Conversations 3: “The Secret Place…”

Posted by David Ward on 12/04/2013
Posted in: Monastic spirituality, Personal thoughts, Pilgrimage, Solitude and silence. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

“You don’t have to pray out  loud; He’s nearer than you can imagine.

It isn’t necessary that we stay in church in order to remain in God’s presence. We can make our heart a chapel where we can go anytime to talk to God privately. These conversations can be so loving and gentle, and anyone can have them.”

 Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, Fourth letter.

I love to be able to go away on a retreat, perhaps to join with a Christian community for a short time, or to go away alone to a place of beauty and solitude. In places like this it can be easier to engage in a rhythm of prayer, and to be still enough to hear the gentle whisper of God’s spirit without the cacophony of distracting sounds that normally fill my mind.

Pilgrimage is also a powerful source of a deepening and growing relationship with God. A visit to a location associated with living faith in Jesus and years of the prayers of his followers is often a real source of inspiration, and an opportunity to re-focus our lives on the one thing that really matters.

But I cannot spend my whole life on retreat or on a specific pilgrimage to a ‘holy place’…this is not my calling. I have been called to live the everyday life of family, work and friendship.

For over a year, Maggie (not her real name) has been part of a group experiencing DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) together, as part of her treatment for a long-term mental illness. The course has been very successful in giving her many tools which enable her to manage intense emotions and mood swings

We were talking about the “Safety Plan” that she has been encouraged to prepare for the bad times when she need help and encouragement. Being a creative person, Maggie has designed and produced a pack of cards, which can be used to aid memory and make the helpful ideas more accessible.

One of the cards reads, “Where can I go for a break (a still place inside me).”  Picture of Safety Plan cards

I immediately thought of the quote from Brother Lawrence. One of the things he is most remembered for was his ability to remain in the presence of God whatever activity, no matter how ordinary, he was engaged in and wherever he was, from worship in the chapel to washing the pots in the monastery kitchen.

Maggie, like Brother Lawrence before her, had discovered that within each of us is a still, sacred space where we can withdraw to spend time with God, regardless of our external circumstances. And in meeting with God, we are restored to the person we were always intended to be.

Conversations 2: “Trading in Holy words…”

Posted by David Ward on 03/04/2013
Posted in: Communication, Community, Monastic spirituality, Personal thoughts, Relationships, Theology. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

A certain brother came, once, to Abbot Theodore of Pherme, and spent three days begging him to let him hear a [prophetic] word. The Abbot however did not answer him, and he went off sad. So a disciple said to Abbot Theo­dore: Father, why did you not speak to him? Now he has gone off sad! The elder replied: Believe me, I spoke no word to him because he is a trader in words and seeks to glory in the words of another.

 Quoted by Thomas Merton in “The Wisdom of the Desert” (p34-35)

I was catching up with my friend Tom (not his real name) as we prepared to go into a local school to lead an assembly. We hadn’t seen each other for a while, so there was a fair bit of catching up to do!

Tom is a popular preacher, often in demand by churches all over the place, and is pioneering a sort of ‘fresh expression of church’ locally.

The ‘fresh expression’ is growing in several ways and doing quite well. A lot of it has to do with low key events, small groups and building close relationships.

“You know,” said Tom, “like you I enjoy preaching and I think I’m quite good at it. I just got back from leading a church weekend for a church further south, and although I enjoyed the sessions that I led I wonder if all that preaching really had any effect. I often feel it’s not really the way to do things anymore.”

He was right. I do enjoy preaching and I hope I do it well, but I too have been worrying about doing it. I think that only too often preaching, my preaching, sinks to the level of personal egos, ‘tickling intellects’ and hearing not doing.

I have little doubt that there is still a place for preaching, with right motives to people who are open to hearing from God and want to put into practise what they hear, but preaching is, by nature, ‘at a distance’, easy to appreciate for the wrong reasons, easy to ignore and go away stimulated but unchanged. It is possible that many churchgoers unwittingly see preaching as a kind of Godly entertainment, rehearsing truths that are warm and familiar, or in some cases feel it is a penance to be endured.

Conversation, with people with whom relationships are being built, answering real questions that are being asked about faith, one-to-one or in small groups, and not necessarily in church, seems to contribute more to the life changing challenge of the Gospel. In that setting the life of the speaker is also under closer scrutiny…there can be no inconsistencies between the message and the lifestyle of the messenger.

Some of us in more traditional churches have become lazy and have just not been prepared to put in the effort to overcome the problems presented by largish buildings and numbers of people, to introduce ways of teaching in the context of the worship service that are more personal and more suited to the way people learn, take things on board and change. This is not about content, presentation (lots of media) or length (“the sermon was a bit long today”). There is work to be done!

Much as I enjoy preaching, and trust God to make it helpful, I don’t want to simply become a trader in holy words, providing people with a sort of commodity that fails to touch the deep parts of their lives and behaviour, making them think they know more about God while keeping him relationally at arm’s length. Preaching for me is about changing lives…if it’s not doing that then it’s time for a rethink…

Conversations 1: “No regrets…”

Posted by David Ward on 23/03/2013
Posted in: Monastic spirituality, Personal thoughts. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

A brother, possessed by sadness and melancholy, went to an Elder and asked of him: “What am I to do? My thoughts present me with the idea that perhaps in vain I denied the world and that I cannot be saved.”

 Thoughtfully, the Elder answered as follows:

“My child, even if we do not succeed in reaching the promised land, it is better that we should give our carcasses to the desert than return to the Egypt of fearful enslavement” (Numbers 14:29-33).

St. Amphilochios, from “The Evergetinos”( One of the classic collections of Orthodox spiritual writings)

My friend, Lorna, has been a follower of Jesus for a long time. She is one of the few people in the world that I really trust, and consequently is one of the people who can say hard things to me out of “tough love” and really get my attention.

We don’t see as much of each other as we used to, but when we do, we talk a lot.

We’d already caught up with the news about our many mutual acquaintances, and had passed on to talking about my disappointments over my return to church and the current health of my faith.

“I was thinking,” said Lorna, hesitantly. I waited to see what was coming.

“Even if it wasn’t really true, Jesus and all that, I’d still be glad I’d chosen to live my life this way,” she said.

I thought about it too. I’ve always believed that, assurance and faith aside, sometimes we have to have the humility to admit that there’s a possibility, however slim, that we might be wrong. Otherwise we become the sort of dogmatic, judgemental sort of evangelical Christian that does the love and grace of God no credit…and I go that way sometimes too, if I’m honest.

So, supposing Jesus wasn’t really the Son of God, just a remarkably wise founder of a counter-cultural way of life. Or supposing, even, that the historical Jesus never existed, and that the writings and sayings were made up by another, just as remarkable, individual or group of people (I grew up on all the apologetics stuff, so even now I think what I’ve just said is unlikely, but bear with me!)

I could sit around bewailing all the wild hedonism and unbridled passion that I’ve missed out on, the ambitions I could have fulfilled and the people I could have trodden on, or…

…I could be thankful for a life where I’ve tried to live modestly, to treat others as I’d like to be treated, to pray for change and see it happen, to care about the people marginalised by everyone else (which I’m not very good at), to have a purpose in life, to know that even the worst failure in myself and others is never terminal and a host of other positive things that I hazard to guess I would not have embraced without my faith in Jesus.

If I hadn’t been a Christian for the best part of my life you would not have wanted to know me (some of you don’t even though I have been one…I still have a long way to go, I guess, but I haven’t given up yet). A life like the one Jesus lived (in fact or as a story) is a very attractive one, relationally, spiritually, morally…and actually, it’s been an exciting and challenging ride.

So a life lived as a follower of Jesus, trying to be faithful to all that entails…no regrets!