Asides

anchorite insights …

While exploring my new favourite topic, Julian of Norwich, I found this:

Living within four walls: A guide for modern day anchorites

The article uses the anchorite tradition to give some insights for living during a pandemic. I think most of the suggestions are really helpful for anyone who is seeking more solitude and simplicity in their life. So I am going to share them:

  • Set a schedule
  • Keep the cow outside
  • Plenty of windows
  • Focus on your five senses
  • Fasting
  • Notice nature
  • Read
  • [Take a patron saint]
  • Hobbies of service

I think setting a schedule is a very good starting point to seeking more solitude. Include times of prayer and times of physical activity. I think an important part is setting time for reading. Not seeing reading as a luxury but as part of the daily routine. I also like the idea of having windows that look out at the world. I have a lovely window in my room and I look out at the garden when I work and when I pray.

Fasting is not a good idea for me – I have enough trouble eating without setting limits. But being aware of your physical health, doing things to look after yourself physically, is a good idea. I include time for my mental health.

I would love a cat but that is not an option in my current living arrangements. But I hope in the future.

So read the article and use the insights in establish more solitude in your life.

called by name

I have been thinking a lot about episode 1 of season 1 of The Chosen, “I Have Called You By Name”. I was struck by Mary Magdalene – abandoned by her religion and given up on herself. I really like the scene where she stands at the cliff and looks over the edge. I can really identify with her struggle.

Sometimes, for me, living with depression is like standing on the edge. Not that I want to jump but there is a feeling of being “unloveable”. I have very much felt like I am beyond being loved. I am so broken, so beyond redemption, that no person can ever really love me. They may say that they do but really they are just pretending. And when you have been abandoned by people it is very hard to trust people again.

I remember so many sermons about “anxiety” and “Give it to the Lord” that were really unhelpful. I have been told by a person, in a church, that all anxiety and depression is demon possession. I have often wondered if the person thought I should not attend. Religious people, with the best of intensions, give advice that is often very unhelpful. There are exceptions – and thank God for those – but there are also many who simply do not understand and do not identify with the struggle and the pain.

I have learned that depression is part of me. There is no “fix”. I have to live with it.

The part of The Chosen that really got to me this time was Jesus. At the end He embraces Mary – the person on whom everyone had given up and who had given up on herself. He calls her by name – an intimate act of love. No one – including me – is ever beyond God’s love. No person is unworthy of Jesus’ love – no person is unworthy of hope.

I am extremely thankful for the hope that so many people of faith have given me. Yet it is not them who give me hope. It is Jesus – His living presence with me now and always. His presence in the darkness – on the edge of the cliff. And it is the intimacy of the relationship that brings that hope. He has called me by name and I can call His name.

I know what is coming in The Chosen, that great line by Mary. But this week I am thinking about how a person who was a nobody is a somebody in Jesus. How I am loved!!!

desert day?

Last night’s Bible Study went really well – I felt in the groove and it all worked pretty well for once. It came together very last minute. But, as if to punish me for enjoying myself, my brain turned on me. I dreamt of my past life – my favourite nightmare – and I woke really sad. It was an extremely emotional dream that was very vivid and intensely personal.

When I woke from the nightmare, I prayed. I find the silent moments of the night or early morning great times to pray. And praying with tears has become somewhat of a pattern for me. I know I need to stop telling God what to do. I need to simply be open to Him and let Him do all the controlling. I am very much at a cross-roads and not sure what to do with life.

I have survived two weeks that have been very stressful and emotional. I admit that I am surprised at myself for facing these challenges without going to pieces and without descending into darkness. I am think of rewarding myself for surviving but that, too, is causing me some anxiety. (I have lived so many years with a negative image of myself that I do not think I deserve any reward and I should be happy with what I have.)

So … I am not sure what I will do today. I think I will have a “desert day” – a “somewhat” silent retreat at home. Drink mint tea and read a book. It looks like there might be some sun out today so I could sit outside. I think I need a day of “no-thing” – a personal day with the Person.

I pray you have a Jesus filled day!

Pentecost gospel

“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.

“I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

John has been the gospel for this Easter season. And it is the gospel reading for the Day of Pentecost, Whitsunday, the Solemnity of Pentecost. Traditionally it is the day when the church remembers the descend of the Holy Spirit on the disciples. It is a day to think, meditate, reflect on the work of the Holy Spirit.

I think the Holy Spirit is a very difficult topic. Our experience of the Holy Spirit is always so much more than any text could describe. And our experience is always very personal, very intimate.

So just one point from the above: “when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin … about sin, because they do not believe in me”. Sin is much more than an action – it is “not believing in Jesus”. Sin is a broken relationship. The actions follow the broken relationship. But stopping the actions does not fix the relationship. Only faith in Jesus will restore me to a living relationship with the Father. And the point is that the Holy Spirit grants us the gift of faith and there is nothing more needed.

Faith is the highest passion in a human being. There are perhaps many in every generation who do not even come to it, but nobody goes further.

Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy), 108.

why are you here?

Yesterday, at church, our vicar asked a number of questions during the sermon. And, unlike more traditional one-way sermons, we got to answer. One of the questions was, “why are you here?”.

I have been thinking about that question. And the answers that people gave. Sometimes, I think, we confuse the “sign” with the “object that it is pointing to”. Or, in Thomas Merton’s language, “we look at the finger and miss the moon”. We argue about liturgy and hymns, about buildings. Yet in the end these are not what Christianity is about. Christianity is not a moral code that I must follow to be accepted by God. Experience shows me that there is an unbridgeable gap between God and me. Only in God’s action of love can that gap be bridged. So only in God’s action towards me can I have a relationship with Him.

So, why am I here (at church)? Because of Jesus. And only Jesus. I like the more traditional signs – liturgy, vestments, buildings – but only Jesus saves. Only in Jesus is life. Only in Jesus is hope. All the others have just signs to the reality that God has reached out to me in the man Jesus. I meet and experience Jesus in a particular way in the community that is gather in His name. He speaks to me and meets me personally. But in the end it is all about Him and Him alone.

Anyway …

rituals

My Sunday morning ritual includes getting a cup of tea on the way to church. I have switched to herbal tea so mint or peppermint are my favourite.

Today we are watching The Chosen after church. I am looking forward to seeing it again and on the big screen. I pray that it will be bonding experience for the parish – gathered around Jesus!

I pray you have a Jesus filled Sunday!!!