Roderick’s Rambles

Spring has sprung, in fact, summer has come (at least in the western hemisphere!).  This is my favourite time of the year, with leaves and blossoms, plants and projects unfolding at a rate of knots.  I become more and more convinced that there is a real urgency to bridge-build between the edge and the hub, the seashore and the city, the green and the grit.  Some of the best exemplars of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, from Jesus onwards, have been able to hold in creative tension service and solitude, concern for the poor and the marginalized, together with care for the earth and the quiet appreciation of beauty.  We are called to go and do likewise.

How can we better honour and uphold this interweaving of compassion and contemplation, this paradox of presence?  This is where two resources can be profoundly helpful: firstly, a spiritual mentor or director; secondly, an authentic commitment to a rhythm of life shared within a community of travelling companions.

Three Questions:  through either or both of these resources, each of us can justifiably be asked three questions: a) how much time am I giving to interiority, prayer in the presence of God?  b) how much time each day or week am I allotting to the study of Spirit-breathed scripture and /or illuminating spiritual or insightful texts, to the deep attentiveness to pieces of music or art?  c) what is the level of my commitment to seek out ways in which joy and hope, creativity and the capacity to celebrate can be translated into communities, sub-cultures and families where the predominant emotion is one of despair or alienation?

The trinitarian dynamic of prayer, study and action, identified above, is challenging and essential.  The pragmatic interweaving of these three form the pattern of belonging and belief that is community in Christ.  This is mystical engagement, contemplative discipleship, dying to self and being filled with God.  This is when the deepest self is given space and fuel to be fully alive to God.

March 1st, St David’s Day - Contemplation and Intercession – Waves of Prayer

I have been really encouraged by the responses to my first blog.  I am delighted to share this second web log on the feast day of the patron saint of Wales!

I know I need to pray more!  Much, much more.  Why am I waking up on occasion at 2.30am or 3.30am or 4.00am?  It could be that I’m doing too much and not relaxing enough.  It could be that I have two or three tasks of real significance that require concentrated energy and attention.  All these reasons may, at one time or another, be true.  But, just a few nights ago, I knew a different prompting.  I was being called to pray.  To pray in a fuller and profounder and more comprehensive way than I had ever prayed, other than at those times when a dire emergency or crisis gave rise to an intensity of prayer - and then it was more likely to be heartfelt petition (prayer asking for peace, healing, forgiveness or whatever, for oneself) or a particular pleading for a close family member.  This was a call, perhaps a vocation unfolding, to intercessory prayer coming from the heart of contemplative prayer.  This was the summons to lift into God’s presence those in danger, those in distress, areas and people buffeted by the brutalities of political adversity, natural disaster or personal malice.

One strong thread of meaning made itself real to me in those hours of attention to the practice of prayer: it was the metaphor of waves of prayer.  Jill and I love the sea, and the particular liminality of the seashore.  The ocean is massive, outrageous, strong and evocative of many emotions, aspirations, vulnerabilities and delights. I saw a stormy sea, wind buffeting in towards the land, waves high and green-white, dramatic and beautiful.  What I saw were necessary waves of prayer.  These waves were an emergence from the heart of the divine to the outer reaches of human culture and of the fragile planet. The ocean is the energy, the ontology, the being of God; the wind is Spirit, blowing where it wills; the waves are the sometimes tiny, sometimes mighty expressions of that energy of love, peace and healing that emanates from God.  The challenge in this picture is that I, and perhaps you too, are called into the midst of this sea of prayer, into its dynamism, into the Christ energy of love.

And so, from 2.30am onwards, I spent some time responding, as best I could, to this invitation to intercession.  I knew that I was being drawn out from my comfort zone into the further self-emptying of the prayer of love.  I knew in the depths of me, with a fresh urgency, that within the parameters and tracery of contemplative prayer there lies an essential, intercessory dimension, which has a momentum for expression. The wordless resting in the presence of God opens into love outpoured. Waves and waves of prayer are vitally necessary now in a topsy-turvy and fractured world.

I share with you two small examples of a prayers of intercession forged from a time of interiority and reflection. Perhaps you might use them sometimes. I wrote the first one on the day when London stopped at noon in silence to remember those killed and affected a week before in the 7/7 bombings. I was at St Ethelburga’s on Bishopsgate, in the heart of London’s financial district. The church bell tolled and thousands upon thousands of office workers and shoppers stood still on the street; even the traffic paused for two minutes. The prayer emerged from a place of personal and corporate stillness, tears and a deep longing for God’s protection and shalom:

Angels of the cities,
angels of the coasts,
angels of the universe,
O you heavenly hosts;
Stand guard over us,
stand guard over us,
stand guard o’er the ones we love,
guide us into Light.

The second prayer again was fashioned in the dark time “long before dawn”.  Jesus often withdrew to pray alone at such times. The biblical and monastic tradition from which we draw so much gives witness that this late/early time and texture is sensitive to prayer:

O energy of grace, O fire of light
let my heart express its longing and its love
for you who are within and without
for the immersion in your essence and your vibrancy
for your flow in the very marrow of my soul
and in the music of my members and molecules.
O Christ, energy of love,
pilot me, indwell me, transfigure me
enlighten me, release me into your being.

Much love,

Philip

The past few weeks have been fast-paced (in a galloping contemplative sort of way!) and thought-provoking. This regular occasional blog will hope to keep you up to date with some of the practicalities and outcomes of my own “travelling light and dwelling deep”. So, where have Roderick’s Rambles taken me?

Just last week I visited, for the second time, one of Britain’s key prisons. I have been hoping for many years that the Quiet Garden idea could find expression in the prison context. It is my wish that this project, which we are provisionally entitling “A Garden Inside”, will be the fruit of a cooperative partnership between The Quiet Garden Movement, Contemplative Fire and a particular prison. In this case, the prison’s head of training was delighted by the idea and took me to see the concreted courtyard in the area of the prison hospital. Please pray that this initiative finds acceptance by the powers that be, that provision is found to landscape and design the area, perhaps even with a water feature, and that those in custody will discover there, healing, soul nurture and something of “the peace which passes all understanding”.

This term I am involved quite substantively in visiting and assessing a theological course for ordination training. For the past seven or eight years I have been one of the CofE’s Bishops’ Inspectors for theological education. It is a privilege and a challenge. As well as hoping to contribute something, I learn a huge amount. In addition I am able to share something of the vision and emergence of The Quiet Garden Movement, The Well Institute and Contemplative Fire. The quality of people selected to train as readers, deacons and priests is high; their commitment to engaging in the mystery of God at depth is significant and the sensitivity and capability of the staff and tutors who train them is really encouraging. This responsibilty has meant a good deal of travelling, but it will be concluded at Easter!

Earlier this month I spent two days in Exeter working with Rick Cresswell, a professional film-maker, on the last bits of filming and some of the editing of a DVD that I am producing in response to many peoples’ requests. The DVD will be ready by April or May and will be entitled “Sacred Posture: 12 Body Prayers”. One of the foundational commitments of my discipleship and ministry is a holistic approach to faith and life. Integral to a rooted and grounded pattern of prayer, study and action is, to my mind, the exploration of visual, auditory and kinesthetic routes to God. This is all about learning to live in the presence. Body prayer is one of the most powerful ways I have found to assist us on this journey of knowing and unkowing. It was a delight to me, therefore, when a colleague and friend, Susan Blagden, discovered an article on embodiment that I had written for a spirituality journal seven years ago or so. I conclude this, my first ever blog (trumpets sound, or, alternatively “Exit, pursued by bear” as the stage direction in Shakespeare’s King Learwould have it!), with an extract from the article:

Pilgrimage notes – on being present to the now!

As a foetus in the womb and as a newly born baby I am designed to begin where I am. I am raw consciousness, certainly not self-consciousness yet, simply responding. At this point in human formation the wider realities of a larger system of meaning – of my identity, of my beliefs and values and even of my capabilities – are not part of my world. Where I am – within or without my mother’s body – determines everything. This ‘where’ is precisely where we are invited to begin on retreat. But, as you may notice, as soon as the word ‘where’ is mentioned, our minds skip ahead, rushing to entertain pictures of streets or trees, houses or landscapes. We have to remind ourselves to go back a few steps. Back into our first environment, the body.

My body is real

I am still amazed and appalled when I go to conferences and retreats, committees and working groups, to experience with what scant regard the body is held in Christian circles. As perhaps the incarnational faith par excellence, we are massively dysfunctional in our treatment of our own most personal environment. It is no wonder that those outside the Church take us with a pinch of salt. The mood today is holistic. In so many ways this returns us to our Jewish roots, but although in Christian circles we pay lip-service to those full-blooded roots and shoots, those of us who plan and design meetings and conferences remain all too often trapped in a radically disembodied mindset. From this ghastly and continuing situation we can, of course, be liberated. Some retreat organizers and conductors realize their prophetic mandate to resource the whole person, body, mind and spirit, in the context of the whole place in which the participants are set for a day or two. Generally speaking, however, there is much work to be done in honouring the eminently local, the inescapably corporal.

Home Sweet home

The environment – me and my locale – is fundamental. If we start where we are, our first environment is the body and our second environment is our home. Few of us, however, consider that our home could become a retreat. We get used to our homes much as we get used to our clothes. After a while our home becomes warm and well used, practical and comfortable but not evidently mystical – not necessarily a place of deep learning. Each of us knows that our home is not perfect, but then neither is our body and nor is the world, but it is where we are and all that we have got, at least for the moment. But have we realized all that we have got? Can my home also yield mystery, revelation, every day inspiration?We have become accustomed to our home providing the context for eating and drinking, supporting and nurturing, activity and rest. How can we access the extra, yet fundamental, dimension that our home can offer to us, and perhaps even to our visitors? The key question is simple and yet crucial: am I willing to make a mental shift, a paradigm shift as they say, to include, as an extra component in the perception and ordering of my home, a consecrated space? If I am able to make such a commitment, at least once a week if not every day, I shall find myself responding positively and unequivocally to the divine alluring. ‘Be still and know that I am God’. ‘Be still and know that I am.’ ‘Be still and know.’ ‘Be still.’ ‘Be.’

Philip Roderick, Retreats in Transition, The Way Supplement 1999/95, ‘I am here now’, p67

I hope you enjoy Roderick’s Rambles. Do feel free to pass the blog on, together with the link for it, to your friends and colleagues.

Keep praying, keep playing,

Philip