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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
