JM 2016 December
Article
Ann Moran
Finding Silence with the Internet. An oxymoron? Not necessarily
If God is in all things then God is in the internet. Therefore the internet and all its works must be within the operation of the Holy Spirit. There is something about this in psalm 139:
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. NIV
The internet has immensely enhanced my life. I love playing with my gadgets and software. Facebook connects me with nieces, nephews, daughter, grandchildren and others with an insight into their lives which I’d otherwise not have. I feel embarrassed now that I resisted Facebook so long. A case of ‘contempt prior to investigation’. Social media introduces me to new ideas and resources. The internet and social media provide so much information and promote social interaction across the world.
Information
With the internet there is more information available about Christianity and Christian spirituality, including contemplative prayer and meditation. Also this is more attractively presented than ever before. When I became a Christian and looked for information about Christian meditation, it was in the era before email and the internet, so was very hard to find. Especially in churches! Now a vast amount of information is accessible at the click of a mouse. Most is free and always available. You don’t even need your own computer, as most libraries have internet access.
Facilitating silence and solitude
What may not be so well understood is how the internet can be useful in finding more time for silence, stillness and solitude in our lives. This may seem counter-intuitive. We often associate the internet and social media with distraction or interruption. They can be a distraction, just like radio, TV, music, or reading books, but they can also be an asset to our spiritual lives.
When websites first became widely used a monk, perhaps a Benedictine, said that their community took to the internet like a duck to water (I paraphrase!). It fitted exactly with their ethos. It enabled them to communicate and show hospitality, but without disturbing their daily routine, or taking them too far into the world on a daily basis. They could deal with email enquiries when it was convenient, and no longer had to be available to answer the phone or return calls. Also they could provide a lot of information to many more people without the use of the post, or printed materials, or reducing the time they spent in prayer and silence.
Rachel Denton, a canonical hermit in the Roman Catholic church, says ‘internet makes hermitage possible’. She can shop online, which reduces how often she has to leave her hermitage and her silence, and freeing her time for her daily devotional routine. Like monastics and the desert mothers and fathers she must earn her living. On-line contacts, web-site, shop and so on make this possible. They also reduce and control essential personal interaction, and travel outside her hermitage. She uses Facebook, Twitter and her website to explain her life-style and convey news to friends. Visit
http://www.stcuthbertshouse.co.uk/.
Solitaries and hermits often like to communicate – imagine how Thomas Merton would have used social media! Maggie Ross, an Anglican solitary and author, writes her blog ‘Voice in the Wilderness’ at
http://ravenwilderness.blogspot.gr/.
In these ways the internet can also help us to increase our times of silence and solitude.
Online meetings
You can create prayer groups online. For many years I have regularly met with a few others, in the UK and on another continent, for sessions of the Jesus Prayer and the Daily Office. I met the other group members online and I have now met two of them in real life, in the UK and abroad. Without the internet we would never have met. For one member who lives in a remote area, the internet gave her the ability to meet with other Christians.
Communication online is very helpful for those with hearing problems and for introverts.
Have you considered starting an online Julian Meeting? Our group now use Skype, and before that we used a free chat room. An online group is ideal for those people who are geographically dispersed and for the housebound. If you would like to chat about how to set up an online meeting, or something similar, please email it@thejulianmetings.net.
The benefits of modern technology
The virtual life is real life. It can broaden our scope and our horizons. It can enrich our lives and our relationships. All these are signs of the Holy Spirit at work. Like everything else, it is what we make of it.
The Julian Meetings has had a website and email addresses for many years. More recently our National Council decided to take advantage of the improved systems and software now available to make it easier for our members to communicate with us and each other, to make more use of social media and provide more resources. Not so much an ‘if you can’t beat them join them’ approach, but gladly embracing what modern communication systems have to offer to carry our message, support our members and fulfil our objectives.
Join in the conversation
Would you like to comment on this article, or anything else in this magazine? If you are a magazine subscriber you can log in to our members area on the JM website and start a conversation on the discussion forum. We’d be delighted to hear from you.
Article
Ann Moran
New Members Area on the JM Website
This is a new main menu heading on the JM website: it is a private area for those subscribers and Meeting first and second contacts who have provided their email addresses. All personal subscribers have access. Meeting Contacts / second contacts will need to create a password to log in. Suggestions for content are welcome! We hope this area will become a hub for member communication: so far it has a member’s forum, a news section, and a Members’ Directory.
The Members’ Directory
Members choose whether or not to appear on this. It is viewable in the ‘members only’ area, or can also be seen on a public directory. Members choose their privacy level: the default is always completely private. To view your privacy settings go to your Profile and click on the blue link ‘Privacy’. To edit these click on ‘Edit Profile’ and then click on privacy. To edit your ‘About Me’ information and add or change a profile picture click on ‘Profile’.
You can also send and receive messages to and from other members. This might particularly interest to our non-UK members who can be very isolated. Members can have a ‘send a message’ facility, as with our JM contacts.
When a Meeting closes, or people live in an area without a Meeting, some members say they would be open to being in contact with other ‘lone’ Julians to talk about JM, perhaps meet up occasionally, or encourage local interest in JM.
The new Forum
We’ve included some initial content: you can reply to topics and posts and create your own topics. You can receive email updates when new comments or topics are posted: click on the subscribe link at the top right of the forum and the topic. A green tick appears when you have subscribed to the email updates: to cancel it just click the ‘Unsubscribe’ link.
Suggestions Welcome
We welcome suggestions. You can create a topic on the forum and / or you can email it@thejulianmeetings.net.
Poem
Malcolm Guite
Like Unto Leaven
Matthew 13.33: Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.
‘The kingdom is like leaven in the grain.’
A woman knows the secret of this word
For she has nursed the rising life within,
The nine-month-hidden miracle of God.
Our Lady took and hid the precious leaven,
A secret ferment working in the dark,
For even there within her inner haven
Our Lord began in us his own good work,
And earth was leavened with the grace of heaven,
That raises us to life, body and soul.
In Bethlehem the staff of life lay hidden,
The only broken thing that makes us whole,
The mystery whereby the world is fed,
For Bethlehem itself means ‘House of Bread’.
Quotation
St Clare
Gaze upon Him
Consider Him
Contemplate Him
As you desire to imitate Him
Article
Gail Ballinger and Jennifer Tann
Christian Mindfulness
Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in Christian Mindfulness. A few books on mindfulness were published before 2011 (eg. Thich Nhat Hanh The Miracle of Mindfulness, Rider, 2008) but Mark Williams’ and Danny Penman’s Mindfulness, a Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World (Piatkus 2011) sparked a mushrooming of books on the subject. Mark Williams, Professor Emeritus of Clinical Psychology at Oxford University and an Anglican priest, co-wrote the book, which is accessible, does not patronise the reader and gives an encouraging route through the teaching and meditations.
The first few book pages of Amazon’s website produce over 40 mindfulness titles which relate it to health, children, music, and women, plus a mindfulness diary and six colouring books. Not one title identified Mindfulness and Christianity. A few had Buddhism in the titles, as they should for Buddhism is a key source of inspiration for western mindfulness practice. We have identified some (but not all) of the recently published books on Christian mindfulness and its relationship to Christian meditation, and hope these reviews may be helpful.
A BOOK OF SPARKS: a study in Christian MindFullness
Shaun Lamber
Instant Apostle. first published 2012, new ed with study guide 2014
Shaun Lambert, a Baptist Minister in Stanmore, leads retreats at Worth Abbey where he’s known as The Benedictine Baptist. He has an article in Retreats Magazine 2016 and has just published a book called Putting On the Wakeful One.
Shaun’s book is a study in Christian MindFullness – our empty lives being filled with the Holy Spirit. Mindfulness with a Christian scaffold, it has daily readings from Mark’s gospel, for each of six weeks, that show how Jesus calls us to be aware and attentive. Shaun is passionate about developing mindful awareness in education. He draws on The Jesus Prayer and Lectio Divina, both of which he practises. Other themes are repairing our vision; Monet’s water lilies linked to The Cloud of Unknowing; correcting the distortion of superiority; narcissism and our lack of compassion. This excellent book has a study guide for using it as a resource for a six week course. Shaun’s website is www.shaunlambert.co.uk.
MINDFULNESS AND CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY: making space for God
Tim Stead
SPCK 2016
Tim Stead is an Anglican priest and accredited mindfulness teacher; has long practised contemplative prayer; spoke at Greenbelt 2016; and runs mindfulness courses in his parish.
Part 1 introduces mindfulness, setting it in its clinical and main-stream contexts before exploring how it relates to Christianity, the Christian contemplative tradition, the Gospels and his own life journey.
Part 2 looks at the nature of God: God is one, God is love, God is now, and how we can only relate to God in the present moment and how mindfulness helps us to live more in the present. One chapter is about Jesus, the fully awakened one, fully aware. Another is about The Holy Spirit, particularly what he calls decentring: the awareness that we are not the centre; free will; the place of our vision in it; and the developing of awareness down the centuries.
Part 3: From doing to being, includes prayer and worship, inner healing, finding peace and reconnecting with nature. Of inner healing he says ‘Shame is one of the great tyrants of the inner life.’ Is mindfulness prayer? No, but ‘It could be said that John the Baptist is to Jesus as mindfulness is to prayer or the work of God’ (p. 24). Mindfulness does offer Christianity a way of settling down, readying, for prayer or Bible study. The book has some Gospel-based exercises eg. Mary and Martha, John the Baptist, plus other exercises from Mark Williams and Danny Penman’s book.
There is a good reading list and list of courses at the end. For downloads of talks and sermons by Tim Stead on a theme of mindfulness see www.hthq.org.uk.
HOW TO BE A MINDFUL CHRISTIAN: 40 simple spiritual practices,
Sally Welch
Canterbury Press, Norwich, 2016
Sally Welch is Spirituality Advisor for Oxford Diocese, Vicar of Charlbury and Area Dean. She is the author of six books on spirituality, including two on labyrinths.
After a brief introduction to Christian mindfulness, followed by a section on silence, Sally Welch introduces the subject in practical ways through a series of meditations which focus on the senses: sound, sight, smell, sight, touch, taste. The book ends with meditations for ‘The Mindful Pilgrimage’ and Holy week. Each meditation begins with a short Bible passage, followed by a reflection and an exercise. The exercises are imaginative. One invites the reader to imagine ‘resting in God’s arms…the warmth and comfort of his arms, the security of his grasp.’ Others are mindfully preparing a meal; or taking time to notice people – the person serving coffee, a cleaner, the shop assistant. This book might suit someone seeking an introduction to Christian mindfulness, as it is accessible and encouraging. It suggests journaling in words or pictures a positive, happy, moment of each day: reminding ourselves of a good thing (however small) that has happened to us that day helps to relate all that we do to God. There is no book list, nor suggestions for further reading nor references to some of the (accessible) pioneering writings on mindfulness.
Living with the Mind of Christ
Stefan Gillow Reynolds
DLT 2016
The author is an Oblate of the World Community for Christian Meditation.
He is an excellent and clear advocate of Christian meditation and mindfulness. Tracing mysticism down the ages, he makes a convincing case for the Christian origins of mindfulness, going back to the Desert Fathers and Mothers, St Augustine, Meister Eckhart, The Cloud of Unknowing and others, while acknowledging its indebtedness to Buddhism. He argues that mindfulness always had a place in contemplative Christianity and that the early mystics can encourage practitioners of mindfulness to meditate more profoundly.
This is a book in which to dig deeply and reflectively. In many places it is akin to poetry. Having said that ‘Christianity is a theology of the body’ and ‘The Holy Spirit is what enables people to enter into a conscious, mindful relationship with the source of their being’ he reminds us that breath is central to the Christian story, that ‘Jesus breathed on (his disciples) and said ”Receive the Holy Spirit” (Jn 20.22) Mindfulness begins with a focus on the breath, returning to it as the mind wanders.
Mind and action are linked: ‘a calm mind leads to appropriate behaviour, while ‘untoward emotions’ or ‘disturbing impulses’ are at the root of ‘behavioural dysfunction.’ This is a rich book, with notes and a guide to further reading.
Afterword
Anxieties have been expressed about mindfulness practice, with some people feeling out of control during mindfulness exercises. Both Eastern and Western Christian traditions allude to potential adverse effects. St John of the Cross, and other mystics, write of ‘desolations’ which they see as a way in which God teaches people to walk on their own. An article in the Church Times (24/3/2016) suggested that Christian mind-fulness, in the tradition of the mystics, should be able to cope with the negative emotions that can emerge during meditation. Christian meditation, ‘in which the soul grows in awareness of the fullness of the living God,’ is part of what churches could offer to a society ‘yearning after a deeper, more honest spirituality.’ It might correct some of the more worryingly banal secular mindfulness practices.
Article
Marjorie Dobson
Answered Prayer
The room was quiet. We’d gathered to pray about the future of our church – its building and its fellowship. Only a few people had turned up. Perhaps most were thinking of giving up the struggle to keep going. The room was small. We were sitting on the bench around the walls, so were almost in a circle and could see each other clearly. There was no reason to talk: we all knew why we were there. The leader said a few words, then suggested that we pray in whatever way seemed appropriate. The room went still and quiet. The silence was intense, unbreakable: each of us lost in our own thoughts, yet aware of the others present. We were waiting for something, anything, to happen. Nothing did. An occasional shuffle of feet, or intake of breath, suggested that someone was about to speak, but no one did.
Time moved on, but we were not aware of it.
We were waiting. What for, we didn’t know.
After what could have been an hour, or even two, the leader spoke, quoting from the Bible. One by one, heads were lifted around the room and we were all watching the speaker with a strange sense of expectation. He ended with a prayer, and there was silence, but not for long. The first one to speak was amazed that she had just heard spoken the very words that had been on her mind. Each person said the same.
Why had we all been given exactly the same, familiar, words: ‘Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness’? Why now? Why everyone? Was it really an answer to prayer?
It was a rather ambiguous answer to give, yet we all also remembered that other quotation: ‘where two or three of you agree in my name’ then God will answer prayer. We weren’t sure how, but we knew that God had been in that room with us and was aware of our need.
We still had to work out the details, but our attitudes were changed from that evening. We could, and did, move on from that meeting with a renewed sense of knowing we were part of God’s work in that church and community. Such a strange, simple, thing to happen, but it left its mark on us all.
Meditation
Kay Short
Making Sense
As I sit in the silence, my eyes are opened and I see all that You have done
As I sit in the silence, I taste the cold of winter; your purity made clear through the white of the snow, reminding me of your perfect sacrifice of love
As I sit in the silence, I smell the fragrance of spring; your creation blossoming around me and within me, helping me grow
As I sit in the silence, I feel the heat of summer; burning a deep passion to live for You alone and use my gifts for others
As I sit in the silence, I hear the wind rustling the autumn leaves; and I know it is the breath of life moving towards me, filling me and shaping me for Your purpose
As I sit in the silence
I see your grace all around me;
I smell your presence next to me;
I feel your beauty within me;
I hear your call;
I taste the victory of your death;
And I live.
Poem
Sarah Cawdell
Silence
There are occasions
As people pray
The silence is so loud
Heavy
Golden with Godshine
Like the sun rising over a wood silver with hoar frost
As a waterfall into lake Galilee
The space between the seraphim
Moves me to tears
Falling
Falling
Falling
Into laughter.
Quotation
Frederick Buechner
Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and the pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the heavenly and hidden heart of it because, in the last analysis, all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.
Poem
Brian Morris
Cwm Gwaun
There is no room for haste here. The road
admits no rule but its own, and that was set
for man and beast long before cars
were thought of. And so
every journey becomes a pilgrimage,
a slowing of the spirit, and the eye
awakens.
It is in another world,
a world brought close, enfolded in the hills
and secret. Time has another meaning here.
Light lies heavy in the fields, filters
through the woods, and glints
in the soft ripples of the river
where the heron guards, but cannot
prevent its escape.
At night it is all gone. Silence returns
soft as the owl’s wing across the meadow,
sharp as the stars. Even the wind
coughs gently before it enters here,
lest it awaken a slumbering lost age
in the secret place where we hide
ourselves.
It is a place of exchange:
What will you leave, what will you give
to escape? A dream, a hope, a love?
The wisest chose forgetfulness, foregoing
memory, and never know their loss. The rest
return, time and again, to bathe
in flowing peace between the hills
Article
Brenda Holman
A Thin Place
In 2013 my husband Hamish and I visited our children, Miles and Clare, who lived in London. They planned a lovely holiday for us, hiring a very well equipped camper for us to travel to Wales and revisit places we knew many years ago when we spent a few months in Cardiff. Hamish had spent some time with Canon Norman Autton as part of his training before he became Hospital Chaplain in Pietermaritzburg, in the Anglican Diocese of Natal, South Africa.
Clare hoped we could visit Ffald-y-Brenin, two miles from Pontfaen in Cwm Gwaun, a valley in Pembrokeshire, as she’d read a description of it in Roy Goodwin’s book ‘The Grace Out-pouring’. We set off from London, had overnight stops at some lovely camp sites, and drove along incredible roads through the beautiful countryside. We arrived there in the afternoon and were welcomed as day visitors as we had not made a booking.
We parked the camper in a nearby field and enjoyed the inquisitive cows and quiet of the countryside. We all went along to Evening Prayer and after a wonderfully restful night, went to the Chapel for morning service, which was dignified, gentle and very beautiful. The stone-walled Chapel is circular and built round a huge rock jutting up out of the ground just where an altar would be. Sitting alone on the stone benches that line the wall, after everyone had left, I remember thinking ‘If I were CS Lewis I might call it deep magic’ but describing it as a ‘thin place’ is better.
Before we left, Clare and I enjoyed a morning cup of coffee together, seated at a huge window in the sunroom overlooking the beautiful valley below: not chatting but just ‘being’ in a very special place.
Back home in South Africa, I give thanks for every one of those precious memories of my ‘thin place’
Ffald-y-Brenin is position high above Cwm Gwaun in the Presceli Hills, Pembrokeshire, West Wales. Ffald-y-Brenin is the Welsh for ‘Sheepfold of the King’.
Quotation
John Rackley
Although it is often applied to special places like Iona it doesn’t have to. A thin place can be as ordinary as dust and as common a place as a pavement.
‘Thin Places’ are not necessarily comfortable. The closer we come to God the more we will know the pain he experiences for the love of the world.
Article
[unstated]
Introducing the Julian Meetings Safeguarding Policy
The JM Council is aware that many organisations, public and private, large and small, charitable and non-charitable, are now criticised for not having safeguarding policies. The Council has therefore addressed the issue. We now offer guidance to our members, both for those times when we meet regularly in small groups, and for the times when we may plan more public events, locally or regionally.
We recognize that all of us, at some time, may be vulnerable to abuse and that abuse comes in many forms – not simply the kinds that regularly hit the media headlines.
As JM is a very disparate organization – a network of many independent meetings – and run by volunteers, we cannot do more than issue guidelines. One concern is that, if anything untoward should happen in one meeting, it would reflect on the organization as a whole.
We have therefore written a set of principles which recognise our values as a Movement, together with more detailed protocols. One list of protocols applies to those regular small Julian Meetings held in private homes or Church/village hall premises. Another list applies to any regional or national ‘day/weekend’ event of a more public nature. One Council member has taken on the role of Safeguarding Officer, and is the person to contact if any member has any concerns.
We are also investigating Public Liability insurance but in the meantime we strongly advise that, if you organise an event, you check the appropriate levels of insurance you may need.
This is not something new. Our booklet ‘The Healthy Julian Meeting’ has guidelines for various situations that Meetings might face, with suggestions on how to prevent them or to deal with them if they occur. ‘The ideal Julian Meeting’ states the cornerstones of JM traditions alongside the many ways in which we pursue our aims, ensuring that everyone feels safe, secure and tranquil in our meetings. These new documents simply formalise how we hope we always value and respect each other. They raise awareness of how abuse, particularly emotional and spiritual abuse of power, can arise in the most apparently normal settings. They may also make us aware of, and sensitive to, some who may be suffering abuse for reasons totally external to our meetings.
Poem
Gill Butterworth
Advent Vigil
No annunciation
No angel’s visitation
But a waiting in the dark
A yearning in my heart
To know the Word-made-flesh
One with my flesh,
For this he came to take
My life in His! —–
My great baptismal gift
Where Bride and Body meet
And one Flesh births my life
To live, and wait,
Conceive, gestate,
And bring forth
Christ!
Article
[unstated]
Who Am I?
At a retreat, Lent Group, Study Day etc. we are often asked to introduce ourselves in a few words. This led to:
Who Am I?
I live in a city / the country / on a beautiful island ….
I am married / single / widowed / gay / partnered ….
I have children / grandchildren / none ….
I am a member of my local art / tennis / bridge / theatre club …
I am RC / Anglican / Methodist / URC / Quaker / other …
I am a teacher / farmer / taxi driver / retired …
Who am I really?
I am a child of God
I am a seeking soul
Book review
John Ansell
Magdalen Smith • Fragile Mystics: reclaiming a prayerful life
SPCK, 2015, £10.99
Magdalen Smith writes to encourage Christians to reclaim the mystical tradition of communion with God as a necessary balance to the demands of a busy working life. Her easy and accessible style of writing should attract a wide audience. The practice of attuning to the divine presence is much needed in today’s frantic world. Each of the book’s ten chapters concludes with a useful selection of practical suggestions for personal and corporate projects.
The book is well referenced with cultural allusions to modern media sitting alongside current works of theology and the classics of Christian mysticism. In addition to a broad range of quotations, Smith also shares personal anecdotes, inviting the reader to sense her vulnerability. With the ever-present demands of Church, family and the world at large, her desire to help others find God shines through.
The chapters headed ‘Gaze’, ‘Dark’, ‘Deep’ and ‘Shed’ pay tribute to the apophatic tradition, typified by the writings of St.John of the Cross, Meister Eckhart, ‘The Cloud’ author and their modern acolytes. Smith gives equal regard to Julian of Norwich, Ignatius of Loyola and Thomas Traherne. Her balanced portrayal of these different aspects of the mystical quest will be an asset to anyone looking for a spiritual balance between darkness and light. She helps her readers to react effectively to both the negative and positive elements in their particular situations. This book will be useful to all who sense a calling to join the ranks of ‘fragile mystics’ in uncertain times.
Book review
Michael Cayley
Mark Oakley • The Splash of Words, Believing in Poetry
Canterbury Press, 2016, £12.99
Each chapter of this book consists of a poem followed by thoughts by Mark Oakley. Most of the poems are likely to be unfamiliar to the reader, and all are good. Janet Morley has produced books with the same structure, but Mark Oakley’s approach is a bit different. Janet Morley relates her thoughts closely to the text of the poems, with a lot of close reading of them and explanations of how they work as literature.
Mark Oakley generally focuses less on literary criticism: there is some brief biographical information about the poets, but to a large extent he uses the poems as springboards into wider reflections. He often includes extensive quotes from other poems and refers to his own experiences. The reflections are deep, with much to meditate on.
There is a long preface discussing how to read poems – and how to read the Bible in a similar way: opening ourselves to the resonances of the text and Bible imagery and the possibility of widely varying interpretations. Mark Oakley argues against literalist reading of the Bible. Frequently, in the rest of the book, he advocates a religion that is open rather than prescriptive. It is almost worth buying the book for the preface alone.
This is a book to take slowly, no more than a chapter a day. I loved it, and expect to return to it frequently.
Book review
Brian Morris
Malcolm Guite • Parable and Paradox
Canterbury Press, 2016, £10.99
Malcolm Guite’s contributions to both poetry and theology are well-known, and this collection of ‘sonnets on the sayings of Jesus and other poems’ is a welcome addition to his previous offerings. Indeed, it goes further. Not only are we offered exquisite poetic craftsmanship, and precision of language combined with theological reflection, but here, in a way which has not always been so clearly expressed, we also encounter Malcolm himself. In many of his verses there is a dialogue which he uses to share his own experiences and reactions, and in so doing, to draw us deeper into the story.
In placing elements of his story alongside the stories of Jesus, Malcolm invites us to consider our stories, and how they might relate to the situation he is exploring. Like Jesus, he is not afraid of using humour and whimsy, as well as stories of pain and doubt, to draw us out of ourselves, and into what we are offered the chance to become. He is never patronising; his learning sits lightly, and is used to illuminate the road he encourages us to discover. It’s summarised succinctly in the first of the ‘Sonnets on the Parables’, ‘He that hath ears to hear, let him hear’, and this in many ways summarises the whole offering. I know that this is a source of refreshment and revelation to which I shall return time and again, and I am deeply grateful to Malcolm for making this collection available to us all.
Book review
Christopher Collingwood
Nicholas Buxton • The Wilderness Within: Meditation and Modern Life
Canterbury Press, 2014, £12.00
This is a gem of a book. Whether you are simply curious, or even suspicious, about the nature of meditation or already a serious practitioner, this book will not disappoint. The author does offer practical advice about method – he advocates the simple practice of just paying attention to the breath, with if
necessary, a mantra or word with no ostensible meaning to anchor the attention and keep the mind from wandering. This is not so much a how-to-meditate as a why-to-meditate book. In this regard it is one of the best I have come across.
The author keeps in mind two concerns – the pressures and (distorted) values of modern life and the rich resources of the Christian contemplative tradition – and seeks to show how they inform one another. Although meditation can be an aid in stress reduction and relaxation, meditation actually sets out to achieve or gain nothing. It is not about self-improvement but the fullness of being human, by being present to who, what, where and how we really are. It is about waking up. This involves becoming aware of how we are conditioned, programmed and enslaved by being encouraged to accept a false construction of the self as permanent, independent and self-existing rather than fluid, contingent and ever-changing.
Informed readers will rightly sense the Buddhist influence here. The author has a PhD in Buddhism but he is also an Anglican priest and the whole tenor of the book is deeply rooted in the Bible. His exposition of the spiritual dynamics of Exodus reminded me of Gregory of Nyssa, but with rich, fresh, additional spiritual insight. Personally, I would have welcomed a more overt development of how Buddhism and Christianity can mutually enrich and inform one another. In the present climate the author may have opted for caution.
Although rooted in the Bible, the rationale for the book’s title only becomes clear well into it – is the allusion really to the second book of The Dark Night by John of the Cross? Also the chapter headings seem to make rather forced Biblical connections. This may have been the influence of the editor rather than the author’s original intention.
This small criticism should not deflect or dissuade anyone from reading, re-reading and treasuring this book as it is quite simply superb!
Book review
Sheila Appleton
Elizabeth Ruth Obbard • Holiness for Everyone: St Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life AND The Music of Silence: Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity for Everyone
(each book) New City, 2016, £5.95
Elizabeth Ruth Obbard OCD is a Carmelite solitary attached to Aylesford Priory in Kent. These books are the latest in a series of simplified, illustrated spiritual classics designed ‘to make them accessible to ordinary people’. The introduction provides background information on the life of the author.
Francis de Sales(1567–1622) was Bishop of Geneva in 1602. His The Introduction to the Devout Life began as letters to his ‘spiritual daughter’. He emphasises the importance of finding a spiritual companion and the qualities and attributes needed by an individual embarking on the spiritual journey. He explores temptations, anxiety, sadness, the Eucharist and methods of prayer and meditation, ending with practical exercises and instructions, including one on ‘loving yourself’.
Less well known, Elizabeth of the Trinity (1880–1906) was born in France. Her father died when she was seven. In her teens her vocation to a life of prayer led to a longing to enter the nearby Carmel in Dijon. Her mother would not consider this until she was twenty-one. Elizabeth realised that ‘living with God’ could be practiced in secular life but her vocation grew and she refused an advantageous marriage offer. She entered the Carmel in 1901, so sacrificing her considerable musical ability for the ‘music of silence.’ Initially happy as a Carmelite, she entered ‘a dark night’ experience, struggling to pray, to be faithful and to continue in her chosen life. She fell ill in 1903 and died 3 years later, aged twenty six. The book includes her Prayer to the Trinity and copies of two retreats. It is so arranged that her words can be read as a daily inspiration and aid to prayer. It reveals her secret of surrender in love to the Lord that she called ‘her Three.’ Her last words were ‘I am going to Light, to Love, to Life.’
These books form a useful introduction to the writings of spiritual men and women.
Book review
Judy Howard
Elizabeth Wagner • Seasons in My Garden, Meditations from a Hermitage
Maria Press, Indiana, 2016, $16.95
This book’s cover says Sister Elizabeth is a nun whose ‘earthy Benedictine wisdom is celebrated in meditations on gardening, spirituality and seasons of the year’.
A book for slow reading, I start too fast and miss the point. It is autumn in my garden but I dive into page one – Winter. I just don’t connect. I stop. The prologue tells me, ‘I have a word for you as you begin this book: Read at your own pace. Skip around if you choose. Slow down. Speed up. Most of all, ask questions. Ask them of yourself, of your life, of God.’
I turn to Autumn, ‘Golden rod days’. Her story becomes mine. Her garden becomes one with mine. The beautiful description of place and stillness, every tiny detail, draws me into being utterly present, attentive to the autumn around me. The outer landscape speaks to the inner landscape. Golden rod stillness. She teaches me from the Fathers of the church. I am held in her monastic rhythm.
She waits and watches; her own daily experiences – weight, health, needing boundaries, down-sizing, the creative tension of vocation. The book has 22 meditations, including Blessed boredom, Fear, My friend, Ah, roses. In the prologue she shares her calling, her dream. ‘I have a prayer for you’, she writes, ‘may you always have questions, more questions than answers. May you always have a dream. May you always find Presence weedily growing through the sunshine and hurricanes of your days’.