VIRAL THOUGHTS 2 - THE SILENCE OF GOD (Part 2)

I ENDED THE FIRST REFLECTION by mentioning the way we’re all held in the Sacred Heart of God and need to open ours to him – to open our heart to the silence of God and enter that sacred, loving and creative space.  In a brief meditation that has touched many, the late Mother Osyth of the Anglican Benedictines at West Malling wrote: ‘Be silent, still, aware, for there, within your own heart, the Spirit is at prayer. Listen and learn, open and find, heart-wisdom. Christ.’  …  Remember, when you come to the heart of something – the centre of a wood, the vast expanse of stars in the Milky Way – or when you stop to really look at a painting, a landscape – or listen to a piece of music.  'God', said St Teresa of Kolkata, 'is not to be found in noise and restlessness, but in solitude and silence.'

APART FOR THE WORD spoken in Creation and through Mary, it seems silence is often the language of God.  But silence, for many, can be oppressive, which is why we need to befriend it and let the eye of our heart look beneath the fear, anxiety and despondency which can afflict us.  Look at what the Word has done in Creation; wonder at the stars, at the flower growing in the gutter, the song of birds and glistening of sunlight on leaves; and give thanks.  Only in silence can we realise a communion with creation which will take us beneath outward forms into the heart of being. And because Creation is alive, it is full of what we might experience as ‘good’ and ‘evil’. As I wrote in The Mystery of Faith:

‘Christianity also accepts that (these must co-exist) and what might appear to be random, sometimes chaotic processes are indispensable if we’re to have the universe we know (and we can’t know any other). ‘Good’ and ‘evil’ must co-exist; if things had been even slightly different, life probably couldn’t have emerged from primordial chaos.’ (Ch.2)

GOD ISN’T ABSENT, but we might have become absent to God.  Perhaps this is the time when we might re-discover a communion which is holy and not passing, where our heart needs to expand to encounter the depths of Divinity for which we were made.  When Christ cannot be present to us in the Bread of Life, we need to feed on that Word which comes from the mouth of God in the whole of Creation.  And that usually takes time and attention.

THE PROBLEM IS we often want God to be like instant coffee, ready-to-go, the panacea of our needs; we can pray for miracles, but we can’t depend on one – that’s the nature of a miracle.  God isn’t a Big Daddy who solves every problem; God is the fount of compassion, mercy and goodness, for God has shared in our suffering and lostness.  God is the well-spring of faith, hope and love who doesn’t ‘send’ war and pestilence; such things are the consequence of what it means to live in a world alive with life, a world where people have the freedom to choose how to respond; where there needs to be both light and darkness, where only suffering can reveal the depths of love. 

As we approach Good Friday, we might consider afresh what must it have been like for Jesus’ Mother at the foot of the Cross. There she stayed – there love stayed. Would we ever know the depths of love if there were no suffering? For suffering can bring compassion as well as bitterness and anger and can unite us with the heart of the Other.

FOR MOST PEOPLE, silence isn’t something they associate with prayer, something that happens in the silence of the heart.  I wrote about this in The Mystery of Faith in a section I called The Soul’s Desire, (p. 95): ‘Finding time for silent prayer can seem impossible but we can all develop methods of ‘everyday contemplation’.  A lot of the practices associated with Mindfulness have their roots in ancient traditions of Christian prayer – how to keep focussed, deal with unwanted distractions, develop an inner calmness and stop worrying – yet many think Christians don’t meditate or it’s only for monks and nuns.  But meditation and contemplation are the deepest forms of prayer for all Christians and it’s usually possible to find time when you can simply stop for a while and turn your heart to God.  On the train coming home from work, at times when you set an alert on your phone or as a clock strikes - all are ways of halting the busyness of life.  Here are some suggestions to help you develop your own practice:

              First, slow down. Cycle more slowly, walk more gently and learn to breathe deeply.

              Then stop and be, even for a minute.

              Next, pay attention. Be really present to whatever you’re doing and train yourself to pay attention – whether that’s to the person you’re with, the painting you’re looking at of the view out of the bus window.

              Take a long, loving look at the real. Go into your garden and take a long, deep, loving look at everything you see. (And if you don’t have a garden, gaze at something out of your window.)

              Engage your senses. Notice everything around you by utilising all your senses and give thanks for the presence of God in all things.

              And if you find that your mind is over-active – full of noisy parakeets flying all over the place – train yourself not to give them your attention. The more you do the worse they become.

                       

‘Prayer of the Heart’ engages the rhythm of our breathing to help us deepen prayer and can be practiced whenever and wherever you are. Simply ‘watching’ our breath as it descends into the heart is a profound form of prayer for it intimately connects us with the Spirit who animates all things.  Dom John Main, an English Benedictine, developed a mantra (rhythmic prayer) recommended by the World Community for Christian Meditation in which a single word is used – Maranatha (Come, Lord) for example.  Again, using the breath one silently prays:

Ma-ra … na-tha

A 19^th cent. Russian pilgrim, wanting to grow in prayer, was initiated into the practice of what’s known as the ‘Jesus Prayer’. There are several versions of this, but essentially as you inhale, say:

Jesus Christ, Son of God;

then:

have mercy on me, a sinner.

             

The prayer starts on the lips but needs to descend into the heart where it becomes united with its beat. Sometimes I use this mantra:

Sacred Heart of Jesus … have mercy on me.

Gently pray this 10 times then rest in the presence of God’s merciful Heart. Then repeat the process for 10 minutes. All these forms of prayer have three clear purposes. They:

                             - place the mind in the heart;
                             - open the heart to God;
                             - offer a means to deal with distracting thoughts.
                       

Knowing that we are enfolded in the heart of God, that we’re abiding in him (John 15.4) means that, rather than ‘saying’ lots of prayers, we’re to let go of the conscious ‘praying self’ and simply allow ourselves to become part of the great ocean of divine Love. And when the conscious self does intrude with its nagging commentary on life, to put it gently behind us where it’s out of our sight.’

MAYBE GOD IS SILENT, but that is the silence of God who is as Light hidden behind a dark cloud, love seen in crucifixion and peace which passes all understanding.  ‘God’ St Teresa of Calcutta, ‘is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...

We need silence to be able to touch souls.’

For God alone my soul in silence waits;

truly my hope is in him.

He alone is my rock and my salvation;

my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken.

In God is my safety and my honour;

God is my strong rock and my refugee.

Put your trust in him always, O my people;

pour out your hearts before him,

for God is our refuge. (Ps. 62:6-9)

VIRAL THOUGHTS 2 - THE SILENCE OF GOD (Part 1)

WELCOME to the first of two short reflections on ‘Godly Silence’.

I WONDER IF YOU’VE NOTICED HOW QUIET THE WORLD IS?  Taking the bus to Tesco on Thursday, the roads were strangely empty and, apart from all the applause at 8 o’clock on Thursday evening, our neighbourhood is hushed. And so, it seems, is God. I’m sure there are many who wonder at the apparent Divine silence in the midst of this pandemic and consider that confirms there’s no such thing as ‘God’; or, if there is, God is certainly not good, otherwise he would have done something, a view which many embraced, for example, in the face of the horrors of past Holocausts.

Many have tried to understand why God seemed absent when needed by his people.  Some have realised that, having created humankind in freedom, God cannot step in and interfere – God has to remain hidden. Others say that to deny God in the face of tragedy would compound the nature of evil, whilst many realise that to take God out of the equation simply limits the resources we have to cope in such situations. And some, looking at how suffering is dealt with in the Book of Job, realise it’s right to cry out about it whilst not letting it become overwhelming, something that we also see in the way Christ lived through his Passion, which we’ll shortly recall during Holy Week.  They look at the events of that Week and realise – God is right there, in the heart of pain and loss, suffering and death, through the agony of crucifixion when even Christ cried out, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’  Yet, in the end, he commended himself into the hands of his Father.

There’s a mystery to suffering which we can never fully understand, but one thing is clear. The generational upheavals societies experience due to war or disease reveal what lies within – both the ‘bad’ and the ‘good’. Without such appalling tragedies, would we ever know what lay in the depths of our humanity?

I WAS BORN a year after the end of the last World War and, for a long time, knew nothing of its horrors.  My generation were told “You’ve never had it so good.” and that, for many, was correct.  Occasionally some might have suffered from disasters, floods and storms, but it was people living in countries remote from ours who experienced war, famine and infectious epidemics. And I, for one, wondered at people who, in such places, were still able to proclaim their faith in God, who said inshallah, it is God’s will.  Could disaster be God’s will?  Is that what they meant?  As part of a generation who believed widespread disease had been medically eliminated and that any sickness could be cured by a visit to the doctor, the thought that pain and suffering were the context of belief suggested a cruel God was the cause.  It is God’s will.    Now, for a while, the West – like most of the rest of the world – is again subject to those twins of pain and suffering and in it all, there seems only a Godly silence.

FOR SO LONG we, in so-called advanced societies, haven’t needed God, “we’re all atheists now” one BBC news presenter asserted recently.  Only in emergencies might God be privately addressed, as some turn to this ancient Mystery for solace.  But we no longer need a supernatural magician to solve our needs.  We expect them to be answered instantly – at the press of a button – and forget the long, patient, creative and sometimes, painful ways in which those needs are answered.  Whatever lies beyond our immediate human comfort-zone isn’t of great interest to many who are satisfied by spending hours on their i-phone, visits to the pub and gym, holiday’s in far-flung places and Saturdays watching sport.  Not that there’s anything wrong with any of that – in moderation – but ‘Life’ for many has lost any sense of mystery and is merely something which ought to give us what we want when we want it. Now, when that life has suddenly ended for a while – and may not return for some – there can be feelings of dread, dis-orientation and profound confusion – even anger.  Our landscape has profoundly changed and we’re going through a seismic, spiritual shift.  Yet still some say: God is there.

GOD IS PRESENT in so many small and great acts of kindness and compassion, of selfless service and outreach (as far as possible). God is still there in the wonder and mystery of the rest of creation which, at times like this, we need to contemplate.  And God is there in silence, as God has always been.  There for us in the same way he was when another nation found itself in a wilderness, lost and confused, longing for what had been and tempted to complain; there long ago when someone sat, fearfully, at the mouth of a desert cave and wondered at the sound of sheer silence; there when a Man was driven into the desert for forty days, tempted to despair; yet where, in the silence of solitude, he found himself.  There when people flocked to the emptiness of the Desert at the start of Christianity.  There for those Religious who embrace solitude and silence. There as we must fast from that which we normally look to, to feed us.

GOD IS PRESENT in our hearts, a place some rarely visit.  When you’re occupied with so much else, stillness and silence can be qualities to be avoided avoid.  So, let us pray: ‘Penetrate my heart, O God, by the radiance of your glance’ because it’s the person who befriends these two, solitude and silence, who can enter that holiest place. 

MIGHT THIS BE A TIME, then, when our culture has the opportunity to discover its depths?  When, un-distracted by noise and activity, we can see what we’re capable of through all those acts of selfless generosity; when we have the opportunity of realising what lies within in the silence of our hearts.  No longer able to travel to far-away places we suddenly have the chance of discovering our hidden, silent soul.  But we need those who have travelled further into the depths of the heart, the centre of our being, to guide us on the way.  Those who have realised that prayer is more than just asking for things, it’s a way of heart speaking to Heart.  That’s the subject for tomorrow evening, at the same time, when I’ll also offer some reflections on the connection between silence and prayer.  In the meantime:

Be silent,

still,

aware,

for there,

within your own heart,

the Spirit is at prayer.

Listen and learn,

open and find,

heart-wisdom.

                             Christ.

MINDFULNESS AND THE PRAYER OF RECOLLECTION

‘The practice of Christian meditative Recollection eventually shifts into what (Evelyn) Underhill calls the prayer of Quiet, as the subject eventually stops the willed concentration on the object of Recollection and simply rests passively within this deep inner consciousness, free of all sensory and cognitive attachments.  Although Underhill speaks theologically of this condition as an awareness of the soul’s unity with its ground or ‘Pure Being’, she describes it as ‘an  almost complete suspension of the reflective powers’ that leads to a  radically passive condition that mystics have called in negatively descriptive language ‘ecstatic deprivation’, ‘nothingness’, ‘utter stillness’, ‘Interior Silence’, or ‘emptiness’. This altered state of consciousness is a kind of consciousness-purity that is not properly describable and is best characterized by silence. Although quite positively affective, mystics speak of the ‘naked orison’ or ‘divine dark’ of this state of consciousness purity, in contrast to the normal busy activities of the sensory-cognitive intentional mind.’

 From: EXPLORING PROCESSES AND DYNAMICS OF MYSTICAL CONTEMPLATIVE MEDITATION:

SOME CHRISTIAN-BUDDHIST PARALLELS

by Michael Stoeber
https://philarchive.org/archive/STOEPA-3v1

SOLITUDE AND SILENCE

There are times I've heard people say they crave being ‘left alone’ and long for ‘a bit of silence’. And that’s understandable.  But being left alone so that one can enjoy a bit of peace and quiet is only OK, for most people, for so long. Then it’s back to wanting a bit of distraction, especially when there’s nothing much to do. Which may be why the kind of solitude and silence of a monastery can be rather intimidating. Because, as brothers and sisters of the Society of St Francis or the monks and nuns of Mucknall, Burnham Abbey, Fairacres etc. can tell you, silence and solitude also provides the place to encounter self and to work towards that inner conversion – the ‘conversion of the heart’ – which lies at the centre of religious faith. Having helpful spiritual experiences is one thing but this way of conversion where the old ‘self’ can die and a new self be born is quite another!  

            Yet this ‘new birth’ is the essence of the Christian story. The trouble is we live in a society which has become overly-attracted by the sensual and gives little attention to the internal. So it’s hardly surprising that the church seems to be giving most of its attention to this external world: ‘growth’ movements often seem to be about numbers and ‘Church Planting’ can sometimes lack sensitivity. We may recognise the need to be 'reaching out' but are we 'reaching in'? Is the growth of violence among young people in part due to having ignored their spiritual needs? At the very time when western society is gradually awakening to the effects of excessive consumption and the need to develop a profoundly deeper awareness of the relationship between humanity and the planet many in the church are looking west and embracing some of the suspect forms of American evangelism rather than looking east and re-discovering the riches of Christian, Sufi and Buddhist spirituality. Jesus, the Buddha and all the great teachers of spiritual wisdom – Teresa of Avila, Aelred of Rievaulx, Julian of Norwich and all those who see and can speak into the heart – have realised the need for periods of solitude and inner silence. But does the church? Does it really? Because, if it did, it might put the same kind of resources into developing what people really, in their hearts, need.

Into the Wilderness

This matter of living with inner storms, uncertainties, questions and confusion continues to be the stuff of life.  Yesterday I saw my Spiritual Director and explored this to some depth.  I had already discovered two images that emerged and seem to offer a richness at this time – one is that of a chrysalis and the other of the Exodus.  Both hold a sense of being in a state of transition without the knowledge of what may lie ahead.  The chrysalis not knowing that it may turn into a butterfly and the journey of the Hebrew people in the wilderness offering no sense of a new life in the Promised Land.  There might be hints and guesses but no experience of what lies ahead.  Once again I am in the process of letting go of the past (which contains rich and important material for the future) and cannot ‘go back’.  I am aware of being drawn by certain deep feelings associated with particular experiences in the past and need to discover what they may still have to offer.  But there is a temptation to long to return to the experience and forget the greater value of what lay beneath them. 

The other image that emerged during my time with my Director was that of the Woman at the Well in John’s gospel and this seems to be equally important for it offers a way into that ‘spring of living water’ that lies in the heart of us all.  At present it is difficult to gaze far into the depths – the waters are too stirred by all the events connected with leaving the parish, moving home and emerging (that word again) from 35 and more years of having an external structure to shape, form and nurture my life and sense of calling.  And of moving away from community in both its specific (the Religious Life) and general form (being a parish priest) to life in partnership with another.  Transition indeed! 

What emerged yesterday was the importance of staying in the process, of giving time to opening myself to those depths in the presence of God who is both within and beyond them.  The ‘distractions’ that occur during times of prayer contain the gold that is hidden in the dross.  I realise the importance of staying with the process of refinement even though this feels like being in the fire.  The danger is to drift from distraction into a desolate place: the invitation is to stay in the Wilderness and have faith there is a Promised Land.

ADVENT SUNDAY - A PERSONAL REFLECTION

'Unto you, O Lord, have I lifted up my soul; O my God, I trust in you, let me not be put to shame; do not allow my enemies to laugh at me; for none of those who are awaiting you will be disappointed.’ Psalm 25:1-3

So pleads the Introit at Mass today, Advent Sunday.   The words speak to me of that sense of waiting for something as yet unknown that can only be discovered as, with trust, I ‘lift up my soul’ to God.   Later, words might come as to what is awaited: come God’s Wisdom; Come, O Dayspring; Emmanuel, the Desire of all the Nations.  Come.  But such invocations do not form as yet.  For the present time of waiting there is but this sense that I must lift my soul to the Lord.  Now is not the time to sing veni, veni Emmanuel, but to allow this blind yearning until such time that words form and give voice to what is desired.

Having spent more than thirty-five years within the ark of words, of structures and forms, I now need to find those words for myself.  On Radio 4 there is a programme called ‘Something Understood’: at present I no longer understand, rather I wait for something dimly sensed.  Felt.  That that thing is God I have no doubt.  But what will that experience of God be like?  Perhaps Eliot expresses it best:

And what you thought you came for is only a shell
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all. Either you had no purpose
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfilment.

And so I, and the Church, wait as we have done for two thousand years, for the in-breaking of God. For that fulfilment of a dimly-sensed desire which only God can satisfy.  And what that ‘coming’ will be like God alone knows.  That is His gift and His promise.  For the time being I can but trust that, as I turn the eyes of my heart to God, this winter of longing and waiting will prove the soil of new life.