not sure

I'm really not sure what to write about this week. I haven't done brilliantly with stillness, silence or prayer, and I'm feeling ambivalent about God-stuff in general. I feel at the moment that I'm loving the idea of God, but not really God him/herself. Has God just been a comfort blanket for me this week? Probably. I think I'm still processing a lot of stuff regarding the Bible and church, and where and who we put our faith in. I just read Si's post, and think it would be good to talk about this, as I feel like it would help us as a group to chat more outside of our meetings.

I hope you are all well, and loving better than me! ;) I'm going to stop now, and email y'all about this stuff.

James

in brief

Sorry to have been so neglectful here ... and I haven't got much to say today either ...

And this is really short notice, but my friend is organising an Open Mic happening at the Brudenell Social Club tonight, and I'm going to head over there soon to help set up ... will be singing a couple of tunes as well ... do drop by if you fancy! It's £4 in.

I haven't been very disciplined with morning/evening prayers over the past few weeks ... though am still doing the 'God be in my head' prayer most mornings ... but am having an amazing time of realisations all the time these days ... you can check my personal blog for more details if interested in reading my ruminations ...

Soz to be so disorganised/uncontemplative!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! See y'all next week and I look forward to having a thorough read of your blogs on the weekend.

church/Church

apologies again in advance for the rambly-ness of this post...

james shaw was round yesterday, to slap some fibre glass on jesus' bottom [don't ask]
we had a good chat about a whole load of stuff, including revive and the way it operates - both the good and the bad aspects of that - we touched on stuff about prophets, and authority, and leadership, and the extent to which folk in churches make themselves accountable to their leaders and to each other...

anyway, i came away with a renewed sense of just how far out of Church my journey has taken me.
in one sense, i'm still part of church - as in the sense of the family of god. using the word church in that way, i am, and i hope that i always will be, churched.
but in the sense of membership of the Institution, in submitting myself to the authority and hierarchy and organisational practices of a Church or denomination... well i'm long gone... talking to james made me realize again just how far behind me that all is.

[and that doesn't mean that i think of myself as any better than folk who love the Church instutions and have chosen to stay and do their faith there. just that our journeys are very different.]

[and sometimes on the journey you have cause to pause and look back and see how far you've travelled...]

so.
if i'm not a part of Church anymore, what am i part of?
what's the template that'll frame the faith thing for me now?
how do i make it work outside the context of a Church fellowship thing?
i think it's the monastic model.

it's not like i've not known this for a while. more that talking with james gave me a refreshed perspective about where i'm headed. and i'm left thinking again that i need to be more intentional about the monastic thing - i can't afford to let it drift...

and that in itself throws up a whole load of questions in my mind about our group, and how formal we are/can be as a group, and how intentional and committed we are or might want to be or might become; to each other and to what we create together...

as usual, i have no answers, but these are the things i'm pondering...
for my part, i feel that maybe i've been dabbling with it for long enough now - could be time to take a deep breath dive in...? what do you all reckon?

si

Learning

I'm approaching this in the wrong way today and yet I will go ahead anyway.

Let me explain. I'm currently unable to access the internet at home (except by stealing a connection off the neighbours which I have to admit - I do do... But it's just not that reliable!). Therefore I am having to write this blog entry from uni where I have come for just a couple of hours to get some emailing done.

I am therefore not in a 'thoughtful' place and certianly not feeling like I can contribute much wisdom to the pot today.

However I did want to say that I have found other people's entries really helpful for my learning. James talked yesterday about getting away from 'knowing' everything about God. This is important for me to embrace as I have become a bit sceptical about my faith over these past few years and that is partly due to having had a similar experience to James in terms of growing up in a tradition that sought to explain everything in the Bible and everything in life through the prism of an omnipotent and omniscient being called God.

Now that I'm learning to let go of some of that need to explain things, I am also starting to let go of some of my scepticism which arose as a direct result of having explained everything in black and white for so long that when black and white let me down I couldn't see the other colours anymore, I couldn't see them for the grey, just like I hadn't been able to see the grey for the black and white. My metaphor is a complicated one but I hope it makes some sense.

All I know is that I'm learning. And James, Leesun, Si and Sue are helping me do that right now so thank you for your entries guys.

Timing

Ey up! Well, we'll be seeing you this evening, but I thought I'd get my 10p's worth in before then. Sorry I missed it last week, was all over the place with tiredness, etc. This week I'm compensating by blogging at 6am!!!

I thought I'd share a bit on timing, as that seems to be something God's nudging me about at the moment. Specifically, learning to WAIT on him/her/them. I'm a right one for presuming I know more than I do about God and all things God-related - part of this is due to being brought up in a very modern church and home environment where God was often pretty much reduced to this set of texts (the Bible and commentaries) whereby you could "prove" almost anything. This had the 2 outcomes of encouraging my arrogance about my knowledge, and dehumanising (depersonalising?) God in my perception and experience.

Thanks to God (and in part to Monks) that's all changing again, and one of the main changes is that I'm learning a little bit of what it means to wait on God. And it is a tiny bit, but it's lovely, because it's very real again, and I don't feel any compulsion to 'prove' it to anyone (least myself) by using the Bible or clever theology.

Anyway, what this boils down to is that I'm realising that just like lots of other people who I know and love, God often has different ways of doing, seeing, saying things than me, and if I want to get on better with him/her/them, then I need to chill out, not be pushy, but ask, and seek, and knock, and wait until God shows, tells, meets me in the way that he/she/they want.

That's it for now. Hope you're all well, and look forward to seeing you tonight :)

James

more random stuff

aye up!

another monday and i've nothing hugely profound or coherent to blog [again]

but here are some random things, all the same...

i've realised that without meaning to, i've taken on esther's resolution for spending more time outside.
the extension/building site has a roof, so even when it's wet [and boy has it been wet here recently!] i can get out into the open air and do my moring solitude/silence thing. i'm still loving that.

i'm being more obedient at home. spending more time with eddie in particular has been good this past week. [he's a kid who needs you to make time for him, because he doesn't demand attention like joe does...] so i'm pleased about that.

i'm lifting my head more when i'm out and about - the result is more conversations, more folk in the neighbourhood met and engaged with.

and i've sort of attended to the issue of vitue that we've had. it's not resolved, really, but then it's always going to be an ongoing thing, and it feels good to have begun to get to grips with it...


si

Time passes

Hi guys,
Sorry I seem to have missed my slot the last couple of weeks. One week we were on holiday and last week I can't even remember!!
We are approaching a momentous day in our family as Eddie becomes 10 on Tuesday. I can't quite believe it is 10 years since this amazing bundle of life arrived. We were thrust into parenthood without having much idea as to what it would entail. For the early years it was about physical loving and nurturing, but as the baby turned to toddler to little boy to much bigger boy, it has become about loving the person he is and will become,about loving when you don't like what you hear or see and loving him through his own emotional development and standing back to let him work things out for himself.

Last Saturday saw the anniversary of my Dad's death, 20 years ago! A significant passage of time, a lifetime for some people! A sense of sadness as always, particularly for the 7 grandchildren he never met. Grief no longer grips me with such intensity or pain, nor is it my every waking thought but even 20 years on I can be instantly back to that moment and experience the reality of it all over again. Does time heal? No I don't believe on its own that it does. Mine came from a direct experience of God's intervention. Time is a reality, it allows distance between you and the event , it allows for a more thoughtful response, it allows you to look back and see how God has been at work but of itself I can't pin it down. 10 years, 20 years 30 years what does it matter. My life is a journey and these events are part of it, something that happened yesterday I've already forgotten but something 10 or 20 years ago I remember in minute detail.

Time passes and what I choose to do with my time is significant.

I remember reading something when Si and I were first married and it talked about 'wasting' time together, where time set aside to be us was important, not 'doing' things together but almost revelling in each others space.
I wonder if that's where I need to be with God, when time spent in solitude with him isn't about 'doing' but about 'wasting', where I enjoy just being in His presence.

sue

Returning home

Dear fellow monks,

I'm sorry for my inability to have joined in the conversation until now. And I'm sorry that today's not my day but I wanted to get in there as I've just read through the posts and feel inspired to chip in.

I've been away and now I'm home.

I love the familiarity of returning home, whether it's to a person or a place that feels like a safe zone of belonging - it always fills me with a special kind of joy.

But this time I'm returning in a slightly different way and with slightly different intentions. Being away for three months and reading Finding Sanctuary in foreign climes has encouraged me to change pace a little. To take time to feel my way slowly. To not rush and strive so much. OK I know what you're going to say - the 'not striving' kind of comes naturally anyway as working has never been my strong point!.

What I mean is that for me reading Finding Sanctuary has very much been about trying to find a way I can spend less time being sociable.

This might sound strange but before going away I got to the point where I felt drained from constantly seeing people and being out and about in social contexts. The thing is I love people. I love talking to people and I love being around people I love (or even just the ones I like). I don't think this is a bad thing but when I spend all my time rushing from appointment to appointment I think there's something not quite right because frankly - it has become a way of escaping. Escaping responsibility and escaping silence. I'm not good with silence.

I realise this may now be very long so I'm going to finish but I just wanted to say that I still want to be around people but I need to find ways to lead a calmer life and I reckon you guys can hold me to this a little. Because it can't be about becoming totally inward-looking - that would be selfish and wrong - but I have to learn how to have balance. Since I've been back I haven't rushed round seeing people. I've let things happen naturally and gently and I feel energised instead of paralised. I just hope I can carry on like this without giving in to the temptation of being ms social whirl again...

Having said all that, it's good to be home and I can't wait to see you all!

Esther

random stuff

[aye up james, looks like it's just thee and me then - heh heh]

was thinking about the whole 'wrestling with demons' thing. no great insights, but i was wondering about that bit in the OT where jacob wrestles with the angel [it defeats him by dislocating his hip] and thinking about what the difference is - angels or demons... maybe it's about a shift in your perspective? pint pot half empty or half full sort of thing... or maybe it's about how far along the journey you are... whatever, i like the idea of wrestling with the angels...

been reading the obedience chapter in the book too, and realising that in my working life, i am very obdeient. my clients get a good service out of me and i'll bend over backwards to meet deadlines and stuff.
but at home, sue and the kids often get a bit of a raw deal - they suffer for my commitment to work. i'm much less obedient outside of my job. it's that old work/life balance thing again. so i need you all to challenge me and make me accountable for thinking and working through some changes on that front please...

also been thinking about virtue again. we've got a situation at the mo where we've not been particularly virtuous - not by anything that we've done, more by something that we've neglected - and it's weighing quite heavily on me at the mo. hold me to a commitment to do something about it...

si

wrestling with demons

I'm feeling pretty rubbish this morning, as I've had yet another night where I dreamt of being in a very real situation where I struggled to do my best, yet was unable to achieve my goals once again. This has been a recurring dream since I've been in Canada.

All is still going excellently with LeeSun's recording / life in general (she sends her apologies for not getting to blog yesterday).

Going back to the demons, not exactly sure what they're called, but glad that they're manifesting as this feels like a step forward in (hopefully) defeating / dispelling them.

Don't know what else to write at the moment - hope this makes sense.

James

understanding

we've been using this prayer for quite a while now -

god be in my head and in my understanding
god be in my eyes and in my looking
god be in my mouth and in my speaking
god be in my heart and in my thinking
god be at my end and at my departing

i start my day with it - since the weather's been a bit warmer i've got into a nice groove of sitting out side with a coffee before i start work and practicing a bit of silence and solitude. it's good.

it's a simple enough prayer, but there's real depths to explore in there. i feel like i'm learning over and over that prayer is not so much about me petitioning god, but about god seeking and awakening things out in me...

at different times different lines in the prayer strike a chord, different things leap out at me, or at least they'll shift fuzzily into a slightly clearer focus.

i was wondering at one point whether the prayer works sequentially - eg until we begin to understand we don't know what we're looking at; or maybe the challenge gets tougher and deeper as you progress through the prayer (understanding is easier or at least more passive than looking, which is less challenging than speaking, with a revolution in your way of thinking being hardest of all...?)

anyhow.
today i'm thinking about understanding.
and i love this paradox that is opening up for me at the mo - the more that i come to understand of god, the more i realise how little of god i actually do understand.
maybe the metaphor of the journey is appropriate here - the further we travel, the more we realise how many other places there are to go.
i like that god is continually bigger and more surprising than my understanding of him/her.

so i like the idea of inviting god to be in my head, asking god to shape my understanding.
i like the idea that it's a process, i like that i'm learning, that i'm not the finished article, that i'm becoming who i was created to be.
i like that i can see that process going on in sue and the boys too, and that i'm a part of that (albeit a rather flawed one most of the time)
and i like that i can see god at work in your lives too, and i like that i can be part of your journey.


si