Friday 23 June 2017

Meditation for St. John's Eve




Meditation for St. John's Eve:

Now, as Vespers sings itself to dusk’s silent sitting.
The beacons begin to burn.
Men watching for the moment
of Moon’s waning
in twilight midsummer sky
of a Sun too lazy to truly set,
to kindle flame for the Forerunner;
John.
He whose element is fire.
Both lamps now hanging in cloth of such deep blue
that the world seems enfolded in the mantle of one
who midwifed his birth,
even as she joined her magnificat
to old Elizabeth’s pangs and doubting Zechariah’s silence
beneath the shining stars of desert sky.

Now, as Matins touches midnight of Monks long vigiling
the herbs are gathered.
Women seeking the helpers and the healers
in wood, and dell, and garden bed
where, blessed by dew and moonlight
and the long warmth of Sun’s summer
the Yarrow and the Bracken,
the Fennel and the Rue,
the Rosemary and the Foxglove and
always the Elder and
the great yellow flower of the Forerunner
willingly give up their essence on the night
that marks the first whisper
of the Word’s healing breath,
breathed through the one who is His herald Voice;
John.
Dried, and hung, and laid upon the Lady Altar
to become more than they are
they will bestow divine healing.
Twice gifted and graced by
Summer’s picking
and Autumn’s
Assumption blessing, they
reveal the medicine present always beneath.

Now, as Lauds’ psalms sun skywards
the pots and pans and ancient drums are beaten.
The children sing the old songs and rhymes
long lost to meaning,
as young men and women harelike
leap heedless across the
dying flames together.
Recalling he who leapt with joy,
filled with fire, even in womb’s waters
so near was the One who first kindled flame
and rendered the rivers holy and made the wells
vessels of new birth.

Now, as Mass bell tolls dawn’s daily resurrection
monks and men, and women, and children all
hear the summons of the Sanctifier and His herald
loud upon morning’s breeze
as embers die down, and herbs are hung up.
Beneath the vaulted stone they gather
to join their voices to praise that vastness veiled
in simple bread and wine,
and hear again the word first spoken by
the herald,
the lamp,
the flame,
the leaper,
the prophet,
the angel,
the voice,
the Baptist
whose birth they have
blessed anew
cry across the ages
“Behold the Lamb of God!”

I wrote this last year to illuminate so many of the customs we have lost that wove the wisdom of the wild and the faith together so beautifully. On St. John's Eve, (The Vigil of the Feast of the Birth of St. John the Baptist), the last official day of the solstice bonfires were set burning to commemorate the fire of the Baptist's faith and the facing into the waning of natural light after the longest day. Couples leaping across the fire was an old betrothal custom. This was also the traditional night for gathering the herbs that would be used as medicine for the year to come. Gathered tonight and dried until Assumption Day they would then be blessed in the Monasteries at the first Mass at Our Lady's Altar... The songs and noise making around the boundaries of the hills and the fields was to frighten away evil and stagnancy so as to refresh the fields and prepare for the Harvest... Our faith was and is both holy and holistic and we must return to such deep knowing again... May the Baptist pray for us!

Wednesday 21 June 2017

The Paradox of Presence; a Meditation for Midsummer's Eve




The Paradox of Presence;
a Meditation for Midsummer's Eve

 Here I am Lord;
I am a passing shadow
I am a breath on the edge of being
I am a body of dust and ashes
I am a child of earth
I am from nothing
I am only ever almost
I am a ripple in the pool of life
I am a whisper in the silence
I am lost in time
I am unfulfilled yearning
I am a distorted reflection
I am delusion
I am desire
I am for now
And yet,
Here I am Lord;
I am made in your image
I am growing into your likeness
I am an idea in the Divine mind
I am called forth from nothingness
I am an exhalation of love
I am a child of God
I am an eternal soul
I am a word spoken by the Word
I am the temple of the Divine
I am from Being itself
I am called by name
I am held in being by Love
I am interpenetrated by light
I am sustained by pure attention
I am healed by Divine Compassion
I am redeemed by Mercy
I am for eternity
And so, I answer once again
caught in the pain of paradox,
on this point between the
shortest night
and the longest day:
Here I am Lord;
To be light in the shadows
To be your breath of love
To be the place where Being heals being
To be the moment where time touches Eternity
To be the voice who speaks the word into the silence
To be the torch aflame in the darkness
To be the temple of Divine encounter
To be the emptiness without absence
To be the call to compassion
To be the wound that heals
To be the child of heaven and the child of earth
To be in time and dwell in eternity
To live my I am in the I AM
To lose all so as to find all in you.
So,
Here I am Lord;
journeying from nothing to something
journeying from darkness to light
journeying from emptiness to fullness
by
journeying from something to no-thingness
journeying from light to light so bright it blinds and darkens my still too earthly sight
journeying from fullness to emptiness of being...
Here I am Lord;
a pilgrim on this paradox path
lost and found
and lost again
but with faith in the finding always...
and on this night of edges and shadows and barely there darkness
I surrender to the
silence of the Word
and simply say with open hands and
broken heart,
Here
I
am
Lord

Tuesday 6 June 2017

At the centre, the Heart.




What do we find at the centre of our faith?
The Cross, uniting earth and Heaven in a communion of Love stronger than death, despair or evil.
What do we find at the centre of that Cross?
A human heart that holds the fullness of Divinity.
What do we find at the centre of this heart?
A burning wound of fire and light wherein our woundedness is healed, our darkness illumined, our sin forgiven, and our existence united with Divine Nature forever.
What do we find at the centre of that wound?
The point where time and eternity meet in that mystery of Divine Love we call Incarnation, we call Jesus.
What do we find at the centre of the Incarnation?
The answer to all the questions of our being:
We have come from Love.
We are now because of Love.
We are called into Love for eternity.
And we are loved so much that God would break His own heart for eternity to prove to us just how much we are loved.
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
I place all my trust in thee.

Sunday 4 June 2017

Thoughts about #Thoughts&Prayers

Thoughts about #Thoughts&Prayers

Last night, as the terrible events unfolded yet again, this time in London, social media lit up as it does with tragic familiarity with the chaos of contrary bulletins, appeals for help and offers of assistance, congratulations to the first responders and condemnation of the perpetrators and, following quickly of the politicians too…

And then comes the wave of hashtags: #prayers&thoughts, #PrayforLondon etc… and, as is usual of late, following hard and fast on their heels come the wave of those who do not want the “platitude of prayer” or are frustrated with the offering of “prayers and thoughts” that seem to do nothing but make people feel better about themselves and perhaps even seem to absolve of responsibility…

“Do something!” the crowd roars… “Don’t just stand there thinking and praying do something!”… and then the virtual crowd tears itself apart as it tries to decide just what it is we should be doing… how we should be reacting… and very quickly shock becomes sadness, and sadness becomes frustration, and frustration becomes anger, and anger becomes hate and hate seeks a victim, and violence begets violence and it is all understandable…but lamentably so.

So I wonder… perhaps this hashtag is more important than ever in these days of struggle with fundamentalist forces and knee-jerk reactions to events? After all, the terrorists want to do one thing and one thing only… they want to dictate how you should pray and what you should think. This is the reality of religious fundamentalism. They do not want you to reflect and to choose your reaction as thousands are doing in Manchester and London tonight, choosing love over hate, and even more so in the case of our Coptic brothers and sisters of Egypt, who astound with their long suffering forbearance, and choose forgiveness over hate. The terrorists, indeed the fundamentalists of any sect or group, are always most threatened by a human being choosing to reflect, to think, to pray according to their own conscience. And so they engage in terror, in random acts of violence calculated to disturb, to anger, to disable our rationality so that our knee jerk reactions will simply fulfil their twisted prophecies of hate and spiral out of control into ever decreasing circles of fear, anger, pain, death.
No, instead let us truly offer our thoughts and prayers. Let us, people of all faiths and none, choose the reflective path that looks not at symptoms but causes and then attempts, calmly but unflinchingly, to deal with the symptoms by changing the causes, while consistenly and constantly affirming the rights of all to the freedom of thought, of faith and of prayer that is at the core of what we all believe.

Before we do something let us think, and pray, and reflect. Then we will be more likely to do the right thing. At the very least we will be doing the one thing they do not want us to do; for after all, our thoughts and prayers are exactly what the terrorists want to control.

Peace to London, to Manchester, to Afghanistan, to Egypt, to Syria, to Iraq, to the Philippines… peace to all…

And yes... my thoughts and prayers are with them all tonight.
Blessings +