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23 // God's Wildly Wonderful World


'What a wildly wonderful world, God!
   You made it all, with Wisdom at your side,
   made earth overflow with your wonderful creations.' Psalm 104 [MSG]


*     *     *

 

Good morning!

If anything positive can come from the cost-of-living crisis, at least we’re now yet more aware of our relationship with energy - turning off lights and heating almost as if there’s a climate crisis, too; powering down, where once we might have powered through.

And tomorrow night’s Earth Hour (8.30pm-9.30pm) offers an ideal invitation not just to switch off the 24/7 consumerist glare of artificial light and distraction (as millions will be doing doing across 178 countries!), but to plug back in to more sustaining rhythms, and to tread more lightly, lovingly on God's good earth.

In that respect, it’s perfect Lenten practice, too: turn off the phones, as well as the lights, maybe; light a candle, read a poem or a psalm, go for a night walk (if it’s safe), feel the earth beneath your feet, reflect on what you love most about its fragile beauty. Or practice doing nothing but drawing from the higher power of the Creator. Jesus, let’s remember, went off grid for 40 days to do just that.


*     *     *

 

Some in our Lent community in South Africa are already painfully well practiced at powering down, as they continue to deal daily with ‘load shedding’ outages. So as part of today's reflection, I've asked Kay R to share something of her own experience and wisdom, so that we can bear witness. She writes:

‘Living with load-shedding means checking the schedule every evening to prepare for the day ahead. It means remembering to keep your phone and solar lamps charged, to switch the hot water on and off, and to separate tasks such as gardening, laundry, ironing, cooking, or the use of electronic devices, into ‘work which can be done when the power is on’, and ‘work which can be done when it is off’.

It wrecks your normal routines, and naturally this can bring out the worst or the best in you. Yet my faith reminds me that I am to give thanks in everything. I am learning to focus not on the annoyance of load-shedding, but on the goodness of God’s unfailing power. 

At a recent Quiet Day, while seated on the bank of a tidal estuary, I had the unexpected pleasure of witnessing the power of the surging, glittering, incoming tide: it reminded me of the way in which nature, silently, yet majestically, shouts the unceasing power and wonders of our faithful God (Ps 19), and I was awed.

In a strange way also, I, who struggle to find hours to pray, now find that I have many; I have time to pray meaningfully for God’s daily bread, for the people of my suffering nation, and for those around the globe who are in distress. I now see that each hour in every 24 is holy, and how all things really can ‘work together for good’.


*     *     *

 

Thank you, Kay. Every hour in 24 is holy! And this one hour we can 'give' tomorrow might remind us that every hour today is gift from God, wrapped in this extraordinary turning planet we call home. Its light ever shifting, if we dim ours enough to see it; the real power, surging like a glittering tide within.

What I love is that life in God’s universe was never meant to be a zero-sum game of win or lose: what’s truly good for me - to slow down, perhaps, make space, pray, travel light, find sustainable rhythms with the Earth - will always benefit those, in turn, around me: the people, the creatures, the Earth itself.

The eco-theologian Thomas Berry once wrote, most evocatively, about that magical point of the evening when darkness starts to fall, and 'some other world makes itself known'. It's a time of numinous presence, he says, and if we pause to really witness it, beyond the neon, we come to participate 'in the intimacy of all things with each other'.

Wow! That has to be worth an hour of our time, any day - doesn’t it? To find ourselves starting to belong again, lovingly, to Creation's community; where all things can indeed work together, for good, in God's wildly wonderful world.


*     *     *

 

May this day bring out the best in us.
Go well!

Brian
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Trail Mix!

Watch how the light is falling around you. Pay close attention to it, as a way of becoming present to the gift of this present moment on this turning Earth.

Then enjoy listening to Louis Armstrong's Wonderful World as an act of prayer.

...

Switch something off, today - TV, tablet, phone, etc - in order to switch back on to Creation. Be part of 'the intimacy of all things, with each other'.

Why not copy out by hand a few lines of Psalm 104 from the Message version here, which you can reflect on by candlelight during tomorrow's Earth Hour?

...

See how you can give yourself to Earth Hour. Power down, to power up. More ideas and info can be found at the World Wildlife Fund here.

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Remember, I've recorded the verses of the compass prayer, in case you find it easier to listen to, instead of read, the Bible verses we use.

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Thanks so much for all your RSVPs this week. Please don't send any more until the next invitation. But do take a few moments this weekend to savour everything so far on the RSVP page here!

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Parish Notices 

I'm a guest on BBC Radio Solent this Sunday morning, some time between 8am and 8.30am, to talk about Earth Hour, and how we connect soulfully with nature, in case you fancy tuning in. 

And if you're in striking distance of Winchester, UK, this Monday, I'm leading my contemplative hour 'Hush' at Christ Church, 8pm - 9pm. 

Reference

Thomas Berry, Selected Writings on the Earth Community (Orbis, 2014)

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22 // Playing for the Joy


'For we are God's handiwork ...' Ephesians 2.10


*     *     *

 

Good morning!

Before you begin, please take a few breaths to slow yourself into this moment. As you do, imagine God is doing the breathing for you. Be breathed 'through'.


*     *     *

 

I love how pianos are now commonly installed at train stations, for anyone to play. It all started here in 2012, at St Pancras. On the occasions I pass through and hear someone playing, my soul stirs to hear a spark of creativity, notes of joyful humanity drifting in the crowds, lifting us.

So I was captivated by Channel 4's The Piano, which took the idea, and ran with it a bit further, filming non-professional musicians who’d been invited to play at some of the stations. These ‘ordinary’ pianists thought they were simply playing for the joy of it - which turned out to be the joy of it. This was not about X-Factor stardom but the sheer fluid joy of playing. 

That said, there was the added bonus that (along with the pop musician Mika) the world’s greatest living pianist, Lang Lang, was watching on, secretly. The players' faces lit up like a departure board when he met them after, inviting one from each group to perform at the Royal Festival Hall with him, as a treat.

Most movingly, 13-year-old Lucy, who's blind and developmentally delayed because she had cancer as a baby, performed Nocturne in B Flat by Chopin. She can't hold a conversation, but has learned to express herself through the piano in a way that's beyond words. It’s like watching God play. And maybe it’s like feeling God listen, too, through deep within each one of us.

You can listen with love on the links below. 
 

*     *     *

 

In her book Big Magic, Liz Gilbert asks, 'Are you considering becoming a creative person? Too late, you already are one. Creativity is the hallmark of our species.' We're often afraid to give expression to what's within us, for fear of what others may think. But when we relax and dare to let go, we give the Creator permission to get to work. As Liz says, 'Only when we are at our most playful can divinity finally get serious with us.' 

To help you relax, you might imagine God is breathing through you again … but this time as if you were an instrument being played by a virtuoso. It takes the pressure away from anything creatively being ‘yours’. 

We're usually working in concert with others, too, even if we don't realise it. God seems to love to weave our creative expressions together to summon something more exquisite than the sum of the parts. Just read the RSVPs for a sublime example of collective ‘flow’! Or give thanks for the humble genius of Lucy’s piano teacher; or anyone who has coaxed beauty from you. 

And remember, God has been there. Think of Jesus, in the creative space of Lent’s desert, honing stories, crafting metaphors, shaping parables. Jesus, the artist: God’s own joyful expression, drawing us like Lucy to a place beyond words, through the stories he tells, the love he shares, the life he gives.


*     *     *

 

It may not be ‘art’ specifically that you’re up to, today, but just as you are an artwork created by God, so you can bring a flourish of the Maker's artistry to whatever you turn your hand to, today. As Liz Gilbert says, 'the treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say yes.'

Mercifully, true life is not about celebrity, but celebrating each other’s God-breathed gifts. An invitation to give expression to whatever we’ve been created for - and perhaps to find the Creator quietly watching on, loving every moment.


*     *     *

 

May you find expression, today. 
Go well!

Brian
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Trail Mix!

You can watch Lucy play at Leeds station here.

And here's her subsequent performance at the Royal Festival Hall. 

Try to experience the flow of the Creator as she plays.

And remember, the treasures inside you are hoping you will say yes, today. Just have a go.



'Make music with me.' Some more music to enjoy, in a contemplative moment. Jojo reminded me, via the RSVPs, of Kae Tempest's trancendent song/poem 'Grace'.

...

I've recorded the verses of the compass prayer, in case you find it easier to listen instead of read or memorise the Bible verses we use. (Remember, you don't have to speak them, either way - just 'hear' them within, as you breathe.) Thanks to Helen S for the prompt! Hope this helps! 

...

References and resources:

Liz Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear (Bloomsbury, 2015)

This is a really lovely story from the BBC about Denis Robinson, 91, who goes along to St Pancras station twice a week to play the piano.

Pianos were originally installed in 2012 across London as part of the artist Luke Jerram's 'Play Me, I'm Yours' global art installation. More info here.



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21 // A One Tree Show


‘God arranged for a broad-leafed tree to spring up. It grew over Jonah to cool him off and get him out of his angry sulk. Jonah was pleased and enjoyed the shade. Life was looking up.’ Jonah 4.7-8 [MSG]


*     *     *


Good morning, on another dazzling Wednesday!

I wonder what you appreciate most about an 'urban' tree in your locality? Its cooling canopy of shade on a summer's day, perhaps; or the elegance of a more organic architecture; or a soulful reminder of nature when you feel adrift?

For yesterday's World Poetry Day, the UK’s poet laureate Simon Armitage wrote a poem in celebration of blossom, called 'Plum Tree Among the Skyscrapers' - and it’s a powerful meditation on an isolated urban tree, in full bloom in central London, after her journey of struggle as a seed. 

Like a 'poor Cinderella', she’s surrounded ‘by glass and steel,' ‘dwarfed by money and fancy talk’, and ‘rootling about in a potting compost of burger boxes’. And yet:

‘… she’s here to stay -
plum in the middle -
and today she’s fizzing
with light and colour …

Scented and powdered
she’s staging
a one-tree show
with hi-viz blossoms
and lip-gloss petals;
she’ll season the pavements
and polished stones
with something like snow.’


It's an irresistible picture of resistance, tenacity and flowering.


*     *     *

 

Blossom itself is so evocative, isn't it - especially of the ache we can feel in the presence of fleeting beauty. When the playwright Dennis Potter was terminally ill, he famously savoured his final spring by seeing it as if for the first time, and describing 'the whitest, frothiest, blossomest blossom that there ever could be’. I'd love to learn to see like that, without the diagnosis. 

The Japanese call this ephemeral kind of beauty wabi sabi, one we must witness in the moment. I'm reminded of our own fragile nature; how we are like dust, dependent on God; though now I love to think that we are petals, too.


*     *     *

 

There’s strength, as well as fragility, here. The tree in the poem grows through cracked paving, a metaphor (if you like) for the soul growing up through a crack in the concrete of our lives. That feels especially apt as more than 80 per cent of us in the UK now live in urban settings; the blazing trail runs through the city.

Amid all the glass and steel, trees surely matter more than ever, despite their controversial felling in cities like Plymouth and Sheffield. They breathe oxygen out, and CO2 in; they filter our polluted air and thousands of gallons of flood-water a year, too - and the overall cooling effect of a single, mature city tree is equated to ten air conditioning units running for 20 hours a day.

Perhaps the story of Jonah, who was so relieved to shelter under a tree at Ninevah, and then so desperate when it died that he too wanted to die, is an inadvertently prophetic reminder of just how vital the relationship is.


*     *     *

 

And beyond the practical benefits, they'll offer so much more, if we're willing to learn. How to stay rooted in earth while reaching to heaven, 'a planting, for the Lord', let's say; how to move with grace through the seasons without having to get anywhere fast; how to be here, now. As Dennis Potter said in beholding the blossomest blossom: 'The nowness of everything is wondrous. The glory of it!’

Maybe the urban tree will show us, too, how to crack the concrete surface of life open, to let the light in. I'm just sowing a seed. Let's wait, and see what grows. 


*     *     *

 

May you rise up, rooted, today. 
Go well!

Brian
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Trail Mix!

You can listen to Simon Armitage speak his poem here.

(Or read the text and more about the poem at the Guardian here.)

...

The botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer says of trees, 'Don’t ask what this is, in front of you, ask who it is.' Approach as if they're a friend, or a stranger you can get to know. So why not take a walk and 'meet' a tree. Sense the tree breathing in, breathing out, as you breathe in, and breathe out.

Stay with it, a while. Be present. When you're ready to move on, stay a little longer, to practice the stillness which the tree can teach. 



Write a haiku (a three-line poem comprising 5-7-5 syllables respectively) about your meeting. 

...

Why not find an urban tree you can return to for the rest of Lent and beyond, to watch it emerge into spring, and to reflect on its movement, and yours, through the season. Take a photo regularly as you visit!
 

 

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20 // The Way of the Blazing Trail


'I am the way ... ' John 14.6


*     *     *

 

Good morning!

I've been wondering which way the blazing trail is taking us, and in a sense, the answer is, two ways at once: both inward and outward! Inward, to the place of deepest communion with ‘Christ within’; and outward, to the places where we can embody God’s love.

I especially appreciate how the author Elizabeth O’Connor describes this inward and outward trajectory. The two movements are the way of Jesus, she says, which are like a flow of breath: in, out; in, out; in, out.


*     *     *

 

And it’s this kind of rhythm of movement that can help us in the way we go - which needn't be ’the right way’ (a noun) but the Jesus way (a verb).

Following Jesus ‘inward’ makes me think it’s less about finding my own shiny ‘true self’ inside, and more about the daily, patient cultivation of relationship, in that inmost place of soul friendship with God. I remember Richard Rohr’s definition of soul - it's who I am in God, and who God is in me.

And it’s that dynamic inner place of belonging, surely, that helps us to be drawn to follow Jesus outward, to the places he is drawn to.


*     *     *

 

Recently, Bono confessed to Brené Brown (in a fascinating recorded chat) that he often tries to take the lead with God, to push the direction, instead of being led: ‘I find myself helping God across the road like she’s a little old lady,’ he says. But there’s another way, to do with taking up the cross, which (for him) involves deep listening - a theme emerging for us, this Lent - as a way of being led to the places we might not usually go, and to sit with those we might not normally break bread with.


*     *     *

 

For me, this also puts a subtly different slant on ‘hearing from God’, a process we can sometimes filter with our agenda and preferred direction of travel in mind. But listening to others can mean listening for God in unexpected places.

If nothing else, let's remember we hear from God in so many ways, when we really stop to pay attention - as Amena Brown puts it so evocatively throughout her poem titled ‘She asked, “How do I know when I’m hearing from God?”’.

‘… to hear God
You have to be willing to experience
   what’s holy in places many people
   don’t deem to be sacred.
… Sometimes God sits next to you
   on a barstool
Spilling truth to you like too many beers.’


*     *     *

 

And if that's a bit too much for a Tuesday morning, I love how she writes, too, of a grandmother whose 'simple song from her spirit' can turn 'porches into cathedrals'. Oh yes! God might yet come to us as a little old lady, then. The trick could be to let her guide us over the road, and onward - inward, and outward! - to wherever the trail leads next.


*     *     *

 

May you go the Jesus way, today. 
Go well!

Brian
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Trail Mix!

Breathe in, breathe out. Spend a minute or two focusing on your breathing, and be conscious of the ‘way of Jesus’, as the blazing trail takes you inward, and outward, in the same rhythm and cycle.



You can watch Amena Brown perform her poem here. Reflect on the different ways you have heard from God recently, or indeed may hear from God today.

...

Do keep going with your compass points today, if that's helping to cultivate the inward and outward path - here's the distilled version of the compass prayer.



You can listen to Bono’s chat with Brené Brown (in two parts) here.



Reference:

Elizabeth O’Connor, Journey Inward, Journey Outward (New York: Harper and Row, 1968) (NB: her work was originally mentioned by Diane Butler Bass in The CAC daily e-mail from February 2023. Thanks to Elaine C for letting me know.)


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19 // The Smile of Spring


'For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven'. Ecclesiastes 3.1


*     *     *

 

Good morning!

Before you read on, please take a moment to listen for the silence that will sit gently behind our noise, today - and to sense the stillness that will rest behind our activity. Try to sense that same stillness in your soul. And smile.


*     *     *

 

Today is the spring equinox, here in the North, and the autumn equinox in the South. Together, they comprise this pin-point moment of equilibrium, the 'moment before the moment'; a pause before we tip into our new season. It's equal night and day around the world, and we meet here, in the ebb and flow.

A hand prayer we shared during Advent reminds us that seeming 'opposites' such as light and dark, north and south, spring and autumn, are not really opposite at all, but part of the whole. It's a helpful way to pray at the equinox.

Perhaps you'd hold your hands in front of you, six inches apart, as if you're about to put them together in prayer - and name one ‘dark’ and one ‘light’. 

Now, move them slowly toward each other, into a posture of prayer, feeling the warmth between your hands as they meet. Pause. Then twist your hands gently together to form a clasped embrace, and then bring them slowly to your heart. In the words of Philip Roderick who created this prayer: "Come home to yourself, as the two are reconciled within you." Pause again.

You might like to repeat this, thinking of someone you know from another hemisphere, or who you’ve been distant from, or who you feel the polar opposite to - and use your hands to represent you and them, sensing how you are both held in the wholeness of Creation on this special day, and in the all-encompassing love of God.


*     *     *


Here in the North then, it’s now officially, spring!

I know it’s not felt very spring-like, yet, in the UK, with the cold, wet, grey days still piling up. Yet, all around, the signs are there: the blossom’s emerging, the daffodils are blooming, the birds are starting to sing.

We reflected on taking time, on Friday, and when I feel impatient to see spring’s ‘proper’ arrival, I’m reminded of John O’Donohue’s words: ‘The beauty of nature insists on taking its time,' he says. Of course it does - it's God's!

'Everything is prepared. Nothing is rushed. The rhythm of emergence is a gradual slow beat always inching its way forward … until the new unfolds in the full confidence of true arrival. It is there before we see it; and then we can look nowhere without seeing it.’


*     *     *

 

Isn't that lovely? And of course, we’re not passive to the process. There’s clearing and weeding to be done, and planting; whether that's actually in the garden, or spring cleaning, or in opening ourselves to the new.

We get to play our part, after all, because we are nature - which means there’s always something of spring to watch for and welcome in us, unfurling. Even if that work is still happening secretly below ground, unseen, emerging from the heart of our own winter. New shoots are ready to break the surface. Fresh green leaves will grace even the oldest oaks, again!
 

*     *     *

 

I’d love to share these words from the poet Ted Loder, which feel to me like a gateway to this new season. And wherever you are in the world, whichever season you are about to enter, it's such a joy to stand here together, hands joined across the distance, drawn as one toward the heart of God.

‘It is spring, Lord,
And the land is coming up green again,
Unfolding
Outside my well-drawn boundaries
And urgent schedules.
And there is the mystery
And the smile of it.
The willows are dripping honey colour into the rivers,
And the mother birds are busy in manger nests,
And I am learning again that “for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven".
O Lord, you have sketched the lines of spring.
Be with me in my unfolding.’

Amen.

*     *     *

May you be the mystery and smile of spring, today. 
Go well!

Brian
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Trail Mix!

Do repeat the hand prayer. You might like to imagine your hands are 'you' and 'spring', too, to help you step into the season and embrace its possibilities. Or 'you' and 'God', to remind you that God is closer to you than you know. 

...

Here's a nice piece of music called 'Équilibre' by Nuit Pluie. (Balance, equilibrium.) Have a listen, and as you do, breathe in the line "Yours is the day, Lord", and then breathe out "Yours also the night." (Psalm 74). Keep it going.

...

Do keep going with your compass point breathing, if that's becoming a practice for you - here's the distilled version of the compass prayer with just the verses.

... 

Sketch the lines of spring - literally, go into a garden or a park, with a notepad and pencil or pen. You could use your weaker hand, so that you're not focused on your sketch being good or bad - attending instead to what's in front of you. Sketch for a few minutes, and allow your focus to be one of loving attention - on a bud, maybe, or emerging leaf, or spring flower - any sign of the season. Let this connection help you unfurl a little further. 

...

Tonight, watch the sun set, and mark the equinox by lighting a candle when you come back in. Sit in the gentleness of candlelight and let your eyes grow accustomed to the fading natural light, to the colours of twilight. 

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18 // Forty


'So it came to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made.' Genesis 8.6


*     *     *

 

Good morning!

It’s a special number, isn’t it?

40 days for rain-swept Noah before the calm, the dove, the olive branch and the rainbow which tells us all, never again; 40 days for Moses on the mountain-top to soak it all up and bring it all back from God; 40 days of Goliath's goading before David picks his five smooth stones. And that’s just a few examples. 

40 years too, in the desert for the people of God, wandering. Enough time for a generation to pass, and another to grow ready to rely on manna, and trace their way by fire and cloud. To see that God takes time, and gives time, and asks for our time. To learn what it means to be led through this time by love.


*     *     *

 

Jesus’ own 40 days in the desert surely echo those wilderness years of the Israelites in which they were readied to step in to the promised land. He gives that time, for us; he gives himself to that time, for us.

And what of those transformative 40 days between the resurrection and ascension - divine glimpses, for his disciples, of what it means to step with him into the promised land where he is making all things new.

It all joins up, doesn’t it? Joins us up, as we learn to take our time, and give ourselves to these 40 days that God is giving us, this Lent.
 

*     *     *

 

There’s another '40' subtly in the background of it all - the 40 weeks it takes for human gestation; the womb in which perhaps all other 40s grow.

Certainly, pregnancy seems a life-giving model for these other seasons, which start with conception - the crossing of the Red Sea, say, or the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan - before time is suspended, put on hold for the waiting, growing, anticipating, labouring in pain, and giving birth to new creation.

A time for someone like Mary to treasure up so many things within, including him; a time for Jesus, cell by cell, to form. To be born, and born again into the ever deepening adventure of life as God-with-us, God's "Here I am."


*     *     *

 

Is it a coincidence that Psalm 40 is one of waiting, of crying out to God, of learning to sing a new song? 

As it’s St Patrick’s Day, and as they’re Irish, it seems only right to mention U2’s adaptation of that psalm, which they simply titled '40'. A plaintive cry for all of those who wait; words of hope, for when it's hard to find the liines to sing.

I waited patiently for the Lord
He inclined and heard my cry.
He brought me up out of the pit
Out of the miry clay.

I will sing, sing a new song.
I will sing, sing a new song.

How long, to sing this song?

You set my feet upon a rock
And made my footsteps firm.
Many will see, many will see and hear.


A benediction, of sorts, for today, as we step into this second half of Lent. We follow so many who have blazed the 40-day trail before us, like Noah opening the window, seeing the rainbow, waiting for dry land. Make our footsteps firm, Lord. Incline, and hear our cry. 
 

*     *     *

 

May you give yourself, and God, the time, today. 
Happy St Patrick's Day!

Go well!

Brian
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Trail Mix!

Keep going with your compass point breathing from yesterday - here's the distilled version of the compass prayer with just the verses.

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You might like to listen to this live version of U2's '40', filmed at Red Rocks in 1983. They traditionally ended each show with it, and often still do.

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Here's another song by the brilliance - Christ Be With Me - which is a gorgeous setting for St Patrick's Prayer. Listen, and invite the Jesus of the wilderness, and the risen Christ of the Emmaus Road, to be your all in all, in all you do.

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Catch up with all responses from the community at the RSVP page here!

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'It's one of the psalms that reaches into the difficulty of being a human, reaches into our heart' - Eugene Peterson on "40". This is a very lovely conversation between Bono of U2, and Eugene Peterson (who wrote the Message) - about the psalms. There's special mention of Psalm 40. If you haven't seen it, it's 20 minutes well spent, in my humble opinion. 

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17 // Your Mercies Are New


The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
   his mercies never come to an end,
   they are new every morning. Lamentations 3.22-23


*     *     *

 

Good morning!

At church on Sunday, I was completely arrested by a short video of a Ukrainian woman, a refugee who lives locally, reading parts of Lamentations chapter 3.

It was so powerful, hearing her speak Jeremiah’s visceral words of lament for Jerusalem, besieged and devastated as it was in 586 BCE. You couldn’t help but think of cities such as Mariupol, and so many shattered communities.

It was a reminder for me, too, that the words of thanks I try to pray daily - “Your mercies are new” - were not written as a 'twee' gratitude mantra, but forged in pain, and offered as a spark of hope against all odds.

Gently inspired (and while we're at this halfway 'centre point' of the journey) I’d love to share a contemplative practice which again links to my past series - a compass point prayer - which I've been adapting for myself in these weeks of Lent to step deeper in, and also to prepare for Easter.

It now uses the rhythm of a breath prayer, to 'inhale' the first part of a line of scripture, and to 'exhale' the next. Do pray it through once from start to finish, this morning; and then, if you'd like, return to the south at noon, west at twilight, and north at night. This could become a part of your regular practice for the second half of Lent, as it is for me. But if not, I hope it enriches your Thursday! 



The Lent 2023 Compass Point Prayer

Facing East

If you can, face east, to the direction of sun-rise. These first one-line breath prayers remind us in sequence of Ash Wednesday’s dust, the 'Jesus Prayer', and Psalm 51 (which is the text for Allegri’s Miserere, played on Ash Wednesday). You could start by taking a few breaths, and being mindful of those in the ‘east’, including all who are affected by war in Ukraine.

And then, when you're ready ...

Inhale:  I remember I am dust. (Genesis 1)
Exhale: You remember we are dust. (Psalm 103)

Inhale:   Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,
Exhale:  Have mercy on me.

Inhale:  Create in me a clean heart,
Exhale: And take not your Holy Spirit from me. (Psalm 51)


Repeat again, or leave a pause for a few silent breaths - and when you are ready, turn slowly toward the south, where the sun is at its highest at mid-day.


Facing South

For those of us in the north, the south is where the swallows are flying from! Give thanks for them, and the connection we have with all those in the south.

At this compass point, acknowledging that the sun points us to the south when it’s at its highest at noon, imagine you are in the physical wilderness, like Jesus, standing (or kneeling) under the full solar outpouring of God’s love, and light.

Inhale:   Humble and gentle one,
Exhale:  You are rest for my soul. (Matthew 11.28-30)

Inhale: You surround me with love,
Exhale: And tender mercies. (Psalm 103.4)

Inhale:  Your grace is sufficient,
Exhale: for me. (2 Corinthians 12)


Continue to breathe in silence for as long as you need, in this place of complete exposure to God ... and then turn gently to the west.


Facing West

Here we are at the place of sunset and twilight, where we might imagine dying to self, as the ego begins to fall away. Henri Nouwen describes how Jesus' three temptations in the desert cut to the heart of three ‘lies of humanity’:

I am what I do (‘Turn these stones to bread!’);
I am what I own (‘All of this will be yours!’)
I am what others think of me (‘Prove it - throw yourself down from the Temple!’).

There are echoes, too, of the temptation for Jesus in Gethsemane to avoid the path before him, as night falls, and he starts to pray. Of course, he will not be overcome.

Inhale:  Not my will,
Exhale: But Yours, Lord. (Luke 22.42)

Inhale:  Your kingdom come,
Exhale: Your will be done. (Matthew 6.10)

Inhale:  I will not be afraid,
Exhale: For you are with me. (Psalm 23)

Keep breathing ... and when you are ready, turn gently to the north, to the place of darkness.


Facing North

Here, looking north, we can find our bearings from the North Star, and we might imagine Jesus taking his bearing from that same star in the wilderness. What is his 'True North'? The love, and will, of the Father?

We remember, too, the three hours during which the earth fell as dark as night on Good Friday, when all such bearings seemed like they were gone. 

Inhale:  Into your hands,
Exhale: I commit my spirit. (Luke 23.46)

Inhale:  Nothing can separate me,
Exhale: From the love of God. (Romans 8)

Inhale:  For God so loved
Exhale: the world. (John 3.16)


And then turning gently to the East to complete the circle, say as you go these words of Tess Ward: 'Embracer of all, you stretched out your hands to join up the circle of life ...' Here, we anticipate the Easter sun-rise to come, from out of our personal and corporate darkness ...

Facing East

Inhale:   Your mercies are new,
Exhale:  Every morning,

Inhale:   The Lord is my portion,
Exhale:  I will hope in him. (Lamentations 3)

Inhale:   The sun … will rise
Exhale:  With healing in its wings. (Malachi 4.2)



If you’d like, to finish you can turn in a circle one more time, praying the circling prayer of Columba as you do so, remembering that we don't have to fight our way into an 'Inner Ring' of any kind, because we are already encircled in love:

Bless to me the sky that is above me.
Bless to me the ground that is beneath me.
Bless to me the friends who are around me.
Bless to me the love of the Three, deep within me and encircling me.

Amen.


*     *     *

 

May you be encircled, today. 
Go well!

Brian
--------

PS: Here's a distilled version of the compass prayer with just the verses.


Trail Mix!

You can watch the Lamentations video here.

...

This is a very touching song of comfort by the Brilliance: The Sun Will Rise.

You might know Audrey Assad's beautiful 'New Every Morning'.

Sometimes I play Allegri's Miserere as I pray the compass points, to remind me of the journey from Ash Wednesday through to Easter. Here's one version.

...

And if you'd prefer something without words, William Francisco's 'Clear Path' is rather lovely to spend a few quiet minutes with, breathing in, breathing out. As you pause 'here' in the centre of this series, why not visualise the path ahead ...

... 

Catch up with all responses from the community at the RSVP page here!

...

Reference:

I was inspired to use the breath prayer with a single line of scripture by Sarah Bessey, whose wonderful book A Rhythm of Prayer is published in the UK by SPCK (2021).



-------------------------------------

16 // Halfway Home!


'As a father has compassion on his children,
   so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
   for he knows how we are formed,
   he remembers that we are dust.' Psalm 103.13-14


*     *     *

 

Good morning!

I try not to repeat myself too much, but now and again it feels right; our trail may take us close to a path we've walked before, where a little stack of stones we left behind reminds us of a moment shared, and helps us to remember.

And so … last Lent, we drew from Walter Brueggemann, whose poem ‘Marked by Ashes’ honours our Wednesdays.

Not only are they the mid-point of the week, he says - for 'we are already halfway home / halfway on to next Sunday, / halfway back, half frazzled, half expectant’ - but they connect us to Ash Wednesday, too, and its journey on to Easter. As such, he says, each is worthy of our close attention: 'This Wednesday dazzles us with gift and newness and possibility!'

And this Wednesday, March 15, happens also to be the middle one between Ash Wednesday and Easter - an especially soulful way-marker, then, of how far we've come already, and how far we have to go.


*     *     *

 

If Lent were a labyrinth, we’d be approaching that gorgeous moment when, after much wending, we reach the centre, and get to stop and rest a while with God. To be, with God, without agenda. As Anselm once put it: 'Abandon yourself for a little to God and rest for a little in Him.'

We draw deep, in these moments of stillness at the centre, in order to carry the peace we find to the world around us, wherever the blazing trail may now lead.

Perhaps this middle Wednesday is the day to practice nothing but ‘be still’.
 

*     *     *

 

We might also take a very gentle glance back.

On Ash Wednesdays, we recall God’s words to Adam and Eve: 'Remember you are dust’. We begin Lent, then, in penitence - but the phrase reminds us, too, of the dazzling nature of our make-up. Our dust, and God’s Spirit, together make a ‘living soul’ (Gen 2.7), and it's this sacra-elemental embrace which gives us birth, brings us to life, delivers us. Forget it, and we lose touch with soul.

Remember, we are told. Meanwhile, Psalm 103 very beautifully affirms that God remembers, too. God 'knows how we are formed / He remembers we are dust.’ If the Fall has cut us off from who we are, still we are re-membered by God, in Jesus, at the Cross, breathing life into the New Creation; delivering us, once more.


*     *     *

 

To savour this one, dazzling day with God is all we have, right now … although we know the journey must continue, through this mid-point space, to its ending and beyond. We started with the end in mind - remember?

Meanwhile, Walter Brueggemann’s poem leaves us with a prayer, just for today. So at that little stack of stones we've built as a way-marker to our Wednesdays, let’s pray with him:

  'Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us,
    Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom …'

Halfway home, then, we find we're right within the beating heart.


*     *     *

 

May this Wednesday dazzle you. 
Go well!

Brian
--------

Trail Mix!

You can read the poem here.

...

This is your permission slip. Try to create a set-aside space, today, where you can do nothing but be with God. That might mean going to a special bench, or taking a walk, or sitting in your chair, or standing at a gate, or getting to the sea, or listening to your favourite piece of 'tarab' music ... But whatever it is, try not to get anything from it, just draw deep of the moment itself, and rest, and relax. 

...

You might like to use this helpful 'finger labyrinth' resource to reflect on the journey so far, and in particular to pause at the centre prayerfully.

(Perhaps you could draw your own labyrinth using this design, if you have time, or print this one out, and do something creative with it!)

...

OK, here's another little tradition / reminder / way-marker that I've flagged up before. It's a live version of Martyn Joseph's wonderful song, 'I'm On My Way'.You might imagine heading to the heart of this journey we're on with the rest of the Lent community.

...

After that, you could read through the RSVPs from this week, so you get a sense of the shared journey, "the running, the loving, the stumbling on our way!" ... 

Thanks so much for all your responses. They’re beautiful! Please don't send any more this week, but DO keep checking back, as I've still plenty more to catch up with and post! You can watch them go up at the RSVP page here.

-------------------------------------

15 // Sacra-elemental!


‘Surely the Lord was in this place, and I was unaware …’ Genesis 28.16


*     *     *

 

Good morning!

We usually think of the sacraments ‘officially’ as bread and wine and baptism … but according to St Augustine, more widely a sacrament is ‘the visible form of an invisible grace’. I love that, because it overspills - not least, for me, through the four elements of the natural world. They surely each express ‘invisible grace’ because, in the words of another great teacher Meister Eckhart, 'If we could know God without the world, God would not have created the world.’

When the wind blows, and the sun gleams, and the waves break, and we stand on the earth from which we’re formed, we’re located in grace! So I’ve made up a word of my own for this, in the spirit of Susie Dent: sacra-elemental. And I’ve sketched a few thoughts about each of the elements, sacra-elementally, below.


*     *     *

 

We’re 60 per cent water - and like the tides, we ebb and flow, rise and fall. We have ocean depths, filled as we are with God’s sacra-elemental grace from the inside out! But here’s a story of water in another form.

My friend’s a teacher, and a few pupils approached him last week as they were upset not to be allowed out into the snow during break time. He felt their pain, so led them to a part of the school where he could discreetly let them have their snow-fix. "Life’s too short not to,” he said. They came back in, ruddy cheeks aglow, overflowing with thanks.

This, then, the grace of divine playfulness which snow itself evokes in God’s children; and a teacher willing to bend the rules back around toward it.

 

*     *     *


The wind unsettles me on days like yesterday, but it’s good, sometimes, to feel small, vulnerable. The wind of the Spirit blows where it will, and it would fill us with that same freedom, if we’d let it. Up above, a bird flies wild on the gusts.

But I think, too, of the grace of just one, intentional breath, in a moment of drama, when we’re about to lose it. There’s just enough time to breathe in the creative, subversive Spirit … and to breathe out love. 


*     *     *

 

When I think fire, I’m drawn to the flames Jesus must have sat beside, alone, in the desert; and to the campfire he'd have gathered around with his disciples on the blazing trail. Night falls, and with it a stillness too; his face lights, warmed with the glow of connection, resting at the hearth of God.

In our own gentle, heartfelt moments of intention, there’s grace enough in a simple candle flame, too. A match sparks the invisible into being, offered up and shared with God; the wick yields, and the world flickers with love. ‘It is better to light a candle …’ after all.


*     *     *

 

God is likened to all three of those elements - water, air, fire - and how fluid, and potent, wild and playful, the nature of this elemental God must be! 

But what of Earth? As John O’Donohue writes, the element of earth holds the ‘The passion of wind / fluency of water / warmth of the fire’. And as we are of the earth, how wonderful that we can 'hold' God thus, within.

A special mention, though, for a baser form of earth: the stones. Remember Jacob, who, in the barren wilderness, slept upon a rock, exhausted - and dreamed of a ladder between earth and heaven. Surely God was in this place, he said, and “I was unaware"!

This rock you sleep exhausted on may also be for ladders; for every earthed experience contains a yearning for that which lies beyond it, too. It’s a place where earth and heaven meet, sacra-elementally, in love. And where we can awake to the invisible grace that was there all along, right under our nose.


*     *     *

 

May heaven and earth meet in you, today. 
Go well!

Brian
--------

Trail Mix!

Wherever you are, today, spend some time in the elements: breathe the air, step into the light, walk beside some water (or dive into some snow!) …

Sense the fluidity of God’s movement within the elements, feel the earth beneath your feet, and allow your own earthedness to meet heaven and express itself in sacra-elemental grace!



Why not leave a little cairn of rocks to signify that even your place of stones is holy ground. Offer any yearnings you hold for the ‘more’ of life to God.



You might enjoy reading John O’Donohue’s poem ‘For the Earth’, here.



Light a candle. Take a breath. And if you need to, shed a tear of sacra-elemental love.

 

 

-----------------------------
 

14 // The Speed of Love


“Walk with me and work with me - watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.” Matthew 11.28-30 [MSG]


*     *     *

 

Good morning!

I hope this finds you well - but however it finds you at the start of this week, I pray that we can meet this moment together in the grace and love of God. 

Please take a moment to pause, relax, smile and breathe, before you continue.


*     *     *

 

Last week, in a hurry, I found myself stuck behind a dustbin lorry. It's the perfect vehicle for spiritual practice, but - doh! - I reacted at first with impatience and frustration. It was binning it down, too, and these guys were getting soaked with icy rain, but somehow they bore a smile as well as the rubbish.

It took a few moments for the irony to catch up with my impatience; we'd made them cards of loving thanks during lockdown, hailed them as heroes! A moment of grace unfurled, like a bud; they're not in my way, but slowing me to another's.


*     *     *

 

Every day we have these pinch points, but in Lent, when we’re in a rhythm of awareness, I think it becomes a bit easier to notice the temptation - in this case, to rush and hurry - and turn instead toward love. Even on Saturday, I felt irked as I had to wait a few minutes to be served at a petrol station; the restless ego drummed its internal fingers manically, but the soul whispered "Watch!”, and the person serving me transformed from an object of frustration into the subject of God’s love, before my eyes. As I wished him peace, a peace flowed into me. 


*     *     *

 

When the great Christian philosopher Dallas Willard was asked by an enquirer how to become spiritually healthy, he paused for some time, before replying, famously: "You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”

"What else?" asked the man.
"There is nothing else," replied Willard.

You might try that as an experiment, for just one day.

And in case that feels at all legalistic, a reminder from the Japanese theologian Kosuke Koyama that in fact it's a lovely invitation to find a different kind of gear entirely. Jesus walked everywhere, and thus he surmises that love itself travels at 3mph, a more pedestrian pace than we're used to going, today!

'Love has its speed,' he says. 'It is an inner speed. It has a spiritual speed. It goes on in the depth of our life, whether we notice or not. It is the speed the love of God walks.’

 

*     *     *

 

Of course, there'll be times when physically we need to pick up the pace, this week. But even then, we can learn to go faster without rushing. The best racing drivers accelerate with mindful serenity; the peregrine, the world's fastest creature, is not ‘hurried’ as it dives.

And as for mindful movement, so, too, for soulful pacing along the blazing trail. Jesus, remember, chose a long stint in the wilderness to find the speed of love before he stepped into his public work. (At what point, I wonder, did he see there was no need to hurry over ‘there’, when he could, in every step be 'here’, with God?)

We may feel understandably impatient that God doesn't always move faster to answer our prayers, or to change this broken world for good. But if the best way to catch up with God, today, is to slow down, then we might become the answer to a prayer or two ourself - as we fall in step with love, and let it lead us on.


*     *     *

 

May you walk with Him, today. 
Go well!

Brian
--------

Trail Mix!

Take time now to settle at the start of the week. Catch up with God, by slowing down into this moment. Take some deeper breaths. On the in-breath, pray: "Humble and gentle one ..." And on the out-breath, "You are rest for my soul."

...

Visualise what you have planned for today, and picture yourself travelling at the speed of love, within it. Think of one practical way, in particular, you can do it. 

...

Take a slow walk of awareness, today - maybe even somewhere busy, such as your local high street. Go slower than normal, and notice what you otherwise wouldn't if you were simply rushing from A to B.

...

Try, for a day, to ruthlessly eliminate hurry. Journal what you notice, as you go.


-------------------------------------------

13 // Just As One Carries a Child


'And you saw in the wilderness how the Lord your God carried you...'  Deuteronomy 1.31


*     *     *

 

Good morning!

Yesterday, I chanced upon a powerful poem about refugees by Brian Bilston, which he’d posted on social media. Politics aside, it reminded me of the direction of travel Jesus takes upon the Incarnational way; in the movement of the heart we mentioned yesterday, which turns the usual ‘top down’ approach to life on its head, and starts from the bottom instead.

So make sure you get all the way to the bottom of the poem. Read it aloud, if you can; you may notice a change in your own tone, as you go ...

Refugees

They have no need of our help
So do not tell me
These haggard faces could belong to you or me
Should life have dealt a different hand
We need to see them for who they really are
Chancers and scroungers
Layabouts and loungers
With bombs up their sleeves
Cut-throats and thieves
They are not
Welcome here
We should make them
Go back to where they came from
They cannot
Share our food
Share our homes
Share our countries
Instead let us
Build a wall to keep them out
It is not okay to say
These are people just like us
A place should only belong to those who are born there
Do not be so stupid to think that
The world can be looked at another way

(now read from bottom to top)

Brian Bilston


*     *     *

 

Wow. Starting from the bottom makes the difference, here - which, as I say, resonates for me with the Incarnation. I guess that’s so much of what the wilderness becomes about, for Jesus, when he shows up there - to show that the world can 'be looked at another way'.

Jesus' temptations, in particular, seem to cry out to be turned upside down, like the poem. Life is not about proving or defending yourself, but demonstrating God's mercy; Jesus' desire is not to gain all the kingdoms of the world, but to redeem and share Creation; he doesn't need to use his gifts and powers to get himself into the 'Inner Circle', because God’s love encircles all.
 

*     *     *

 

I admit I can feel scared of the Incarnational way; I'd almost rather our nice theological words didn't have to be made flesh, sometimes. I can be afraid of change, of letting go, of showing up, of stepping into wilderness. 

But even the idea of wilderness can turn upside down. We have our usual expectations of what it must be like: tough, stark, punitive, maybe; but that's how the ego sees it. And to be fair, it needs to be a place beyond familiarity, to show us how familiar our temptations have become, hidden in plain sight.

For Jesus, above all it was a place to cultivate love, not survival skills. He entered with his Father's words still ringing: "This is my Son ..." And I love to think he let love carry him, ever deeper into God's ways of seeing, and being. For he'll have known, in his toughest moments, that God's people had been there, too. After they'd completed their journey in the wilderness, the Israelites were reminded that this was the place where ‘you saw how the Lord your God carried you ...  just as one carries a child'. Gulp.

Love does the lifting. The poet's right. We can see the world another way.


*     *     *

May you be lifted, today. 
Go well!

Brian
--------

TONIGHT is 'Live at Five' - 5pm, YouTube!

Join me for 'Live at Five' on my YouTube channel as we reflect on the week, share our experience, light a candle and find some soulful space together!

(And if you can't make it at five, you can always catch up later.) 


Trail Mix!

And in the meantime ... I love this song by Michael Gungor called Please Be My Strength. Have a listen, and let God's love, and God's strength, be yours in this moment.  Breathe deep, and in your imagination, let God breathe for you.

Or just remember what it's like, as a child, to be carried. And be carried again.

...

When you feel tempted, today ... notice the urge, and then turn it on its head! Use the moment to pause, breathe, and then do the opposite. Face toward love, and act from that place of assurance and vision.

...

Remember you can catch up with all this week's RSVP responses from the community on the RSVP page here ...

I'll open the window again next week, so you might like to take the opportunity to look back over our last few reflections this weekend, and begin to make a creative response ... (Please don't send me anything quite yet, though!)

--------------------------------

12 // the Way of Listening


"Speak Lord, for your servant is listening." 1 Samuel 3.10


*     *     *

 

Good morning!

How's your week going? I hope you caught a glimpse of the moon on Tuesday. The clouds parted here, just in time, and it was wonderful to pause and think of our community, and of Jesus looking up to that same moon himself, of course.

I've appreciated reflecting further, too, on the people who quietly 'show up', day to day, often without thanks or acknowledgement, to be present for others.

I imagined El Roi, the God who sees, seeing them - perhaps most keenly through the eyes of those they serve - even when so much of their work goes unnoticed. Stones get rolled away by love, not force.


*     *     *

 

Continuing on from yesterday, then, the act of showing up can often mean listening, well. 

I’ve been helped recently, and challenged, by the example of Rich Villodas, the pastor of a large multicultural church in Elmhurst, Queens, who has 75 different nationalities in his congregation. Rich writes in his book The Deeply Formed Life of 'incarnational' listening - and its power, in particular, to cross divides and help to heal.

There are a few pitfalls to be aware of, first, that can prevent us from listening across the border lines of our life, he says. We might equate listening with agreeing; or prefer to be 'right' instead of open. We might reduce people to their worst belief (ouch!); or simply feel afraid of change. Perhaps one or two of those resonate with you.

But when we're ready, incarnational listening invites three movements of the heart, he says, like Jesus’ movement from Word to flesh:

1. Leave your world. Let go of the familiar. Take the risk. Step out.
2. Enter into someone else’s. Practice active, curious and humble listening.
3. Allow yourself to be formed by others. Be open to their worldviews, while holding on to yourself.

I find that inspiring, audacious even, as we take to the blazing trail this Lent! 
 

*     *     *

 

I'm moved, too, by a challenge Rich makes to any of us who benefit, albeit often unconsciously, from the privileges that come with ‘social power’ - whether that's simply from being Western, or having an income, or a good education, or perhaps being white, or male, or in leadership ... The challenge he makes is to listen 'first and most' to those with less than ourselves. 

This is, he says, 'a deeply Christ-centred way of being' - to lead the way with listening across the divide. I guess it's true servant leadership to lay down your power and show up to those without.

Of course, our inspiration is Jesus, who surrendered all, for us - so, what could it be like to listen to him, too, in this way - as this powerless Incarnation of God? To show up, quietly, before him, who walked the edges and margins? 

To let him speak through our spiritual practice, our silent prayer, today; but also - please God - through those along the trail we stop ourselves to listen to, with openness, audacity and love. Speak Lord: Your servant is listening.


*     *     *

May you hear, and be heard, today. 
Go well!

Brian
--------

Trail Mix!

Spend some time in quietness, listening for God.

If you'd like to combine this with your breathing, on the out-breath you could whisper the words from Samuel, "Speak Lord, for your servant is listening ..." And on the in-breath, be silent, and open.

Afterwards, you might also enjoy listening with loving care to this piece of music - Haar, by the Orkney composer Erland Cooper. (I'm so grateful to Helen S for the introduction to Erland!) Bring all your attention to it, to practice tuning in.



Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, 'There is a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say ...'

Try to listen with both ears, today, to someone who has less social power. 

...

We can also, of course, listen to Creation. Wrap yourself up, step outside, and listen to the snow fall, or to the trees praising, or to the birds singing, or to the silence itself from which all our activity today rises, and into which it falls again. If it's safe to do so, stand outside with your eyes closed, and listen.

...

I've just finished uploading this week's amazing RSVP responses! A huge thank you - we're creating something beautiful together. Have a look at the latest batch on the RSVP page here - and in the meantime, keep journalling, painting, writing poems, way-marking ...

--------------------------------------

11 // Show Up


[Hagar] gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” Gen 16.13


*     *     *

 

Good morning!

And happy International Women’s Day! While there's no need for me to pitch my own male voice in to this tremendous global ‘way-marker’, I’d love to share some thoughts I’ve appreciated from the American author Rachel Held Evans.

Rachel died in 2021, aged only 37, but her presence is strongly felt still. According to the journalist Emma Green, she was ‘part of a vanguard of progressive-Christian women who fought to change the way Christianity is taught and perceived in the United States.’

In particular, ‘her very public, vulnerable exploration of a faith forged in doubt empowered a ragtag band of writers, pastors, and teachers to claim their rightful place as Christians.’ That’s a powerful legacy.

You might pause to give thanks for whoever helped you to claim your own place, as well.


*     *     *

 

Thankfully, Rachel had finished writing most of her recent book, Wholehearted Faith, before she died. And within it, she establishes quickly and firmly who shecan credit for her being a Christian: the women of the Bible, she says.

Women such as Mary, Jesus’ mother, and her spiritual ancestors Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Tamar: ‘women who knew what it means to be vulnerable, to suffer, to work within systems that were bent against their flourishing, to endure hierarchies that were designed to forestall their flourishing.’

There’s Elizabeth, too, who endured years of cruel speculation, to raise John the Baptist to be wild and religiously rebellious. And Hagar - made pregnant, then cast into the desert. She’s the only person in the Bible credited with giving God a new name - El-roi, “the One who sees me” - because she recognised, in the desert, that God recognised her.


*     *     *

 

And perhaps most movingly, Rachel’s a Christian, she says, because of the women who supported Jesus logistically, emotionally, spiritually, and dared stick with him to the bitterest end. They did not scatter.

Imagine their lack of closure when they couldn’t even dress the body with spices because it was the sabbath. She pictures them waiting, agonisingly. Did they pray? Did they sit in silence, eyes weary from tears? Did they go over every last terrible detail?

‘I am a Christian,’ she says, ‘because of women who, according to Mark’s gospel, said to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?”

‘I am a Christian because of women who showed up.’


*     *     *

 

The Gospels agree that the first witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus were women. And they were the first simply because … they were there.

‘Sometimes,’ Rachel admits, so helpfully, ‘showing up half-heartedly is all I can muster in my own faith experience, my own burial spices in hand, with no idea how I might move away that stone that sits between myself and Jesus.’

A word for us all, I hope, from those who showed up, to show us how to blaze the trail in ever-present love.
 

*     *     *

 

May you see the One who sees you, today. 
Go well!

Brian
--------

Trail Mix!

Spend a little set-aside time now, with God. Show up, in whatever way you can, in whatever state you find yourself. Be seen.

(If you’d like some musical accompaniment, try this. It's 'Benedictus' by Karl Jenkins, part of his 'Armed Man: Mass for Peace'. Thanks to both Meg M and Helen S for referring to it yesterday in relation to tarab!)



Watch for moments, today, in which you can show up courageously to bring your presence as a gift.

------------------------

10 // The Moonlit Trail


'When the days drew near for Him to be taken up, He set His face to go to Jerusalem.' Luke 9.51 (ESV)


*     *     *

 

Good morning!

We talked last week of measuring life not in abstract units, but soulful way-markers. So I was very touched to hear yesterday from Sharon S in South Africa:

'The word zugunruhe is apt for me today,' she writes. 'For the past week on my morning walk, I have watched hundreds of swallows as they swoop to fill their tummies. Today they are gone - not a single one in sight! I can only assume they have started their great migration north. It never ceases to amaze me how Creation is just so perfect.’

Yes! Isn’t it wonderful, too, how we are all connected, somehow, as part of it? As Sharon bids the swallows farewell, we prepare, in time, to welcome them here (with great joy!), within the ebb and flow of all God’s rhythms.


*     *     *

 

Another way-marker we love to share in, each year, within this Lent community, is the cycle of the moon - which happens to be full tonight (rising at 5.40pm in the UK). It connects us both to that ancient rhythmic pulse of Creation, and also to each other, from wherever in the world we might be looking up.

I’m reminded, especially, of how poignant that is for those separated by distance, or conflict, such as Milana here in England, whose story we heard about in our first week - with her dad in Ukraine, and her mum in Israel.


*     *     *

 

A full moon marks rhythm in a most beautiful way, doesn’t it. Perhaps Jesus, all those many moons ago, kept track of his days in the wilderness by its waxing and waning. He can’t have missed the moon, in those dark-sky nights, of course. Imagine it, for a moment, lighting up his face, his eyes, with wonder, as he himself looked up.

Fast-forward three years, and this particular moon in the year’s lunar cycle also offers a poignant way-marker on Jesus’ path to the Cross. It’s sometimes known as ‘the Lenten Moon’, as it’s the final one before the Paschal Moon at Passover, when Jesus will be arrested and tried.

The countdown, then, is on. He has just one moon to go, from here to Gethsemane. And so do we, as we travel with him now, through Lent, but also toward Easter, tracing this moonlit trail he walked as he 'set his face' - that same face we just imagined - to Jerusalem, knowing where it all must lead.

Perhaps the moon can help remind us to walk with courage, too, this Lent, where he has led; to stay our course, as best we can, in steps of sacrificial love.


*     *     *

 

And if inter-continental bird migration feels too flighty, and if the beauty of the moon is hidden by clouds, perhaps there’s a down-to-earth way-marker that you might notice today, which reminds you of the slow but inexorable turning of the Earth toward the light, and brings you hope. A magnolia bud is opening in our garden, the very colour of moonlight itself. And that will do, for me.


*     *     *

 

May you look up, today. 
Go well!

Brian

 

--------

Trail Mix!

Why not take a few moments to reconnect with three fundamental rhythms:

1. Your breathing. Breathe in for 4, and out for 6, giving thanks for God’s breath which breathes you into life. Repeat, for as long as feels right. As you do, put your hand on your diaphragm, to notice its rising and falling. Remember Jesus’ humanity - his first breaths, as a baby; his last, upon the Cross; the sound of his breath in the stillness of the wilderness.

2. Your heartbeat. Give thanks for God’s love, which pulses through you, and sustains you. Put your hand on your heart, and imagine what it was like for the apostle John to lay his head back against Jesus’ chest at the Last Supper, feeling the heartbeat of God. Sense that closeness with him, now.

3. Finally, connect with the light of dawn. Face east, look through a window if you can (or step outside), and receive the gift of new mercies which arise with the sun. Open your hands wide, and imagine God’s mercy flooding toward you, and then through you, to those who need to feel its touch today.



If it's safe, why not take a night walk, or simply step into your garden (or look from a window) after dark and watch for the moon. Even if it's cloudy, remember someone you're separated from across the distance, and perhaps someone in the Lent community you've read about on the RSVP page.

Remember Jesus, too - there in the desert, and then, three years hence, setting his face toward Jerusalem as the lunar countdown begins.

...

If you happen to be near water and have clear skies tonight, you might like to watch for the moon’s reflection, and let it inspire or move you.

And even if you're not, there’s a word in Swedish - ‘mångata’ - which means ‘the road-like reflection of moonlight on water’, and you might use this image to help you reflect from a different angle on the nature of the blazing trail. The pathway Jesus took, as marked by the light and rhythm of the moon. 

-------------------------------------

9 // Words of Love


'This is my son, whom I love.' Matthew 3.17


*     *     *

 

Good morning!

I've shared, in previous series, a few words from other languages (or forgotten ones of our own) which help give richer expression to our walk of life and faith.

The lexicographer Susie Dent has blazed a trail with inspiring, uncommon words, and recently compiled an 'emotional dictionary’ which, in particular, explores our capacity to feel. She says that if you can draw on a wider vocabulary to express your emotions, you're better placed to deal with them.

I'm sure that's so, and I’ve found a few words in her book I’d love to share, which nurture spiritual as well as emotional intelligence. I hope they help give voice to something you may sense but have hitherto not have found expression for. Please take each, if you can, pause-fully, as you might with a meditation.


*     *     *

 

Let's start with a joyful one - confelicity - which means ‘taking pleasure in someone else’s happiness’. It's the kind of pleasure you might derive from watching children open their Christmas stockings! 

I'm sure God takes great delight in our happiness. Perhaps we have to work a bit harder, sometimes, not to be jealous of the happiness of others. If that's so, it's not too late to embrace confelicity as a challenging, but cheering spiritual discipline, for Lent.
 

*     *     *

The Japanese word siejaku means ‘tranquility amid chaos’. It’s the kind of calm equanimity we tend to find most frequently in nature.

And it makes me think of the stillness Jesus cultivated in the desert, which he brought with him, into his ministry. Remember how he was able to sleep in the boat when the storm struck Lake Galilee. “Hush, be still,” he told the wind and waves ... and it was ‘completely calm’. The ripple effect, reversed.


*     *     *

 

Another Japanese word, shibui, describes ‘a subtle beauty that increases with age’. You can apply it to anything ‘from a wrinkled face, to a time-honed piece of wood'. Gorgeous! It's what you might call a soulful 'aesthetic', and a much-needed counter-point to our obsession with youth.

You might also like flawsome, coined more recently by the model Tyra Banks,  to express the beauty we exude within our flaws, not in spite of them.


*     *     *

 

We've touched on awe in this series, and the Arabic word tarab - which has no equivalent in Western language - evokes ‘the enchantment and intense spiritual responses that flow through us when we listen to music.’

Worship is far more than our songs of praise, of course, but it's surely no coincidence that music, in all its forms, resonates - and holds a unique place in helping us explore and express our bass-note yearnings for God.


*     *     *

 

Is zugunruhe what Abraham felt when he was called to leave Ur, and all his home comforts, and set out to blaze that most original trail in Genesis? 

It’s the German word to describe an ‘uncontainable impulse to move’. Birds have it with migration, and apparently ‘even caged robins will turn repeatedly towards north when their free siblings are making their annual flight’. 

We can feel this magnetic pull, too, when we know things have to change; when it's time for us to fly again.


*     *     *

 

And, finally, the Chinese word teng is a gorgeous one, and points me to God. 'For all that love and sorrow often go together, we lack a word to express the pain that comes from love,’ says Susie Dent. Teng can describe the sorrow inherent in the bond between a parent and child: the words “I love you” spoken by a mother or father can be framed instead as: “My heart hurts for you.”

Might this help us glimpse more of how God felt in proclaiming, as Jesus rose from the waters of baptism, “This is my son, whom I love” - sensing what such love would cost them both? Did e’re such love and sorrow meet...

The theologian Douglas John Hall writes poignantly of how power can never be used to force the cause of love, even by God: ‘God’s problem,' he says, 'is not that God is not able to do certain things. God’s problem is that God loves. Love complicates the life of God as it complicates every life.’ 

There is always more to discover, it seems, about feeling, when God feels, too, and feels for each of us so keenly. Love, so amazing, so divine - that it finds such expression in this Word, made flesh, who loves to dwell among us.
 

*     *     *

May love find expression in you, and through you, today. 
Go well!

Brian
--------

Trail Mix!

In a few quiet moments, breathe in, and out, and sense God's loving presence within you and around you.

Why not listen to Kathryn Scott's beautiful rendition of When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.

...

I've written a suggestion for each of the words above. Head to the one you've felt drawn to, or else feel free to work through each in your own time, today.


Imagine God taking delight in something you feel happy about.

And try to take joy, today, in someone else's happiness (confelicity).

...

Breathe in the stillness of this moment, the stillness Jesus drew from in the desert. Wherever you go, try to bring tranquility to chaos (siejaku). 

...

Take a look in the mirror, and as the poet Wendell Berry says: “Rest in the Maker’s joy". Let the beauty of your age, and soul, exude (shibui)!

...

Listen to a piece of music with your full attention, and feel the response flowing through you (tarab).

...

Sense if the restless stirring within you means it's time to move on, like a calling (zugunruhe). Don't try to force an answer, but do give it some space.

...

Hear God speaking the words, "This is ________ , whom I love." Add in your name. Receive God's love, acknowledging that life can be complicated for God, too, because God loves (teng).



-----------------------------

8 // Filled to the Measure


'I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may ... be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.' Ephesians 3.17-19


*     *     *

 

Good morning!

Do you have the 'measure' of life, yet? It struck me afresh this week how much we try to quantify it - in terms of numbers, for instance. OK, I admit, my thinking was prompted when less than half the people who booked turned up for a walking retreat I was leading. No matter, of course - the lack of 'numbers' was far outweighed by sheer abundance of spirit!

But we do tend to measure ourselves (and find ourselves wanting!) in all sorts of numerical ways, from salary to social media hits to sales targets - and through all that, our sense of ‘usefulness’ also affects our sense of worth.

I'm so grateful, then, that Jesus says we are 'no longer servants but friends' (John 15.15), as it means 'utility' is one metric we need never worry about in his kingdom.
 

*     *     *

 

Distance is also interesting - I heard the country vicar and author Colin Heber-Percy talk this week about how we measure and map the world in soulless abstract units. How much richer to see the blazing trail in terms of gospel oaks, snow-drops, favourite benches, friendly cafés ... Way-markers of the soul, I love to think, that give a different bearing on life.

Half way along my regular walk to the supermarket is a tree I’ve come to love, whose bark looks like a stop-motion lava flow. It hints at me to drop my pace and pay attention: don’t miss this life, this route, this place, en route to some place else, some other life, it seems to say each time.


*     *     *

 

And time, yes! It ticks away in minutes and hours which blur into years, and how tempting it is to worry about how much we have left, or fret about time we have wasted. I’d rather listen to the generous prophetic spirit of Annie Dillard: “Spend the afternoon,” she says. “You can’t take it with you.”

Pause, breathe, linger - and though time in Lent doesn’t quite stop, it does seem to bend back into a circle as we find a rhythm again: in mercies new each morning, awe-filled sunsets, spring-time rising from its winter grave, a prelude for Easter.

 

*     *     *


How then, do we even start to measure God for whom a thousand years is like a day? In prayers answered, or pews filled?!

On that walk last week, I reflected on God’s sheer fluidity. How the Spirit is like air, blowing where it will, yet always giving life; like water rising as a river in us from a generous Source below; like light, in the touch of the sun on a late-winter's day, bringing warmth to the face, and unquantifiable joy to the soul.

You don't have to stand under a riverside willow, as we did, to feel the Spirit’s flow, of course. This blazing trail takes us to landscapes within, where the soul can respond in equal wonder: How high and wide and deep is all this love? 

At the least, as we hold out our little measuring cups to life, I love to think God smiles at their inadequacy. They "runneth over", as the psalmist rightly says - which perhaps was the point of all this, all along. Our own limited measures serve to show, if nothing else, how the love of a God who calls us "friend" can never, in such fullness, be contained by anything but our overflowing heart.


*     *     *

 

May you be filled to the measure, today. 
Go well!

Brian
--------

Trail Mix!

Spend a few moments within the overflowing wonders of Ephesians 3.17-20: 

'I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

'Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory!'

...

Here's one of my favourite pieces of music to 'be still' by - 20:17 by Olafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm. Take some breaths, relax, smile, and open yourself to the friendship and overflowing love of God. You might like to speak a phrase from the Ephesians passage out loud, a few times, as you listen.

...

This weekend, why not take a walk around your locality. It doesn't have to be countryside! Find one or two 'way markers' that give you a richer sense of bearing in your neighbourhood - it might be a favourite bookshop, café, tree, river, chapel, park ... Spend a bit of time there, and appreciate it. You might even like to draw a creative 'map' including some of your soulful way markers.



-------------------------

7 // The Small But Monumental Gesture


"Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” Matthew 26.13


*     *     *

 

Good morning!

Just the simplest of stories, today. The rock star Nick Cave lives in Brighton, and recently wrote a moving memoir with the journalist Séan O’Hagan which interweaves themes of grief, hope, faith and creativity. (Though not a ‘typical’ Christian by all appearances, he practices a deep and inspiring faith.)

Cave cuts an unmistakably famous, imposing figure, and when his teenage son Arthur died tragically, he laid low for a season, devastated, and riven with grief.

When he went out for the first time again, he visited his local vegetarian food shop (where he's a regular) and encountered a familiar woman working there, with whom he'd always shared ‘the normal pleasantries’, as he says.

She didn’t say anything in particular as she took his order, which he thought ‘a little strange’, given the circumstances. However, ‘as she gave me back my change,’ he recounts, 'she squeezed my hand purposefully. It was such a quiet act of kindness, the simplest and most articulate of gestures - but at the same time, it meant more than all that anybody had tried to tell me’ (about grief).


*     *     *

 

It’s funny, there are thousands of articulate words and countless helpful thoughts in his book, too. But the one thing I remember most vividly is this woman's act. It touches me, in the telling. You can feel it, rippling out.

It stayed with the musician, too. ‘In difficult times, I'll often go back to that feeling she gave me. There was something truly moving to me about that simple, wordless act of compassion.’

It reminds me, in a way, of the woman who anoints Jesus with perfume. Of course, her action was costly and sacrificial - but still, it was a simple, loving, tactile gesture - and Jesus said it would be remembered always. Perhaps, because he will never forget it; because he ‘goes back to that feeling’, too.


*     *     *

 

‘What you remember are the acts of kindness,’ says Cave, reflecting on his own painful path through grief. ‘The small but monumental gesture reverberates through the world in ways that we will never know.’ 

How beautifully put! I’m sure you can remember small things done with great love for you, which touched your soul, brought you awe; brought you back to life, even.


*     *     *

It was St David’s Day yesterday, and I’m reminded, too, of his own commitment to ‘do the little things in God's presence with conscientiousness and devotion’.

It’s a very Lent-like way to go, and we might draw inspiration today both from St David, and those two unnamed but unforgettable women, as we take another reverent step along this blazing trail. 

A step beyond the blizzard of words, great ideas and good intentions - to where we dare to think a little smaller, and to touch the hand of this one day with love.


*     *     *

 

May love reverberate.
Go well!

Brian
--------

Trail Mix!

Taking St David’s words, let’s do something little in God’s presence. Something physical. Why not take some breaths, with gratitude for life, then lower yourself to your knees, for a few moments, and be present to God’s presence - a simple gift of love to God today.

….

We talk about feeling the touch of God’s hand upon our life, but sometimes it’s hard to imagine. Try to see God as the woman in the food shop, serving you, and squeezing your hand without saying anything. 

Be open to God’s touch today, when you're out and about!



Recall a time when you’ve been touched beyond words by a small but monumental gesture. Give thanks for the giver. Thank them today, if you can. And try to pay it forward in just as small a way, with joy!

...

You can listen to Nick Cave and Séan O'Hagan discuss their recent book in this inspiring episode of The Sacred Podcast, hosted by Elizabeth Oldfield and the Christian think-tank Theos.



------------------------------

6 // The Aurora Awe


'When I consider your heavens,
   the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
   which you have set in place,
what is humanity ... ?' Psalm 8.3-6 
 

*     *     *

 

Good morning. (And happy St David's Day!)

Did you see the aurora?!

In a very rare occurrence this week, the northern lights were visible as far south as Kent and Cornwall! My phone rang at 9pm on Monday and it was my brother-in-law, with 'eyes on', enraptured. We were so excited that my daughter Mercy broke her toe racing to the window! But that's another story.

There have been tales of people dropping everything and high-tailing it in their pyjamas to the hills, just for the possibility of a glimpse - such is the sheer magnetism of this awe-inspiring heavenly spectacle. It draws us.


*     *     *

 

Awe is a powerful thing, isn't it? The neuroscientist Dacher Keltner, an expert on the subject, defines it as 'the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world.’ And I'm sure God has created us with this capacity for a reason.

Fascinatingly, Keltner's research pinpoints eight 'wonders’ which seem to induce awe in us all, regardless of race, culture or belief. It's a great list:

moral beauty (that is, acts of goodness and courage by others);
collective effervescence (the unified thrill of being as 'one' in a crowd);
wild awe (as found in nature);
music;
visual design;
spirituality and religion;
life and death moments;
epiphanies.

These all take us beyond our 'small self' into a greater, inter-connected reality. The ego dissolves for just long enough; and I'd say, in those moments, that the soul can stir and reach for deeper communion with God, Creation, each other. We glimpse a different kind of belonging; one that we can practise.

I wonder, when you were last touched by awe? And how did it move you?

According to Keltner, awe directly evokes wonder - a state of ‘openness, questioning, curiosity, and the embrace of mystery’ - as well as the physical response of goosebumps, often tears, and what he calls ‘Whoahs’ (literally, the most universal sound humans make when awestruck).


*     *     *

 

And what of Jesus, out in the wilderness, with that God-given, human capacity to feel the presence of something vast; a mystery beyond himself. Did he get goosebumps, under those dark desert skies? Did the wonder of God's love at times release tears?

Did the nature of the landscape serve to draw him more fully into the whole? He was there for a reason, after all. Could the rocks hear him uttering, from time to time, his own hushed and reverent “Whoah”?

The aurora awe seemed so special. What a gift; the photos were stunning! I didn't get out there quite quickly enough, myself, but no matter: I still shivered joyfully seeing the stars from a nearby field, and sharing my brother-in-law's moment ...

And mostly, I find myself in awe, this week, of the One who paints the sky with lights, and more - who subjects himself so freely to the wonder of our human experience; and whose soul will stir, light up, for us all.
 

*     *     *

 

May you be awed, today, aurora or not.
Go well!

Brian
--------

Trail Mix!

Sit in stillness for a few moments, now. In the vast beauty of silence, invite your 'small self' to be still, and for God to draw and stir your soul.

...

Try to put yourself in the way of awe and wonder, today. Remind yourself what stirs you: play a piece of music that moves you, or read a poem, or the artwork that captivates you ...

...

Look for awe, today, in everyday places - within those eight 'wonders'. Be awed by the goodness of others, and perhaps allow your own good self to touch the soul of those around you.

...

Venus and Jupiter have been edging wonderfully closer together in the Western skies just after sunset this week, and tonight they’ll come in for their closest pass and what astronomers are calling a ‘kiss’ … Why not step out to see them, and to enjoy a moment of quiet awe, clouds willing! 

...

You can listen to a lovely conversation between Dacher Keltner and Krista Tippett on 'The Thrilling New Science of Awe' at the On Being website.

And you can see some lovely pictures from readers of the Guardian here


RSVPs! (NB: window now closed for this week)

Thank you so much for your awesome RSVPs this week! I'm still adding the last of them to the RSVP page here, so keep checking back. It's truly inspiring to see the wisdom of the group begin to find expression. Thank you! (Please don't send any more for now.)

...

References

Dacher Keltner, Awe: The Transformative Power of Everyday Life (Allen Lane, 2023)

-------------------------------------

5 // The Heart of Belonging


When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” ... The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” John 4.7-9
 

*     *     *

 

I was at the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature this weekend (it was great!), and questions of belonging kept cropping up. What does it mean to belong? How do I cultivate belonging? What if I don’t belong here, anymore?

Maybe it's post-Covid. Or because we live in such a transient world, now. Or because some people feel they no longer quite belong in the church. Or because it's all just such a deeply human matter.


*     *     *

 

It is, of course, an exquisite gift to belong.

I grew up happily in rural Kent, and felt I had a ‘place’ within the place and the landscape and the people and the sports teams and the churches. What joy, looking back, to have known most people by name, and to have been known.

Perhaps there’s a time or place you’ve felt truly part of, which informs the way you hope to belong again, some day - or indeed how you'd like to help others to belong, here and now.


*     *     *

 

At the same time, belonging isn’t everything, is it?

In fact, it’s often in the ‘liminal’ places - when we’re uprooted, sometimes painfully - that we discover some of the most creative and fertile landscapes to explore (as well as some of the goodness of what we once took for granted). As a stranger in a strange land, we can glimpse a different world; horizons shift.

And while boundaries can offer a healthy sense of belonging, the question of 'where to draw the line’ matters, because a line will always, by its nature, be exclusionary.

CS Lewis warns us of the “Inner Rings” of places, communities, organisations that our ego can feel desperate to join to be part of the in-crowd. The trouble is, if you’re “in”, there's an invisible line keeping others out, which ultimately makes it a vacuous pursuit - as you make it through rings within rings, like a peeled onion you can end up finding there’s really little left at the heart of it all.


*     *     *

 

In his book English Grounds, Andrew Rumsey writes: ‘The need to defend and define our pitch lies deep … such that the crossing of boundaries has always been an action both sacred and dangerous.’ That's beautiful.

It was both sacred and dangerous for Jesus to cross into our world in such an unsettlingly open, embodied way. He was happy to gatecrash the Inner Rings of pious religiosity, in particular, to expose them for what they really are.

He was willing, too, to travel the other way, outside the lines, to belong with those who didn’t - like the woman at the well, a Samaritan, with whom he shares a noon-day thirst for God, and his own life-giving drink plentifully, the Source of which belongs to all.
 

*     *     *

 

Was that part of the plan as the path led him into the wilderness for 40 days? To find himself there on the outside, thirsty, hungry; to become acquainted with the margins; to learn to love the unloved places?

Perhaps this Lent, we might follow him over a boundary with due courage and reverence; or, with even greater daring, let him cross with others into ours. Expand the circle; give it its heart.
 

*     *     *

 

May you seek and find the heart of belonging, today.
Go well!

Brian
--------

Trail Mix!

Give thanks for some of the people you have known, and who know you by name. Speak a few names out, of people who have let you cross their border, welcomed you, helped you belong more fully. Hold them in your heart.

...

Imagine Jesus, who knows you even closer, speaking your name again. Sit with him, in a place of belonging, drawing from the Source. Bring your thirst for God, and your desire to know and be known most fully, to him in this moment.

...

I really appreciate this contrast between 'fitting in' and belonging from Brené Brown (from The Gifts of Imperfection.). It helps me to think a bit more about the Inner Rings: “Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.”

Pray for the courage to bring your God-given self to each situation you face today with courage and love. Pause before stepping through a doorway, or indeed crossing a border, to remember, and to whisper "Here I am" with assurance and humility.

..

Bring with you the connection with God you find 'at the well', today. Draw deep.

-----------------------------

4 // Go!


Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. "Go ..." (John 8.10)
 

*     *     *

I experienced some trail magic for myself last week, not out on a country path, but in the cathedral on Ash Wednesday.

There was, first of all, the awe of being marked with an ash cross as the choir sang ‘Miserere’. We’ll talk more about awe, soon - how it can lift you into a greater place or story, one in which the ego is mercifully relieved of its duties: ‘Remember, you are dust …’ 
 

*     *     *

 

But I was grateful to glimpse, too, something that's been hidden (for me) in plain sight. The reading and talk were on the woman caught in adultery, and I'd always taken the story principally to be about not judging others. 

However, we were invited (by Tess Kuin Lawton, the cathedral's canon missioner) to put ourselves in the shoes of the woman, for a change.

And then, she asked us to imagine that our most private misdemeanours had been dragged into the cold light of judgement, and that we were the subject of public vitriol for whatever it is we think makes us unlovable; for whatever we are ashamed of most.
 

*     *     *

 

'To be honest,' said Tess, 'we don't even need a chorus of self-righteous religious men; we are more than capable of creating those voices of judgement in our own heads, telling us we're not good enough, that we will never amount to anything, that we are hopelessly inadequate. But Jesus is not listening to those voices. He has bent down and is writing in the dust ...'

The drama unfolds, and it is we who are standing (in our imagination, at least) before him now.

"Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone," Jesus says. And everyone exits the scene, except he who is indeed without sin; the one who remains with enough moral authority to cast a rock at us, if he really wanted to. As if.

And there you are, looking into the eyes of God. “Has no one condemned you?” "No one, sir,” you reply. “Then neither do I condemn you. Go ...”


*     *     *

 

It's you and me he's releasing, as well as her.

We're free to go, and part of that exquisite freedom is to go "and sin no more" - yet regardless, he looks right into us, and does not condemn us. 


*     *     *

 

Lent is a laying down of so much that hinders, including the rocks we still carry to use against each other and ourselves.

And hasn't Jesus, the trail blazer, already been there? As he bends to write in the sand, taking the heat out of this vicious, crowded moment, making space - perhaps his writing takes him back to the dust of his own time in the desert, when the accuser came as if to judge and trip and condemn him. Did he write in the sand there, too, as he waited, on God, to feel the power of love's release?

This is the one we follow, as we step into this week released by that same love. What a place from which to start.

'The mark of the cross in ashes on our forehead,' Tess concluded, 'is not a mark of shame, but a sign of what God can do with dust.' That's the kind of spirit we need for the blazing trail, surely - as we hear that shortest and most loving of words ringing in our ears and resounding in our heart: "Go!"
 

*     *     *

 

May you feel the power of love's release, today.
Go well!

Brian
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Trail Mix!

Pause to breathe, and relax, and become present to God's presence.

Why not read the passage in John, and put yourself in the woman's shoes. Use your imagination.

You might like to journal or draw the phrase, “Then neither do I condemn you" or indeed, simply, "Go!" Reflect on what it means to "Go" in light of this story.

...

If you're out and about today, have a look for a pebble or stone, and hold it in your hand for a while as you reflect on how you tend to condemn yourself (or others). Hear the words "Neither do I condemn you", and release the stone from your grip somewhere appropriate (drop it in some water, if you can). Continue on, 'released' to go.

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3 // "We Speak of Hope"


'Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.' Romans 12.21


*     *     *

 

Good morning!

Just for today, as we continue along the trail, I'm making a small departure from my usual format. It seems absolutely right to pause to mark the anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, but I wanted to let another voice be heard among us.

So I’ve asked Liz H, who's part of our Lent community, to share a fragment of her own story. She, like many others, has taken Ukrainian refugees into her home in the UK, and it has been far from simple for them or her.

The American novelist Toni Morrison writes of the importance, in the face of evil, of ‘allowing goodness its own speech’. As we bear witness, today, to the sorrow and futility of war, we can also steadfastly allow goodness its own speech - here in the humble yet powerful form of Liz’s words, below.

It's just one story among so many; yet as we listen to this particular one with love, I believe we can honour every act of goodness arising from the ashes of this conflict - and be inspired to 'give goodness its own speech' through hopeful actions of our own, be they big or small, seen or unseen, as we continue our way from the ashes of Ash Wednesday, deeper into Lent.

You might like to pause, to breathe, to be still, and to invite the goodness and mercy of God's presence to follow you through all the places your own path will lead, today. Including, now, into the reality of this story.


*     *     *

 

My husband Stephen and I collected Viktoriia and her 17-year-old daughter Milana from Heathrow last June. Viktoriia had no English; Milana’s wasn’t so bad. We soon grew used to using translation apps! Viktoriia found a job at a restaurant and we enrolled her for English classes.

The local college was helpful in supporting Milana - taking ‘A' levels is no mean feat in a language you’re not so familiar with. She felt lonely, looking to her mum for emotional support, and to me as I knew the system. There was lots to do in the early days.

Then ‘life’ happened: in August, Viktoriia’s other daughter - a 29-year old single mum living in Tel Aviv (she’d married an Israeli) collapsed and was rushed into hospital where she remains, unable to walk or talk. Viktoriia flew straight there, but it's hard for her to leave, now, not knowing if she'd be allowed to return.

Viktoriia's husband remains near Kyiv and is helping in the reserves. So the family are scattered over three countries, and Milana is here without mum or dad. Everything feels so precarious, and worse with the fear of what may happen around the anniversary.

Since August, then, we’ve been in loco parentis, which was not what any of us signed up for. It’s been challenging - it’s a decade since our youngest was 17! - but when I feel frustrated that items fall out of the under-stairs cupboard (our space is more cramped these days!), I remind myself there is a war on - and that this is nothing, in comparison.

When we talk at mealtimes with Milana about the war, we are brought closer to the reality. It is around our table. The sights and sounds. We can feel the horror. At this point, there is nothing to do but just be, in the pain of it. We hug, either in person with Milana or virtually with Viktoriia. Prayer has become silence. Stephen and I meditate every day together. We light a candle. We remember.

We speak of hope - and somehow we hold it, by saying it. Even today, Viktoriia has said in a message to us that she hopes … Other days, she finds herself in despair. All feelings are valid, of course. How not to hate, or sink to the depths?

Much of the time, I take these words of Thomas Merton as my inspiration:

‘You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognise the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.’

“I am fortunate God sent you to us,” Viktoriia told me last week. I asked her if she’d mind me sharing her story with this community, and she said no, of course not: “We will be very grateful for the prayers. We really need them.”


*     *     *

 

May we speak of hope wherever, and however, we can, today.
Go well!

Brian

Join me for 'Live at Five' on YouTube today (details below). I'll be back with the next written reflection on Monday.

 

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Trail Mix!

The Celts had a saying:

“It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”

Why not sit in prayerful silence, light a candle and 'remember' - which is what Liz says she does - as an act of prayerful solidarity with Viktoriia, Milana, Liz and Stephen, and all the other stories they help to represent, today.



As an act of prayer, listen to this exquisite version of the Lord's Prayer sung in Ukrainian. (According to Christianity Today, 'at any interdenominational gathering, everyone stands to pray it together as an act of worship. This setting is from an Orthodox Easter liturgy.')

...

Later, or this weekend, reflect on Merton's amazing words, and seek to apply them to your own context as you begin your journey through Lent:

‘You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognise the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.’


---------------------------

2 // Trail Magic


'Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.' Psalm 23


*     *     *

 

Good morning!

I recently heard a lovely phrase that made deep intuitive sense to me: trail magic. It came via the author of the Salt Path, Raynor Winn, who is Britain’s most celebrated hiker these days after her much-loved books about walking great trails. As Winn explains (in her most recent book Landlines):

‘Trail magic is the wonderful theory that if you need help on the trail it will come from somewhere - or at the very least you’ll experience something that makes you feel awe and gratitude.’ How good! I'm reminded of the line from that famous Celtic blessing: 'May the road rise up to meet you ...'


*     *     *

 

Of course, we’re walking a metaphorical trail through Lent - and fear not, this is not a series on hiking! - but for me, it sets a vividly evocative tone as we begin.

You might recall times when help has arrived for you along ‘the trail’ - after you've bravely embarked on a new project, perhaps, or begun the next chapter of life. And I'm sure you can recount moments you’ve been stopped in your tracks by 'awe and gratitude', which somehow renewed you, gave you hope.

 

*     *     *

 

After Winn and her husband lost everything including their house, and with pitifully few options, they chose courageously to hike the South West Coast Path, wild camping as they went. Without giving too much away, good things really did indeed arrive along their often gruelling journey.

For Winn, trail magic seems to be an inspiring mix of serendipity, appreciation for the wonders hidden in plain sight around us, and the kindness of strangers. In fact, there's a shared ethic among hikers (originating from the Appalachian Trail) of bringing the magic to the trail by leaving food anonymously, or going out of one's way to help, or engaging in random acts of kindness; Winn herself finds food tucked under her tent flap, just when she needs it most.
 

*     *     *

 

Of course, for ‘trail magic’ we might also read God’s mysterious and wonderful ways. Perhaps you have been on a pilgrimage and drawn alongside just the right person at the right time; or had a moment of clarity on your spiritual ‘walk’ which changed you; or felt a healing connection in nature; or found that the path has led you through a difficult stretch to a place of growth you’d otherwise never have encountered.

Not that life is all about the next ‘wow’ moment - every step is holy. But isn’t there something truly magical about opening ourself to the presence of God, to the wonder of nature, to the kindnesses of others, that at least invites the ‘goodness and mercy’ of Psalm 23 to follow us, as we commit to the path?


*     *     *

 

So it excites me anew, the prospect of our journey into Lent: opening to the kind of unexpected twists and turns for which we cannot plan; and the good things which seem to weave their ways inexorably between us as we go. 

Even better, the invitation to become, along the way, a source of kindness and love! To be willing to be the answer to the prayer of someone we might encounter on the path. To become generous channels of the very goodness and mercy we've received from God, with every holy step we take. Walk on.
 

*     *     *

 

May the road rise up to meet you, today.
Go well!

Brian
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Trail Mix!

Pause to give thanks for the times when help has come, unexpectedly; and for the moments of 'awe and gratitude' you have felt along the path you have taken.

You might like to write one paragraph about a specific time you recall, to help you relive it, and to receive its goodness afresh.

How do these past experiences help you to contemplate walking the path ahead of you?

...

I think I suggest this song most years, but Mike Scott's sublime 'Open' seems to encapsulate the spirit of the trail rather magically! Listen with loving attention, noticing any words or phrases in particular that speak to you. You might like to respond to a phrase by drawing or sketching or doodling about it in a journal.

...

Spend a few minutes sitting in complete openess to God, today. Not trying to get anything from the experience, but giving yourself to God, and to all that God might want unexpectedly to give to you further along the trail.



--------------------------

1 // Begin With the End in Mind


‘Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wild.’ Luke 4.1 (MSG)

*     *     *


Good morning!

And here we are, at the start of Lent, with another invitation to begin afresh! I wonder how you feel about being here? Why not pause for a few moments to notice, with loving care, what's on your mind, and on your heart.

Take a breath. Soften your posture. Smile, and bring yourself to this moment of departure.

...


For we are, indeed, setting out on a trail, today, and while we don’t know quite where it will lead, we do have a guide, as we follow Jesus ‘in’.

When blazing a trail in a forest, you'd normally mark little notches on trees so that others can spot them, and follow. Surely Jesus was the most original ‘trail blazer’ of all, and we’ll look for signs along the Way this Lent of where he’s been and where he’s heading, as he says, “Follow me!”

(Imagine him speaking your name personally, as part of the invitation.)
 

*     *     *

 

The leadership expert Stephen Covey advises that with any project or journey it helps to ‘begin with the end in mind’.

You may be especially keen, this Lent, to break an unhelpful habit, or to find a healthier rhythm. If that’s the case, try to picture yourself at your journey’s end. What could it look like for you, and for those around you, once you’re there?
 

*     *     *

 

We might also begin with the end of Jesus’ journey in mind - not just the 40 days he spent in the wilderness before his public work began (which is the inspiration for our own time in Lent), but his path right through into Easter, which is what our hearts can prepare for, even now.

Remember how Mary Magdalene comes to the empty tomb on Easter Day and asks the gardener where the body is. He speaks her name; and she sees the risen Christ before her for the first time. “Rabboni” she exclaims. “Don’t hold on to me!” he replies.

‘Maybe he could hear it in the voice,’ writes Barbara Brown-Taylor - ‘how she wanted him back to the way they were, back to the old life … But he was not on his way back to her and the others. He was on his way to God, and he was taking the whole world with him.’


*     *     *

 

Perhaps our challenge, then, is not to keep him here with us, in all that’s safe and familiar; but to let him lead where he is going - which is onwards, right in to the presence of God itself.

 

For now, and back here at this fresh start, it’s one step at a time for us, and so … we begin, together, now! The cross of ashes on our foreheads, this Ash Wednesday, a blaze; a sign itself, of love - where all this leads. Let's go.
 

*     *     *

 

May we begin with the end in mind.
Go well!

Brian
--------

Trail Mix!

(Here, I'll offer a small handful of daily extra prompts to help sustain your thinking, journalling or soulful practice. But only use what you can manage!)

I wonder what it was like for Jesus heading ‘in’ to the wilderness that first day. How did he feel, to be there? What was on his mind and heart? Try to imagine.

...

In a few moments of quiet, imagine Jesus calling your name. (If you have privacy, speak your name out loud, over and over, to help you 'hear' it.)

...

Later, why not have a short walk (if you can), symbolically to take your first steps ‘in’ to this season of Lent.

Reflect on whether there’s anything specific you’d like to stop doing or start doing differently during Lent. And pause somewhere, at a bench or by a tree perhaps, to say, "Here I am."

Offer yourself to God, to the path ahead, and to the season.

...

I'll be heading to the cathedral here in Winchester tonight for Ash Wednesday evensong 'with the imposition of ashes'. If you can't get to a service, you can join with this one on-line here. It starts at 5.30pm GMT.

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References

Barbara Brown Taylor, Home By Another Way (Cowley, 1999).
Stephen Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Successful People (Free Press, 1989).

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