A very different start to the day. I slept in! I allowed by alarm to wake me and then I took my time getting up. I wish I could say I did some praying and meditating but I looked at my social media and read the headlines in the paper.

I had a good prayer time and some interesting insights during my meditation. I need to think about my future and what shape it will take. I have some ideas but I am not sure they are God’s. But that will work itself out in time. Or not, which makes no difference at all.

My normal streamed Mass did not happen this morning. So I watched Mass from a London “shrine church”. Since I have returned to the Bible Study, I find it harder to listen to sermons. It is not my context, nor my life, but sometimes I wonder if the preacher has done any work on the text. In case you have not guessed, I dislike platitudes. Where is the challenge? Where is the call to action?

I have been reading an article in the book, Anglican Religious Life: A well kept secret. It is a take on vows that I really like – or maybe, with which I identify. Vows linked to love and as a public expression of love. A working out of relationship!

So there you go! Way too much information. The routine of the day has given me freedom to let my mind and heart soar.

May Jesus bless you today!

I had the worst sleep I have had in years last night. I had nightmares most of the night – screaming people with lots of tension. So I got up before my alarm, said good morning to the car, prayed, and meditated. I did not have time for a streamed Mass today as I had an appointment.

When I check my email this morning I had a nice surprise. My past is working itself out. And in the process the future is becoming clearer. So I went to my appointment with a much brighter world-view.

I found some books today that I have been looking for. One is about Anglican religious life, a few collected works, and a couple prayer books.

I am extremely tired at the moment but I will battle through this afternoon.

[I was planning this post all the way through church so sorry to anyone I ignored!]

Pursue love and strive for the spiritual gifts, and especially that you may prophesy. For those who speak in a tongue do not speak to other people but to God; for nobody understands them, since they are speaking mysteries in the Spirit. On the other hand, those who prophesy speak to other people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. Those who speak in a tongue build up themselves, but those who prophesy build up the church. Now I would like all of you to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. One who prophesies is greater than one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be built up.

1 Corinthians 14:1-5

God gives gifts to the church through individuals for the upbuilding of the people of God. I wish I could sing! Nothing like a beautiful Mass with vestments, incense, and a good choir with a cantor. But I cannot sing. In fact, I am completely tone deaf.

I am good at being alone. This morning I thought, “what if ‘being alone’ is God’s gift to me and through me to the church?”. God calls individuals to white martyrdom and just maybe that is my calling. I am not a misanthropist, as much as I like to pretend. I do like people and I miss aspects of human relationships. But I know that the moment that I am most “me” is when I am alone with Jesus.

The question becomes, “how does this gift buildup the church?”. So some connection with the people of God is necessary. But it need not be in “traditional ways”. God has blessed me with the internet – video calls, Zoom meetings, blogs, social media.

What is the point? I am not sure but maybe a calling to solitary life is something that the church has not valued. And the people of God have missed the gifts that this calling brings with it.

Maybe you all have a blessed Sonday!!!!!

I changed the setup of the blog the other day – a new domain name and some other changes – and when I tried to login just before, I had forgotten everything. Grrr!? But I managed to log in (thanks, Captain Obvious!) so that I can share all my insights with you.

So today I prayed as usual and then went to church. I received Jesus in the Eucharist and I am now watching a recorded live-stream of a service. I have church again tonight so I will need to say Evening Prayer somewhere along the line. I went to the shops for food for the week.

Not sure I have any insights today. I was glad to be back home and some solitude. I really have little desire to speak with people. I enjoy it when I do, and people are very nice and insightful, but Jesus is Jesus.

There is a sense in which people are no longer something I need and so I can actually be present for them. They are not an object but a person. I can enjoy their humanity.

So silence and solitude is a nice habit to get into!

[These are personal reflections!]

Yesterday I was thinking about living alone in the context of Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling and the mystical theology of Meister Eckhart. The only vow that a solitary in Anglicanism takes is that of “celibacy” – sacred singleness. I have always argued the line that it is not a rejection of relationships in general but rather a choosing of Jesus to be the only relationship.

In Fear and Trembling, SK speaks about the movements of faith – the surrender and the “picking up”. I surrender temporal time and pick up eternality. I think living alone (to some extent) has taught me that, yes, I surrender human relationships for the relationship with Jesus but also I move from seeing people as “its” (objects) to seeing people as “yous”. So, in a paradox that SK would be proud of, by being alone I see people as people!

I always feel like my solitude is a luxury and very selfish. Yet it is for the “building up of God’s Church”! In a world where everyone is an object, we need people to see people as people. I have a very long way to go, much to confess, and lots to internalise. But, as one preacher once said, “I’ll give it a crack”.

A normal start to the day: make tea, feed the cat, pray, and meditate. And, in addition today, I watched the daily Mass from one of the local Anglo-Catholic parishes (streamed). I do very much like the Anglican tradition especially when it is expressed in its more “catholic” form. Not saying that I would change parish over it (or much less argue about it) but it is a rite that I feel very comfortable in and that I have experienced in the past. And I think I will reflect on some of the Anglican prayers in a future post.

But there are many things about the more “catholic” form of Anglicanism that bother me. It can be cold and distant. It makes me think of the medieval church in that I very much feel like I am watching through a squit at the “sacring”. There is no standard way of saying Mass (something very “catholic”) so it is “catholicism” according to the celebrant of the Mass. And, in my experience, the preaching in that context is often weak or myopic. (That being said, the best preacher I have heard has been in the context of a Anglo-Catholic diocese.)

It means, in the end, that I would like a charismatic contemplative “catholic” Mass at which I may fully participate. Of course, a good sermon!

Also: I have a theological question, “Am I absolved when I watch a Mass which is recorded? When it is live?”.

Anyway: Heart of Jesus, have mercy on me.

It has been a week.

Today I went to church. Nothing unusual in that. I help a little with the technological side which allows me to sit in a box apart from the congregation – a little like an anchorite of old.

I got ink for my pens and food for the week. Unfortunately I have a few things that will require me to leave the “anchorhold” this week but I am hoping (praying) to keep my normal routine as much as I can.

I am hoping to add a morning daily Mass to my routine (via a stream from a local Anglican parish). Very much like a “squit” called Facebook.

Yesterday I read more of Underhill’s Practical Mysticism. While her Neoplatonism sometimes shows. I like the book. I think, for me, the experience is more like Buber’s “I and thou” – a movement from “it” to “you”. It is fundamentally a relationship in which I rest, like sitting with a loved one in silence. It is the moment of intimacy that reveals the real me to the “You”. It is the moment when the You is more the sum of its parts. It is a personal encounter that moves me from experience to participation.

Ok, too much fluffy theology! Time to think about Evening Prayer.

I really do not feel like writing today but I think it will do me good.

Yesterday was very hard! I endured and, at the same time, enjoyed the outside world. I have had little sleep as a result but I am somewhat clear in my head where to go from here.

But there is the fundamental problem of my life: my head vs my heart. I mean heart in the sense it is used in the Bible – the very inner core where I am who I truly am. My heart has been broken for a long time, trampled on, and belittled. So it is often hard to see past the feelings of brokenness and the “monster within”. My head knows who I am (alas, very poorly) but my heart is still catching up.

I was thinking this morning it is a little like the Knowledge Argument – Mary has all knowledge on colour in a black and white world and then gets to experience the world of colours. Underhill, in her book Practical Mysticism, makes the point that contemplation (in a general sense) is more like taste, touch, smell than thinking and hearing – the “I” is always involved in the process and there is never a time when the “I” is a spectator. Of course, Kierkegaard also says that in many places and he said it earlier!

Anyway, my heart needs to experience beyond the boundaries that my mind has placed on it. No good knowing everything about a subject but never experience the reality. In my relationship with Jesus that is a desire to be in communion with him and to have union with him beyond language, signs, and “religion”.

So from “I do not want to write” to the end of the post!? TMI!