Are the voices in my head too loud for you?

Martha, Mary and Discernment

We are continuing to read Jane Tromain's St. Benedict's Toolbox at our morning and evening Office.  We have been dipping and mixing - and read her main chapter on exercising hospitality before returning to her base premises.  We are currently working through The Introduction: St. Benedict's Rule.  Her working of the story of Martha and Mary was powerful and pertinent.  (Luke 10.38-42)

Tomain observes:

Martha's problem wasn't that she was busy, but that she was distracted by her busyness and worry.  Does this sound familiar?  It does to me!  Instead Our Lord entreats us to listen like Mary.  To hear what God is saying to us requires us to make a choice.

We must choose to sit at the feet of the Lord.

We sit at the feet of the Lord and listen.  We listen so that we can continue in the Word and find the truth in him...

Sound advice.

(Tomain, Jane., St. Benedict's Toolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Everyday Benedictine Living (2005) Morehouse Publishing)

Discernment:

It is less important what we do - it is the manner in which we do it that counts.

Peaseblossom, Bell and a Charitable Mechanic

We have bought a car.  Cue champagne - music - lights!

Very second - actually thirdhand - but a CAR.

It has felt like climbing Mount Everest - just getting to the point of decision - but we are there and it is done.  (For those into MBTI - my partner and I are both INFP - need I say more?)  I am exhausted emotionally (Drama Queen) - just because this is unfamiliar territory and we knew we needed an impressively good deal.  It has worked out well, I think;  I hope.  I would never have imagined I would find it that difficult though!  Weird.  It's a car not a major life-transforming event! 

Ironically I don't find shifts in a psychiatric hospital; sitting by the bedside of someone dying or even accompanying people as they make personal and spiritual connections exhausting to anything like the same degree.  Maybe it is to do with what is familiar and what I am comfortable with.  Maybe...

We now have the highly pleasurable task of deciding with the family what her name is to be.  I have a sense that she is female and as she is a deep green I am already toying with earthy names - Gaia (which might well wind up a much loved colleague who will think I am being wacky!) to Meadowsweet (too twee)?  Peaseblossom?  Good provenance but a tad fay?  Maybe Hilda or as she has been purchased on the commemoration of Elizabeth Ferard - the first English Deaconess - maybe Ferard?  I daresay my son will favour naming her after a Star Wars or Harry Potter character.  We will have fun establishing her identity and will be sorry to say good bye to Hector - our trusted Land Rover - but we need space and 7 seats!  Retreatants need comfort - and so do we.

It does make me mad the way technology is increasingly utilised to reduce consumer choice.  Even if you try to buy a relatively uncomplicated car - there are still various things that can only be fixed by the manufacturer's own franchises because the replacement part interfaces with this and that; needs to be assessed using the latest computer software and then realigned once it is installed.  The guys I feel sorry for are the independent chaps who are highly experienced mechanics and have a passion for motor cars but are disenfranchised from undertaking these tasks because they do not wish to join a franchise.  I met a smashing one today who looked over the car before we bought her.  A passionate person with a love of cars.

We have been reading 2 Corinthians in morning prayer recently and I realise I must be mellowing.  I usually get quite miffed with S. Paul's letters and his extraordinary capacity to apparently encourage whilst actually being rather autocratic and manipulative (no projection there then!).  This morning's reading made me smile.  I suddenly had a flash of insight and felt desperately sorry for Paul.  The poor man is battling with his ego, conscience and desire to hold community together.  He is trying so hard to make it all right.  I found myself, as we fell into our customery period of silence, wondering if he had ever felt able to take his own spiritual advice.

I have been second marking assignments for the Theological Institute today which has been great fun.  After Practical Theology/Spirituality - Ethics and Church History are favourites of mine.  Today I was marking mostly level one Church History and they were highly imaginative and inventive responses to the assignment.  I wished I had been undertaking the task as well!

I have been trying to get together a reading list for those considering life in community.  In recent weeks I have read:

Homan, David., Radical Hospitality: Benedict's Way of Love (2007) Wild Goose.

Once you get over the American 'shine' in the presentation it makes some powerful points about incarnational living.

Bell, John, Hard Words for Interesting Times (2003) Wild Goose.

I loved Bell's chapter on The Guardianship of Creation and Midwifery for Pensioners.

Tutu, Desmond, God Has A Dream: A Vision Of Hope For Our Time (2005) London: Random House.

Tutu has such an engaging style - and his Epistle to contemporary society and the Church is moving and evocative.

Johnson, S., Who Moved My Cheese? (1998) London: Random House.

Don't bother to read any of the introduction - make straight for the story which begins on page 25.  The story concerns the discernment of a group of laboratory mice caught in a maze.  It is a wonderful approach to discernment based on understanding and acknowledging our preferred styles of relating to decision-making.  It was written as a managerial tool - but should be embraced for its delightful, gentle insights into how behaviour affects outcome.  It can't all be blamed on the Holy Spirit.

And another one by John Bell:

States of Bliss and Yearning: The Marks and Means of Authentic Christian Spirituality (1998) Wild Goose.

I am still reflecting on an excellent talk Bell gave which is reproduced in the book on Matthew 7.21 - "Not everyone who calls me Lord..."

Bell calls this section 'Tricky Bits in the Bible'.  The understatement works.

There's also a very interesting section called 'The Discipline of Waiting' which is especially powerful for me.  I have spent significant periods of my life being able to do a passable impression of a caged lionness!!

Found another property by the by at Lochgoilhead.  The house has a chapel.  Oh, no I hear you groan...

Australia, parents and 4X4's

We have friends visiting very soon from Australia.

I have known them all my life as they were contempories of my parents.  I am so looking forward to seeing them again, not least because I never knew my father as an adult, he died when I was in my late teens, and I very much look forward to hearing their memories of him - and of my mum - who lives with us.

In my mind, my Dad is a very vague figure but a powerful personality - if that makes any sense at all.  I have watched old Super 8 footage of him larking around and I don't really recognise him - so I think hearing more will be valuable.

We are trying to buy a car - for good, sound need reasons - but we have had to work hard to look out for ecological and ethical considerations.  At various points I have felt there has been a strong chance we would disappear up our own behinds with concerns over this and that - but I think we are on the way.  We desperately wanted to down-size from a Land Rover - but there is a reality check - 5 dogs, 2 cats, a rabbit - four human family members - all with varying special needs and occasional retreatants and friends staying with us mean that although this is desirable and commendable - it isn't very practical.  Location also plays it's part.  I need to get all over Scotland - and sometimes in foul weather and with alot of luggage - a lift is a luxury - but a so very much appreciated one when the alternative is trying to manage a guide dog, wheelie suitcase and rucksack through the transportation system!  It is not clever, ethical or green - but a 4 X 4 certainly speaks to our current needs.  I am disappointed - but at least clear why we need what we need - and I no longer have a sneaking suspicion that for now, we could be going for a different option.

Enticing

Most of the day I have been marking student assignments.  They show thought and insight - and are challenging and full of interesting resources.  I have especially enjoyed marking this cohort of assignments because I have got to know the students better than I usually do.  This year I have attended all residentials and the summer school.  As I read each assignment I could hear the voice of the student reading it to me.  With so few students even 'blind marking' I would know who had written it!  Their voices and own approaches shine through.

Much to reflect on and consider.

In between times I have been dreaming dreams - furthering thoughts of community and just beginning to evolve an idea for a new novel.

All very tentative and embryonic and too new to discuss or permit to be scrutinised just yet!

I am also aware of claiming and delighting in friendship just now.  We have lived in the Highlands for five years and during that time have had to work hard to find our niche.  I was aware that at times I was lonely - and I am delighting in the friendships we are discovering and deepening.  Meetings of minds; humour; some - spiritually and psychically enlightening - all adding life and bringing many blessings.

In Chapel each day we have been reading a book by Jane Tromain with the rather unpromising title of St. Benedict's Tool Box.  It has proved a timely reminder of hospitality and the practice of generosity and good humour.

A meditation of sorts came to mind:

ENTICING

Inadvertently slumped,

unexpectedly beached

and newly sentient,

we move a little, stretch and shake,

shifting to find our bearings,

recognising the familiar;

reluctant to touch the wounded crag;

the jagged scab

that reminds us

all too quickly that all is not what it seems.

Slithering to life,

we risk a gentle manoevering

and set out boundaries in mounds of sand,

marking our claimed territory

until such times as we can

deconstruct our defences.

Rememberings return

and take us back to the yearnings

which we now investigate in intimate proximity.

We recognise destiny.

It is an uncomfortable reckoning that some things are beyond our control.

We shuffle bulbous parts against the dankness

making our mark for this time

and roll about a little

testing

what we might consider we can do in our prime.

Catching breath.

The angels are fascinated,

a little nod of intrigue.

They have invested in our outworking

and are busy setting our egos imaginings to the music

of the oldest dance in time.

They make it clear; quite, quite clear,

They, as a multitude,

are of one, unequivocal mind:

they detest even the slightest hint of sand between their toes.

JEW

Return to HQ

It feels an age since I blogged and indeed it is.  Apologies.

I've had an exciting and demanding few weeks with various folk on retreat, a Summer School with the Theological Institute of the Scottish Episcopal Church at the monastery in Kinnoull, Perth and some time to reflect on possible futures for and in community.

All good, necessary and exciting.

There are periods when so much of what I do is confidential, that at the end of the day, when I might naturally blog, if I were to start, by necessity I would end up discussing things which are less than authentic to the moment or the experience at that time.  It's moments like this I wish I was a bird watcher or could get excited about tales of dog walks!  I guess I'm saying that I am pretty lousy at small talk - sadly - it seems even small talk with a computer.  How tragic is that?

We are continuing to work on the where and how of creating community. 

I had a terrific conversation the other day with a friend who likened the process of finding places and possibilities to stumbling upon the clues in a Treasure Hunt.  You are never sure whether the latest development is 'the one' that is the treasure or just another clue along the way.  It is all a matter of heart, intuition and discernment. 

In that sense there are tremendous similarities between the search for a home for community and the process of working alongside students preparing for authorised Christian ministry.  Ultimately whatever is presented, the process of discernment as to whether a vocation is just that, is legitimised by discernment - by the individual, by those who facilitate his learning and by the Church as a whole.  In the case of ministry - does this person bring life to others?  Would they be a valued and trustworthy colleague?  Will they be faithful and responsible in the service of God or will they struggle with the demands made upon them in ways which will not bear 'spiritual fruit' and might even hurt or damage them and/or others?  These are tough calls - in every sense imaginable.

Summer School went well and reminded me of many summer programmes in the past.  The mix of students getting to know each other well with a challenging programme of speakers and activities, encouraged considerable reflection and thought.  This isn't an easy process, but as a staff member I was genuinely thrilled to see students making connections and risking thinking in new ways.  These are the moments teachers live for and priests even more so.  Like all good courses, the staff were challenged too and it was incredibly valuable to have a Bishop in residence with us all week who is a consumate theological educator in his own right.  We were able to dream dreams about the future of theological education in Scotland.  A pretty perfect week from my perspective.  Now we need to make dreams happen... something I love doing.

Whilst discerning a base and context for community, the questions are much the same as those articulated for human vocations.  Will this place be a place people will come to and will it be a place which brings healing and life?  What about those, who we increasingly specialise in offering space to, who need utmost privacy and freedom to make their own journeys uninterupted by social interaction or expectation?  What about those who feel stifled and at odds with the Church and much of what it conventionally stands for?  Will the place provide an environment where each member committed to community can evolve their vocation and challenge, stimulate and be a witness to the Church and Society?

The questions are relatively easy to identify.  It's always the answers that take time.