Author: mrgsponderings

The power of place

A group of us at my church recently shared in a Quiet Day led by our Archdeacon Vanessa.

Her addresses were about different aspects of Prayer – Prayer and silence; Prayer and Place; Prayer and Time; Prayer and the Senses.

Each one has its own way of inspiring and creating reflection. We were encouraged to engage with the gift of silence to ourselves, each other, and especially to God. We were also encouraged to receive the Gift of prayer to us from God and seek the Holy Spirit at work within us. In a beautiful phrase we were to sense ‘God speaking to God from within.’

Looking at Prayer and Place, Vanessa prompted us to think of the places where God has been easily found. She herself, spoke to us of Lastingham in the Cleveland Hills in North Yorkshire. Here the Saxon monk Cedd, pupil of St. Aidan of Lindisfarne, set up a monastery. This same Cedd brought the Gospel to Essex, to Bradwell which was consecrated by his presence and his prayer.

I haven’t been to Lastingham for many years but Vanessa opened up the memory and the experience within me. Below is the poem that I felt encouraged to write.

With it is a poem by Piers who was at the Quiet Day. Inspired, this time by the Abbey of Bec Hellouin in Normandy. Bec in the past supplied us with three Archbishops of Canterbury, Lanfranc, Anselm and Theobald. Bec still has a special relationship with Canterbury Cathedral. Today, only the tower remains of the Norman Abbey but a community of monks live in buildings near the tower. A sister community of nuns live in a convent a short distance away and on Sundays and Feast Days, the monks and nuns worship together. The serene and beautiful worship in their chapel inspired the first of the poems.

Both locations express the essence of what Vanessa spoke of to us. Thin places where heaven touches earth and God feels very near.

l’Abbaye du Bec

In my mind’s eye, I return:
cream quietness…
light bathing ordered stone,
the scent of sung prayer hanging low.

Immanence re-discovered.

Piers Northam
10 July 2021

Lastingham

I come to this place,
deep in the hills,
where silence and conversation
meld into stillness.

God is here,
his sanctuary a stone rainbow
over the seeker after meaning.

What am I looking for in this place,
where the one who drew others to their knees,
poured out his soul?

I sense and seek the company
of the one who prayed here first,
in the shadows of sweeping arches,
pillars and faint light.

Seemingly impermeable rock
– steeped in suffering and joy;
pain and perfection; faltering hope
and confident determination –
enfolds me as I kneel with Cedd:

exhaling uncertainty…
…inhaling God’s blessing and his love.

Geoffrey Connor
10 July 2021

Photos:
The Apse Chapel Pennant Melangell Church Mr.G
Abbey Church Bec Hellouin Piers Northam
Crypt, Lastingham Church. Parish of Lastingham

Follow the Redshank

My friend Joyce Smith has sent another Photo prayer for us to contemplate.
It is of a Redshank pausing at Welney.

There’s a story from the Desert Spiritual tradition about St. Antony

St. Antony was one day resting with his disciples when a hunter came upon them.
He berated them for their indolence.
Antony asked him to draw his bow and shoot an arrow. Puzzled, he did so.
Antony asked him to do it again. He did so but when Antony asked him a third time,
the man protested that if he carried on his bow would break with the strain.

Just so, said Antony, as we would if we did not from time to time rest and relax.

When I received Joyce’s latest tweet and photograph, this saying came to mind.

I thought too of something Cardinal Basil Hume once said, initially to novices he was teaching but it is applicable to all.
“When you are busy in the market place, always have a nostalgia for the desert.”

In the midst of busy lives, in order to keep them grounded as well as in lives often filled with distraction, yearn to spent time with God.
We need to pay attention to both the active and passive parts of us and hold them in balance. Jesus could not have done what he did do if he had not constantly gone off to be with his Father.

It’s not an easy thing for us to do which is why Cardinal Hume talked of having nostalgia for quiet.
That is also why, having the Redshank moment is important.
Seize the moment when you can be still (As St Cuthbert did in my blog about Cuddy’s Isle).

The other point, of course is, that you should be careful of using busyness to avoid being alone with God!
He knows how to get round that one, so you can’t fool Him.

As the Hunter was to learn with St Antony, without these moments you simply break.

Think about how you can, like the Redshank, just pause and allow the water of God’s grace refresh you, flowing around and into you. That is what the Redshank shows us when she stops and allows the waters to flow around her.

Standing in this grace, God will restore your soul.

Thank you Joyce for sharing your photo and its message.

{Mr. G & Joyce Smith}

Cuddy’s Isle

Holy Island (Lindisfarne) is a deeply special place for the story of Christianity in our land. It was to here that St. Aidan came from Iona to proclaim the love of God in Jesus Christ for His people. Here St. Aidan trained up twelve Saxon boys, including four brothers, to spread the Good News of Jesus. It was here, the day after Aidan’s soul was taken up to heaven that a boy named Cuthbert came to dedicate his life to God after first testing his vocation at the Abbey in Melrose.

When Cuthbert was called to be a great leader of the church and weighed down by the many tasks he undertook, he escaped to his special meeting place with God. As Lindisfarne became (and becomes) an island twice a day, so the little island known as Cuddy’s isle is the same. Here Cuthbert crossed before the tide cut him off and left him to simply be with God.

Here’s a poem I’ve just written inspired by Helen’s photograph and the thoughts it has stirred.

An Island

There is an island
made holy by the prayers and tears of saints.
A holy, set-aside place where souls in search of God
find him waiting.

It is a thin place
where earth touches heaven
and barriers are paper-thin:
tissue hiding nothing,
darkness transparent,
light warmly radiant.

I have been there,
down the rough path
past the church to a bend in the road
where expectancy parts the air.
The sea drifts to shore,
benign and welcoming
or pushing waves to the limit of its power.

Go there.
It beckons and seeks you.
Clamber and scramble the rocks of your desire.
You have a meeting, a moment, an arrangement.
God waits and stretches out his hand in welcome,
shelters safe and holds.

You are there
at the place of speaking,
listening,
being still.

Even as the wind swirls and chills,
you are warm.

And this place?
Cuddy’s Isle of Lindisfarne.
Or perhaps…
your heart.

[Mr G. 1st July 2021]

Friendship with God

My friend Joyce Smith has sent me this tweet – a photo which tells its own story.

Joyce says : In the same way as words are often not needed when sitting with good friends, sitting in quiet with our Heavenly Father helps us to absorb his love and know his peace.

Silence & Prayer
inspired by Joyce’s photograph and caption

Some people find silence uncomfortable but in our praying to God, it’s more than an absence of exterior noise.
Real silence before God is actually quite an active thing.

Prayer has been likened by the late Mother Mary Clare SLG, as a ‘Love-Affair with God’ in which all the emotions are engaged from silent hand-holding to tempestuous tiffs. It’s about sitting with God in a state of loving friendship.

Another teacher of prayer, Father Benson, the founder of the Cowley Fathers (SSJE) said:

“The soul in its littleness looks upon God in his greatness; and God in his greatness looks upon the soul in its littleness and loves it.”

This understanding of prayer is reinforced by a quite famous story connected with Jean Vianney, (known to us as the Curé d’Ars). He noticed that an old man came regularly into church and just sat there for hours, staring ahead.
Eventually the priest asked him what he was doing all day, to which came the simple but profound reply,

“I looks at Him and He looks at me.”

These words remind us that in our personal praying we should be thinking about God. Prayer is not always bombarding him with requests.

Mother Mary Clare, makes a valid point when she says:

Let us be clear that what we are seeking in prayer is God Himself; not thoughts about Him nor about ourselves in relation to Him.

This involves silence. A silence which, as with the old man, is about sitting with God. When we do, we may express our love for God just by spending time with Him. Almost certainly, we will also discover God’s deep love for us because whilst I looks at Him, God will be looking at me and at you, and, as Fr. Benson puts it, God looks upon our soul, and loves it.

[Mr. G]

Mother Mary Clare SLG:

Some of the teachings on prayer by the late Mother Mary Clare SLG can be found in ‘Encountering the Depths’ a short but rich book about the nature and practice of prayer. Price £4 plus postage from the SLG Press. Go to the website. If you are not familiar with the SLG Press you will encounter a feast of books about prayer, spirituality and the Christian life.

Website: https://www.slgpress.co.uk/shop/