I have just read an interesting article on the BBC News website about the disconnect between us as human beings and the natural world. It’s an interesting read and you can find it here:

Biodiversity - a kind of washing powder?

It brought to mind another disconnect that I was considering earlier in the week – the disconnect between humankind and the spiritual world – or to phrase it differently our disconnect with our own souls. If you doubt this disconnect, then go out into a busy town centre on a Saturday night – or preferably, watch one of the police television programmes where you can be a fly on the wall. Safer that way!

So, is there any way of addressing this disconnect? Well, one of the exciting programmes on British television at the moment is The Big Silence, which is the story behind a group of ordinary people being introduced to silence and, in particular, to an eight day silent retreat. The retreat is based at the delightful North Wales Retreat Centre of St Beuno’s. I know it’s delightful because I have spent time there myself – and will no doubt do so again – seeking the stillness and ‘God-centredness’ of this special place.

You can catch the episodes you may have missed on the BBC iplayer and the final episode occurs on November 5th 2010.

Silence is tha main way in which we can do something about our disconnect with our own souls and I love the description of silence as the ‘doorway to our soul’ and the soul as the ‘doorway to God’.

One way you might give silence a try is to do the following short exercise.

Put aside five minutes and turn off your phones, computers, and other things that might disturb you.

Find a comfortable place to sit, stand or lie, depending on your inclination (but remember the purpose of this is not actually to sleep!)

Spend a minute making yourself comfortable, closing your eyes and concentrating on your in-breaths and out-breaths.

Relax your body.

Now remember this fact – God is in every part of our world, so God is there with you, whether you can sense that or not.

And now for a few minutes imagine this God who is with you actually looking at you – simply looking at you.

And you simply look at God, who is looking at you.


… Looking at God, looking at you…


Finish by speaking to God what is there in your heart.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

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It is Autumn now in England and the trees are looking like beautiful patchwork quilts - or Joseph's 'coat of many colours' (to quote the musical rather than the Bible)! Dappled colours, misty mornings, pale sunlight, glorious sunsets - it is a very lovely time of year despite it being the precursor to poorer weather and darker days.

And here is something else lovely that echoes the wonder of this season. I can just imagine Gerard Manley Hopkins sitting in the grounds of St Beuno's in North Wales writing this (he was probably safely in his room - but, hey, I can imagine)!

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things --
&nbsp&nbsp For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
&nbsp&nbsp Landscape plotted and pieced -- fold, fallow, and plough;
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
&nbsp&nbsp Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
&nbsp&nbsp &nbsp&nbsp With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp Praise him.

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Gerard Manley Hopkins was a Jesuit priest and poet who lived during the latter half of the nineteenth century and became, after his death, one of the leading poets of the Victorian era. His style was innovative and unusual for that time, experimenting with rhythm, word structure and imagery.

I was introduced to his poetry at school and instantly fell in love with it - particularly with what seemed to me a freedom and playfulness with words. In later life, going on retreats to St Beuno's, I learnt more of his varied and fascinating life, of his depressions (which struck a chord with me) and his struggles to hold in tension his poetry and his Jesuit life.

This is one of my favourites of his poems:

God's Grandeur
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

To get the full effect, read the poem out loud (even if you are on your own!). It can become a prayer of poignant praise.

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The poem by Edwina Gateley in my previous post set me thinking...
...thinking about the maternal nature of God's love.

Now, before some of you rear up or start bristling, I'm not about to say that God is female. But there again, I'm not going to say that God is male, either. Personally, I believe that God transcends gender - God encompasses both the perfect male and female characteristics - after all, how else could God create women and men?

And I promise that I will base some future posts around the paternal nature of God's love! But for now, because it is in the forefront of my mind, I'd like to think of some of the ways in which the Bible talks about the feminine side of God - and focus on one Bible passage in particular.

If you want to do some homework, then you might choose to look up these references in the Bible.

Deuteronomy 32:18 ...the God who gave you birth
Psalm 22:9&10 ...God as midwife
Isaiah 42:14 ...God crying out like a woman in labour
Isaiah 49:15 ...God compared with a nursing mother
Isaiah 66:13 ...God like a mother comforting her child

But my favourite passage on this subject has to be Psalm 131. Now you can approach this psalm in one of two ways (probably lots more, but I'm keeping to the things I know!). You can use the psalm to do a 'lectio divina' type of meditation - mulling and savouring. Or you can be more kataphatic and take your imagination for a little exercise - you can visualise being the weaned child at its mother's (God's) breast. I particularly like the fact that it says a 'weaned' child - not a colicky, fractious newborn, but a child who can smile, laugh and respond to its mother.

I once did a meditation based on this psalm when I was on a retreat at St Beuno's - curled up in a lovey comfortable armchair. It was a wonderful time of prayer for me and I will always remember it.

Enjoy the psalm.

Psalm 131

A song of ascents. Of David.

My heart is not proud, LORD,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have calmed myself
and quieted my ambitions.
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.

Israel, put your hope in the LORD
both now and forevermore.

Many blessings
 

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From Luke chapter 10

Now as they (Jesus and those following him) went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’

One of the things I love about Ignatian spirituality is the encouragement to use our imagination in prayer. On a retreat at St Beuno's in Wales I was asked to read the above passage from Luke and, having read it through a few times in order to familiarise myself with the story, to then close my eyes and allow the scene to unfold in my imagination. As the story unfolds, I was to imagine myself in the scene - either as myself or as one of the people in the story.

You might like to try doing this. It is very informative - from the person you choose to be in the scene, to your interaction with Jesus (if any) and your response to Mary and/or Martha (of course, you might be one of them in your imaginative prayer).

Go on - give it a whirl - what have you to lose?


Words from Aelred of Rievaulx (who lived 1110-1167)

As long as we need to eat and drink we shall need to tame our flesh with watching, fasting and work. This is Martha's role. But in our souls there should also be Mary, that is, spiritual activity. For we should not always give ourselves to bodily efforts, but sometimes be still and see how lovely, how sweet the Lord is....You should in no wise neglect Mary for Martha; or again, Martha for Mary. For if you neglect Martha, who will feed Jesus? If we neglect Mary, what use is it for Jesus to come to your house, when you taste nothing of his sweetness?

Other interesting links along these lines:

Ways of Praying

St Beuno's on YouTube:

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