places but then in the cities they did all those years ago as well. In the environment though it was noticeable that the shipbuilding, coal mining and heavy industry has all gone now. Thus the rivers Tyne and Ear have far less pollution and the riverbanks are now easier on the eye and the natural world is more visible. Perhaps it is no great loss that the terribly demanding and dangerous work involved in those heavy industries is no longer there and in its place there seems to be an upsurge in places of recreation and entertainment. Is life easier? Are residents happier? Are they better off financially and in all other ways? It's hard to judge but it certainly is very different.
We had a delightful trip with our Son Mark and his wife to Edinburgh. he took a scenic route through the Northumberland countryside through moorland with magnificent views and past Keilder with its Dam the largest human-made body of water in Europe set in the largest human-made forest in Europe. The shoreline of the lake is now 27.5 miles long and it was built from 1975 - 1982 when it was opened by the queen. Interestingly our youngest son Christopher did some work on the electrics there in the latter part on the construction. But the village around the remote farms and the remote shepherd's dwellings made it all very spectacular. The moors were covered in sheep with their newly born lambs and the wild life was left undisturbed in their natural habitat. How splendid! We had lunch in the ancient town of Jedburgh so connected historically with Mary Queen of Scots and we ate lunch in the shadow of the ruins of its ancient abbey church. The end of the journey was at the campus of Herriot Watt University on the outskirts of Edinburgh where we saw our grandson Peter who is in his second year as a student there. It was a lovely campus and it was goo to see Peter. He seemed very happy now after a difficult first year and we were pleased that he had found a good partner in Dax (Alan) that was clearly a real blessing for him. It was so good to see him and to know that he is faring well.
A trip to the North Yorkshire coastal town of Whitby came next day. It is an ancient fishing town that we have always enjoyed yet now it mostly relies on tourism for its economy. The last time I was there many years ago it was the weekend of a the annual folk music festival. This time was the annual "Goth" gathering. Goths are people who dress in a particular style involving mainly black with some red and a lot of metal accessories with chains,studs and spikes etc. They are an amazing sight to behold and although many would I am sure be horrified they seemed to be well accepted in Whitby and it was fun to see them there enjoying their time showing off their costumes and meeting others who shared their interest. It was interesting to see the wide age range of those clearly recognisable as "Goths" There were some well into the age of "Senior Citizens" often dressed in what seemed Victorian dress and really quite smart right down to teenagers. and the age difference didn't seem to matter to them at all. It was fun and a cause of great amusement to us as we looked at them, the harbour and the boats. We had lunch in the legendary "Magpie" a fish restaurant which has been highly commended nationally which one usualy has to queue for a long time to get in. The menu was vast and the portions "Yorkshire style large" I had monk fish for the first time and it was delicious! The coat drew us next day to Seahouses and the Northumberland coastline which has its own particular attractiveness. It was a trip down memory lane for sure and there we saw few changes really after all these years. There was a brief visit to the magnificent city of Durham with its splendid Norman Cathedral where I was ordained as an Anglican priest over 40 years ago now. Barely any change there with either the streets the Castle or the Cathedral. It just gave me a warm inner glow and a instant memory of that event and all that has happened since then. What a life I have had! What experiences, changes and great people have been an influence and encouragement to me. I have been richly blessed for sure. And now having see Clare with her artistic talent, Sarah with her love of literature and books as well as David now set on his studies to be a lawyer all I can hope and pray is that they get as much out of life as I have done so far.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
April 19,2010
This is delayed as the time to set down all my thoughts has been taken up with things that need to be done with regard to my parish at Tetbury, my Zen group, my Merton interest and my family. Yes there's been a lot of "stuff." So let me take in time sequence
Easter - I spent quite a lot of time preparing for the Paschal Triduum liturgies in my parish. As it was first year for me there I wanted to prepare carefully and get the liturgy done in the best possible way with good wording and music as well as good arrangement for the various actions. The end result I must say was wonderful. there was a tremendous response from the people and it all flowed really well. Unfortunately the weather took its toll especially on the Easter Vigil so we couldn't light an Easter fire outside but we did mange as best we could in the circumstances.
Merton - as soon a Easter was over there was a day's gap and then Tony Bannon came to stay with us for couple of days . Tony is the Director of the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film. It is a most prestigious place with the largest archive in private hands in the world. Tony is a most competent director and much of its success is due to his directorship. He is a great intellect with an encyclopedic knowledge of literature, film and technology. A truly Renaissance man! he was such enjoyable company and it was good to show him something of the Cotswolds and to engage in conversation with him. He was giving a workshop at the Merton Conference and I was to do the concluding Eucharist liturgy with a homily so we were both working on our material.
Here is my eventual text.
Merton Conference 2010 Mass homily
You can
Die for it
An idea
on the world. People
have done so
brilliantly,
letting
their small bodies be bound
to the stake,
creating
an unforgettable
fury of light. But
this morning
climbing the familiar hills
in the familiar fabric of dawn, I thought
of China
and India
and Europe, and I thought
how the sun
blazes
for everyone just
so joyfully
as it rises
under the lashes
of my own eyes, and I thought
I am so many!
What is my name?
What is the name
of the deep breath I would take
Ever and ever
For all of us? Call it
Whatever you want, it is
Happiness, it is another one
Of the ways to enter
Fire
This poem written by Mary Oliver seems to capture not only something of the theme found in The night Spirit and the dawn air but also the words of today’s readings from our liturgy. As we look around the world in which we live just outside our front door or through the magic of television to so many areas of the world we see an immense amount of brokenness, pain violence, poverty exploitation and abuse. It is all the issues that Merton saw from outside the door of Gethsemani. And Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander is really a collection of personal reflections on those contemporary issues. Our gospel today talks about ‘seeing’ - a word that goes right to the heart of contemplative practice! As the great Zen teachers often say “we look but we do not see.” For this seeing is not merely about physical vision but to see into the true nature of all reality. Jesus challenge when he says “Blessed are those who have not seen” is to those who haven’t seen in a physical sense nor in it's fuller sense with what is sometimes described as the ‘third’ or ‘contemplative eye’ that sees into a deeper truth. So what we may ask is this deeper truth I believe that the answer is to be found in the words of John on the Book of Revelation when he states clearly that he is one with those people for whom he is writing. He shares in their sufferings with them. In the words of a Buddhist he sees with the eye of compassion – that he is all part of the one reality with them. Merton has this precise experience as he describes the ‘opening of his eye’ on the corner of Fourth and Walnut as it was then! He writes “It was like waking from a dream………the whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream.” Right at the end of this section of Conjectures Merton also movingly describes his experience during the night watch when he looks into the novice’s scriptorium and seems to have deep experience of his solidarity and love for all the novices. He feels at one with them in a way that seems to transcend the fact that he was their novice master. Clearly Merton was well aware of the need to “see” in this way. Yet we cannot achieve this for ourselves we can only prepare ourselves to be able to recognise it when our own eyes are opened. Remember that going to the top of the hill in the early morning doesn’t make the sun rise but we have to do that if we wish to see it when it does. So how may we come to see in this way? Well it certainly isn’t acquired by rushing into all sorts of good works! Again hear some cautionary words from Merton:
“A great deal of virtue and piety is simply the easy price to pay in order to justify a life that is essentially trifling.”
He carries on:
“There is then, a great deal of busy-ness as people invent things to do when in fact there is very little to be done. Yet we are overwhelmed with jobs, duties, tasks, assignments, ‘missions’ of every kind. At every moment we are sent north, south, east and west….to the four corners of the universe to decide something, to sign something….. we fly in all directions to sell ourselves, thus justifying the absolute nothingness of our lives”
Earlier he had written on the Ox Mountain parable of Mencius of the importance of the night spirit and the dawn breath in restoring to life the forest that had been cut down. For he points out that “without the night spirit and the dawn breath, silence passivity, rest, man’s (sic) nature cannot be itself” Is this not the same breath that Jesus breathed on his disciples that we heard about in the gospel? It is in silence and stillness that we begin to see into our own true nature and the true nature of all reality. We awaken from the illusory dream of a wholly separate existence.
To take this one step further Merton tells of his reading of the wonderful 14th century Dame Julian of Norwich. He rightly draws attention to her phrase that “all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well” These are no pollyannish trivial or sentimental words of a naive optimist but a deep seeing into a secret that is the reality of the whole significance of the paschal mystery which Easter celebrates. It is a message of hope and endurance that enables Merton to write:
To have a wise heart it seems to me is to live centred on this dynamism and this secret hope. It is the key to our life…..the wise heart remains in hope and in contradiction, in sorrow and in joy……the wise heart lives in Christ.
Opening Prayer:
God of life each year when we celebrate the feast of Easter you enliven the faith of your holy people. Open our hearts today to the Spirit Jesus breathes on us that we may be filled with the power of compassion and love. Send us out to greet the world with the Easter word of peace and to share with all the hope that is promised by the resurrection. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Closing Prayer:
Most loving God we have celebrated to gift of the Paschal mysteries and we ask that you will continue to open our eyes that we may see the many life-giving ways your spirit is at work in the world and be true sources of encouragement to all who are without hope. We ask this as the body of Christ and in Jesus name.
Tony's workshop which I chaired went well also.
Maximus the Confessor
It was enjoyable to meet another friend of Tony's from the USA. Roger Lipsey. A write and scholar with an interest in merton and in contemplative prayer. The three of us with another friend Paul Lyons met in the early morning during the conference for an hour's silent sitting which was good with all the words we were bombarded with at the talks and discussions. I discovered that Roger was also interested i St. Maximus the Confessor so we agreed to share our explorations into his writings etc. I began as soon as I returned when at the regular meeting of our Wild Goose Sangha for sitting Zazen I spoke with Janet Williams who is a member of the Sangha and a good patristic scholar so I got some leads from her and she also sent me some papers she had written on Maximus which are really interesting. If anybody reading this have any thoughts on this subject I would love to hear from you. Maximus was a great member of the early Christian apophatic contemplative tradition of prayer. Last week Friday we went to Hay-on-Wye and visited many of the second hand book store there. I manged to get a copy of a book by Aidan Nichols on Maximus called "Byzantine Gospel - Maximus the Confessor in Modern Scholarship" It came highly recommended to me so I look forward to reading that. I got a couple of Zen books as well. An early book by Roshi Philip Kapleau "Zen Dawn in the West" and a little anthology of Zen quotations : here is one
"When I begin to sit with the dawn in solitude, I begin the really live.
It makes me treasure every single moment of life"
Abuse Scandals
Naturally I am troubled by all that we read, hear and see in the media! I find it hard though to put all my thoughts and feelings into words. I am deeply ashamed as a Christan and as a catholic at not only the abuse itself which is unspeakably bad but that there has been deliberate cover up by the authorities is just the most terrible sin and crime. the Church in Ireland seems to have opened up a whole world of corruption not only there but in other countries as well. Even the Pope himself is accused by mishandling the situation in his home diocese and while Head of the CDF. Some of the stories seem to be wrong or distorted and the whole affair is deeply wounding for those abused and for those wrongly accused. What are the real facts. perhaps we will never truly know but there does seem to be division and corruption at the centre of the Vatican and the whole thing is just nauseating! BUT these people no matter who they are are NOT the whole of the church. There are those who so easily say "the church" as if it was some group or official body out there. The truth is WE are the church along with countless of wonderfully faithful and innocent people who struggle to live lives that are life giving and wholesome. As I See it the real problem will never be addressed until we implement the teaching of Vatican II on collegiality fully and get rid of the power systems and secrecy that lies at the centre of church life. Meanwhile the faithful people carry on with their wonderful lives of service and goodness. I saw the beautiful work done by Catholic Charities in Tulsa, the work with the prisons, the homeless and the deep prayer of spirituality of people like those in the Monos Community, those at Morning Star Zendo and those who come to the Zen retreats at Ammerdown and those in the Wild Goose Sangha. THEY are the church that we need to remember and They are by far and away the majority. I will not leave them or the Catholic church and that they are not stigmatised I will do all I can to bring those who have brought shame on the church to take ownership of their failings and seek ways to set in place systems that prevent such things happening again.
Some feed back please What say you?
Easter - I spent quite a lot of time preparing for the Paschal Triduum liturgies in my parish. As it was first year for me there I wanted to prepare carefully and get the liturgy done in the best possible way with good wording and music as well as good arrangement for the various actions. The end result I must say was wonderful. there was a tremendous response from the people and it all flowed really well. Unfortunately the weather took its toll especially on the Easter Vigil so we couldn't light an Easter fire outside but we did mange as best we could in the circumstances.
Merton - as soon a Easter was over there was a day's gap and then Tony Bannon came to stay with us for couple of days . Tony is the Director of the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film. It is a most prestigious place with the largest archive in private hands in the world. Tony is a most competent director and much of its success is due to his directorship. He is a great intellect with an encyclopedic knowledge of literature, film and technology. A truly Renaissance man! he was such enjoyable company and it was good to show him something of the Cotswolds and to engage in conversation with him. He was giving a workshop at the Merton Conference and I was to do the concluding Eucharist liturgy with a homily so we were both working on our material.
Here is my eventual text.
Merton Conference 2010 Mass homily
You can
Die for it
An idea
on the world. People
have done so
brilliantly,
letting
their small bodies be bound
to the stake,
creating
an unforgettable
fury of light. But
this morning
climbing the familiar hills
in the familiar fabric of dawn, I thought
of China
and India
and Europe, and I thought
how the sun
blazes
for everyone just
so joyfully
as it rises
under the lashes
of my own eyes, and I thought
I am so many!
What is my name?
What is the name
of the deep breath I would take
Ever and ever
For all of us? Call it
Whatever you want, it is
Happiness, it is another one
Of the ways to enter
Fire
This poem written by Mary Oliver seems to capture not only something of the theme found in The night Spirit and the dawn air but also the words of today’s readings from our liturgy. As we look around the world in which we live just outside our front door or through the magic of television to so many areas of the world we see an immense amount of brokenness, pain violence, poverty exploitation and abuse. It is all the issues that Merton saw from outside the door of Gethsemani. And Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander is really a collection of personal reflections on those contemporary issues. Our gospel today talks about ‘seeing’ - a word that goes right to the heart of contemplative practice! As the great Zen teachers often say “we look but we do not see.” For this seeing is not merely about physical vision but to see into the true nature of all reality. Jesus challenge when he says “Blessed are those who have not seen” is to those who haven’t seen in a physical sense nor in it's fuller sense with what is sometimes described as the ‘third’ or ‘contemplative eye’ that sees into a deeper truth. So what we may ask is this deeper truth I believe that the answer is to be found in the words of John on the Book of Revelation when he states clearly that he is one with those people for whom he is writing. He shares in their sufferings with them. In the words of a Buddhist he sees with the eye of compassion – that he is all part of the one reality with them. Merton has this precise experience as he describes the ‘opening of his eye’ on the corner of Fourth and Walnut as it was then! He writes “It was like waking from a dream………the whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream.” Right at the end of this section of Conjectures Merton also movingly describes his experience during the night watch when he looks into the novice’s scriptorium and seems to have deep experience of his solidarity and love for all the novices. He feels at one with them in a way that seems to transcend the fact that he was their novice master. Clearly Merton was well aware of the need to “see” in this way. Yet we cannot achieve this for ourselves we can only prepare ourselves to be able to recognise it when our own eyes are opened. Remember that going to the top of the hill in the early morning doesn’t make the sun rise but we have to do that if we wish to see it when it does. So how may we come to see in this way? Well it certainly isn’t acquired by rushing into all sorts of good works! Again hear some cautionary words from Merton:
“A great deal of virtue and piety is simply the easy price to pay in order to justify a life that is essentially trifling.”
He carries on:
“There is then, a great deal of busy-ness as people invent things to do when in fact there is very little to be done. Yet we are overwhelmed with jobs, duties, tasks, assignments, ‘missions’ of every kind. At every moment we are sent north, south, east and west….to the four corners of the universe to decide something, to sign something….. we fly in all directions to sell ourselves, thus justifying the absolute nothingness of our lives”
Earlier he had written on the Ox Mountain parable of Mencius of the importance of the night spirit and the dawn breath in restoring to life the forest that had been cut down. For he points out that “without the night spirit and the dawn breath, silence passivity, rest, man’s (sic) nature cannot be itself” Is this not the same breath that Jesus breathed on his disciples that we heard about in the gospel? It is in silence and stillness that we begin to see into our own true nature and the true nature of all reality. We awaken from the illusory dream of a wholly separate existence.
To take this one step further Merton tells of his reading of the wonderful 14th century Dame Julian of Norwich. He rightly draws attention to her phrase that “all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well” These are no pollyannish trivial or sentimental words of a naive optimist but a deep seeing into a secret that is the reality of the whole significance of the paschal mystery which Easter celebrates. It is a message of hope and endurance that enables Merton to write:
To have a wise heart it seems to me is to live centred on this dynamism and this secret hope. It is the key to our life…..the wise heart remains in hope and in contradiction, in sorrow and in joy……the wise heart lives in Christ.
Opening Prayer:
God of life each year when we celebrate the feast of Easter you enliven the faith of your holy people. Open our hearts today to the Spirit Jesus breathes on us that we may be filled with the power of compassion and love. Send us out to greet the world with the Easter word of peace and to share with all the hope that is promised by the resurrection. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Closing Prayer:
Most loving God we have celebrated to gift of the Paschal mysteries and we ask that you will continue to open our eyes that we may see the many life-giving ways your spirit is at work in the world and be true sources of encouragement to all who are without hope. We ask this as the body of Christ and in Jesus name.
Tony's workshop which I chaired went well also.
Maximus the Confessor
It was enjoyable to meet another friend of Tony's from the USA. Roger Lipsey. A write and scholar with an interest in merton and in contemplative prayer. The three of us with another friend Paul Lyons met in the early morning during the conference for an hour's silent sitting which was good with all the words we were bombarded with at the talks and discussions. I discovered that Roger was also interested i St. Maximus the Confessor so we agreed to share our explorations into his writings etc. I began as soon as I returned when at the regular meeting of our Wild Goose Sangha for sitting Zazen I spoke with Janet Williams who is a member of the Sangha and a good patristic scholar so I got some leads from her and she also sent me some papers she had written on Maximus which are really interesting. If anybody reading this have any thoughts on this subject I would love to hear from you. Maximus was a great member of the early Christian apophatic contemplative tradition of prayer. Last week Friday we went to Hay-on-Wye and visited many of the second hand book store there. I manged to get a copy of a book by Aidan Nichols on Maximus called "Byzantine Gospel - Maximus the Confessor in Modern Scholarship" It came highly recommended to me so I look forward to reading that. I got a couple of Zen books as well. An early book by Roshi Philip Kapleau "Zen Dawn in the West" and a little anthology of Zen quotations : here is one
"When I begin to sit with the dawn in solitude, I begin the really live.
It makes me treasure every single moment of life"
Abuse Scandals
Naturally I am troubled by all that we read, hear and see in the media! I find it hard though to put all my thoughts and feelings into words. I am deeply ashamed as a Christan and as a catholic at not only the abuse itself which is unspeakably bad but that there has been deliberate cover up by the authorities is just the most terrible sin and crime. the Church in Ireland seems to have opened up a whole world of corruption not only there but in other countries as well. Even the Pope himself is accused by mishandling the situation in his home diocese and while Head of the CDF. Some of the stories seem to be wrong or distorted and the whole affair is deeply wounding for those abused and for those wrongly accused. What are the real facts. perhaps we will never truly know but there does seem to be division and corruption at the centre of the Vatican and the whole thing is just nauseating! BUT these people no matter who they are are NOT the whole of the church. There are those who so easily say "the church" as if it was some group or official body out there. The truth is WE are the church along with countless of wonderfully faithful and innocent people who struggle to live lives that are life giving and wholesome. As I See it the real problem will never be addressed until we implement the teaching of Vatican II on collegiality fully and get rid of the power systems and secrecy that lies at the centre of church life. Meanwhile the faithful people carry on with their wonderful lives of service and goodness. I saw the beautiful work done by Catholic Charities in Tulsa, the work with the prisons, the homeless and the deep prayer of spirituality of people like those in the Monos Community, those at Morning Star Zendo and those who come to the Zen retreats at Ammerdown and those in the Wild Goose Sangha. THEY are the church that we need to remember and They are by far and away the majority. I will not leave them or the Catholic church and that they are not stigmatised I will do all I can to bring those who have brought shame on the church to take ownership of their failings and seek ways to set in place systems that prevent such things happening again.
Some feed back please What say you?
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