You say it's your birthday...

You say it's your birthday -
It's my birthday too, yeah.
They say it's your birthday -
We're gonna have a good time.
I'm glad it's your birthday -
Happy birthday to you.

Yes we're going to a party party
Yes we're going to a party party
Yes we're going to a party party.

I would like you to dance - Birthday
Take a cha-cha-cha-chance - Birthday
I would like you to dance - Birthday
Dance

You say it's your birthday -
Well it's my birthday too, yeah.
You say it's your birthday -
We're gonna have a good time.
I'm glad it's your birthday -
Happy birthday to you.

John Lennon & Paul McCartney

As a little boy I never realised other people had the same birthday as me, and it came as quite a shock when I discovered someone who did! Now, of course, I realise I share a birthday with, among other people, Elvis Ramone, Ian Botham, Edgar Meyer, Donald Duck Dunn, Russell Watson and John Squire, not to mention my dear friend George Crewe. I hope each of you who shares our birthday has a great one, blessed and not a little crazy, as the best birthdays should always be...

The Purpose of Discipline - a birthday meditation...

The purpose of discipline is, however, to make us critically aware of the limitations of the very language of the spiritual life and of ideas about that life. If, on an elementary level, discipline makes us critical of sham values in social life (for example, it makes us realize experientially that happiness is not to be found in the usual rituals of consumption in an affluent society), on a higher level it reveals to us the limitations of formalistic and crude spiritual ideas. Discipline develops our critical insight and shows us the inadequacy of what we had previously accepted as valid in our religious and spiritual lives. It enables us to abandon and to discard as irrelevant certain kinds of experience which, in the past, meant a great deal to us. It makes us see that what previously served as real "inspiration" has now become a worn-out routine and that we must go on to something else. It gives us the courage to face the risk and the anguish of the break with our previous level of experience. It enables us, in the language of St. John of the Cross, to face the Dark Night in full awareness of our need to be stripped of what formerly gratified and helped us.

Thomas Merton. "Renewal and Discipline" in Contemplation in A World of Action
(New York, Doubleday and Company, Inc.): pp 128-129

I love this passage of Merton's. We are always so unwilling to recognise "the inadequacy of what we had previously accepted as valid in our religious and spiritual lives," especially in the broadly "evangelical" areas of the church. There is such (understandable) suspicion of opening ourselves to new things. It could be seen in some of the harsher reactions to the "Toronto Blessing" back in '94, and it can be seen today in some of the reactions to changes God is bringing about in the Anglican Communion. But Merton is talking about the interior life of the individual, and it's not fair to shanghai his thoughts to support my own ecclesiological maunderings!

Of course it's scary, allowing God to change us, and reveal to us the hidden things of the Spirit. We wonder if we are hearing right, or if we are being misled by the enemy. We try to test things against Scripture (1 John 4:1) and yet we still feel unsure that beneath us is solid ground. It's here that the discipline God helped us put in place will come to help us.

I know myself that all the things that have happened over the extraordinary year since my last birthday, the things God has shown me that I'd spent years trying to avoid looking at, the places I'd run from years ago that God has brought me back to revisit, would have been altogether more than I could have handled had it not been for the discipline God provided through the Franciscan Third Order. The little daily facts of the Office, of regular self-examination and of wise and loving spiritual direction, kept me (relatively) sane, and far more importantly, very close to God, at times when I might otherwise simply have lost it.

The track 'The Canal' on the Eremos site tries to express some of this, where the underlying thread of the music, the tonal centre, holds despite the darkness and uncertainty of form, till finally the light breaks through. "Just as the sun's rays are sometimes hidden from the earth by thick cloud, so for a while a person may be deprived of spiritual comfort and of grace's brightness... Then, all of a sudden, without that person being aware, it is all given back. Just as the surface of the earth rejoices at the rays of the sun when they break through the clouds, so the words of prayer are able to break through..." (St Isaac of Nineveh, Homilies, 13.)

Lilac and things like that...

Following a link from LutheranChik's excellent blog, I found this lovely print by Mary Azarian, in her Thoreau series.

I don't know what it is, but there's something about deserted buildings where there are still signs of their human habitation - Thoreau's lilac, various kitchen garden remnants (I once found leeks flowering in the garden of a derelict shepherd's cottage in the Welsh mountains) bits of old farming tackle, marbles, the rusted wheel of a doll's pram - that just breaks my heart.

I can't help thinking of the people who lived there, their lives, loves, hopes and dreams, and how once they took delight in what is now ruined. I just choke up thinking about it, and I feel so full of helpless love for these folk I've never met.

I guess that's one thing about God's having given us prayer. It's impossible to do anything, or even to imagine what might be done, but I can pray. Pray God's mercy, his blessing, on the descendants of these forgotten people; pray that their passing was peaceful, at the end of a life full of joy and fulfilment. Pray that somehow they may know that they are still loved, if only in a stranger's puzzled heart...

Prayer does not blind us...

Prayer does not blind us to the world, but it transforms our vision of the world, and makes us see it, all men, and all the history of mankind, in the light of God. To pray "in spirit and in truth" enables us to enter into contact with that infinite love, that inscrutable freedom which is at work behind the complexities and intricacies of human existence.

Thomas Merton: Contemplative Prayer, 1969, Herder and Herder

People of prayer from the more 'Evangelical' streams of the church are occasionally suspicious of contemplative prayer. Sometimes this is because they mistakenly confuse it with mantric forms of meditation, such are are practised by followers of TM, but often it's because they feel it is an escape from the world, a turning inward, away from the pain and the confusion of a broken creation. But Merton and the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, are at one on this. You'll recall the quote from Ramsey I used on the index page of The Mercy Site:

Contemplation is for all Christians... [It] means essentially our being with God, putting ourselves in his presence, being hungry and thirsty for him, wanting him, letting heart and mind move towards him; with the needs of the world on our heart.

Contemplative prayer brings us closer than ever to the inconsolable pain of our fellow mortals, human and animal; unbearably close, closer than empathy, something close to the very compassion of God. This would be unbearable, more than the human mind or heart could withstand, if it were not for the fact that in prayer, in contemplative prayer particularly, we are enabled to bring this pain and need into God's very presence - by his grace and mercy in Jesus, who has opened the way for us (Hebrews 10:19ff) - to him who heals all things, renews all things (Revelation 21:5) and who will ultimately "be their shepherd, and... guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." (Rev. 7:17) We can safely put all things into his nail-pierced hands, and know peace, for in him, "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well," as another contemplative, Julian of Norwich, once wrote.

Praying for the protesters...

It is no exaggeration to say that democratic society is founded on a kind of faith: on the conviction that each citizen is capable of, and assumes, complete political responsibility. Each one not only broadly understands the problems of government but is willing and ready to take part in their solution. In a word, democracy assumes that the citizen knows what is going on, understands the difficulties of the situation, and has worked out for himself an answer that will help him to contribute, intelligently and constructively, to the common work (or liturgy) of running his society.

For this to be true, there must be a considerable amount of solid educational preparation. A real training of the mind. A genuine formation in those intellectual and spiritual disciplines without which freedom is impossible.

There must be a completely free exchange of ideas. Minority opinions, even opinions which may appear to be dangerous, must be given a hearing, clearly understood and seriously evaluated on their own merits, not merely suppressed. Religious beliefs and disciplines must be respected. The rights of the individual conscience must be protected against every kind of open or occult encroachment.

Democracy cannot exist when men prefer ideas and opinions that are fabricated for them. The actions and statements of the citizen must not be mere automatic reactions-mere mechanical salutes, gesticulations signifying passive conformity with the dictates of those in power.

To be truthful, we will have to admit that one cannot expect this to be realized in all the citizens of a democracy. But if it is not realized in a significant proportion of them, democracy ceases to be an objective fact and becomes nothing but an emotionally loaded word.

What is the situation in the United States today?

Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander by Thomas Merton,
New York: Doubleday & Co, Inc., 1968 edition, p. 100-101

Thomas Merton wrote these words over 40 years ago, and yet I fear they are as true today as they were then. We in the UK have no reason to look patronisingly across the Atlantic, either... All the above applies equally to us, and to all who live under democratic forms of government, no matter where in the world.

We may at times become impatient with those who make trouble, who raise uncomfortably loud voices, rock boats, gather in the streets and post inflammatory things on the www. Individually they may be courageous spokespeople for the truth, or they may be potty, corrupt, or dangerous. But we need them. All of we quiet, God-fearing folks need, really need, those troublesome men and women who handcuff themselves to trees, block the traffic with their placards, and the internet forums with their polemic. We even need the ones who can't spell, or who are hazardously wrong.

Why? Because we need people who will take the personal risks we often dare not take to challenge an establishment that will, often for what it sincerely believes are the best of reasons, attempt to bring us to live quietly and unquestioningly by "ideas and opinions that are fabricated for [us]."

We must pray that there will always be those who are willing to risk everything to challenge the spin doctors, the fabricators of opinion, and who will stand up and rudely question those who would suffocate questions. More than that, we must pray for them. We must pray for the ones who are right, and clear eyed, and true, the Martin Luther Kings and Desmond Tutus of this world, but we must pray too for the opposers of bypasses, the protesters against housing developments, and those who write endless letters to their local papers demanding more and better housing for the lower-paid. We must pray for the sprayers of graffiti, and the printers of inflammatory leaflets, and for those who make community television.

Don't let's waste the blood of those who died to give us freedom from tyranny. Let's pray that God will give us the courage to join without violence, if the time should come, the ragged ranks of the protesters in the Name of our Lord. "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man." (Luke 6:22)

Firefox 2

Firefox 2 was released on Tuesday, and I can safely say, "Go ye hence and download the same!"

Really, it's the bee's knees among browsers - a huge step up from 1.5.

(One small strangeness, easy to fix but equally easy to waste hours on unless you know: if you have McAfee SiteAdvisor installed, just a few of you may find Firefox won't start. First, start Firefox in its own safe mode (all add-ons are temporarily disabled) (you'll see the link in your programs menu) and then you'll need to ensure you have the auto proxy configuration script disabled. Sounds scary, geeky even ;-) Don't worry - McAfee have a handy page explaining how to do it, step by step. Piece of cake when you know how, and everything works perfectly afterwards.)

St Silouan the Athonite

When the soul prays for the world, she knows better without newspapers how the whole earth is afflicted. She knows what people's needs are and feels pity for them... Newspapers don't write about people but about events, and then not the truth. They confuse the mind and, whatever you do, you won't get the truth by reading them; whereas prayer cleanses the mind and gives it a better vision of all things.

St Silouan the Athonite

...the growing popularity of St. Silouan is due directly to the relevance of his spiritual teaching for today. It is important to keep in mind the historical setting in which he lived and wrote. The first few decades of the twentieth century were a time of unparalleled change. Having died in 1938 at the age of 72, St. Silouan lived through the tumult and upheaval that were to forever alter the course of history. This was the era encompassing not only the First World War and the Russian Revolution, but also the events leading up to World War Two. Such large-scale destruction and horrific atrocities taking place on european soil were never before seen by human eyes.

This radical change was not limited to the political and social spheres, but also in a philosophic sense, it was indeed the dawn of a new age. From a strictly historical perspective, St. Silouan was a contemporary of Freud (1856-1939), Lenin (1870-1924) and Nietzsche (1844-1900), to name but a few. The blatantly anti-Christian principles that these men stood for, and the 'intellectual revolution' they inaugurated, were to contribute directly to the reversal in the spiritual and moral values of modem man. Philosophically speaking, it could be said that man was 'finally freeing' himself from the God of the Christians and striving, precariously, toward his self-deification.

Ironic as it seems, while the 'new humanism' (i.e., the pseudo-religion of man attempting to forge his own destiny apart from God) was gaining considerable ground at the dawn of the twentieth century, the unique value and inherent dignity of the human person seemed to recede simultaneously into oblivion. The 'triumph of nihilism' was looming on the horizon, and together with it the onslaught of its offspring—utter hopelessness and despair.

This was the modem mentality that St. Silouan undoubtedly took into account as he wrote down those God-inspired thoughts that came to him after much prayer. He was addressing a world at war, a war raging not only in the trenches of modem Europe, but also on the battlefield of the human soul.

The message that he attempted to convey during those early decades of the twentieth century is somehow even more relevant now as man 'progresses' on through the dawn of the new millennium. Although St. Silouan addresses the particular needs of the turmoil of his time, the fundamental themes he touches upon, such as the infinite love of God toward man, the inner workings of the human soul and the nature of the spiritual struggle, remain relevant for all believers everywhere. In this lies the significance of St. Silouan's teaching for today.

from: Harry Boosalis: Orthodox Spiritual Life According to Saint Silouan the Athonite.
South Canaan: St. Tikhon's Seminary Press,
1999. P. 15-26

St Silouan is one of my favourite people. He was the teacher of Fr Sophrony, whose writings I've often quoted here, and he was apparently a man of such gentleness and prayerfulness that he literally changed the lives of those who met him. Yet his life, like that of St Francis, had an inauspicious beginning. He was a peasant of great good looks and immense physical strength, hard-drinking and loose-living. It was only after he had nearly killed a man in a tavern brawl that in his own words he "...began to beseech God for forgiveness, and He granted me not only forgiveness but also the Holy Spirit, and in the Holy Spirit I knew God... the Lord remembered not my sins, and gave me to love people, and my soul longs for the whole world to be saved and dwell in the Kingdom of Heaven, and see the glory of the Lord, and delight in the love of God."

The only form of revolt...

‘The saints,’ said [French author George] Bernanos [most famous for his Diary of A Country Priest], ‘are not resigned, at least in the sense that the world thinks. If they suffer in silence those injustices which upset the mediocre, it is in order better to turn against injustice, against its face of brass, all the strength of their great souls. Angers, daughters of despair, creep and twist like worms. Prayer is, all things considered, the only form of revolt that stays standing up.’

This is very true from all points of view. A spirituality that preaches resignation under official brutalities, servile acquiescence in frustration and sterility, and total submission to organized injustice is one which has lost interest in holiness and remains concerned only with a spurious notion of ‘order.’ On the other hand, it is so easy to waste oneself in the futilities of that ‘anger, the daughter of despair,’ the vain recrimination that takes a perverse joy in blaming everyone else for our failure. We may certainly fail to accomplish what we believed was God's will for us and for the Church: but simply to take revenge by resentment against those who blocked the way is not to turn the strength of one's soul (if any) against the ‘brass face of injustice.’ It is another way of yielding to it.

There may be a touch of stoicism in Bernanos' wording here, but that does not matter. A little more stoic strength would not hurt us, and would not necessarily get in the way of grace!

Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander by Thomas Merton,
New York: Doubleday & Co, Inc., 1968 edition, p. 165

With the world in its present turmoil, I don't think any of us can afford not to think about what we would do were we to be faced with clear and present injustice among our own communities. We need to take Bernanos' words very seriously: 'Prayer is, all things considered, the only form of revolt that stays standing up.'

Prayer is no easy option, no coward's way out. Prayer is sometimes the hardest option, far harder than anger, harder than subversion or terrorism. Prayer remains standing in the face of the worst that man can do, that the enemy of our souls can do with man, bringing it into the very presence of God. 'The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.' (John 1:5)

Eremos - Music from The Mercy Site - three new tracks...

Three new Eremos tracks, 'Ubi Caritas', 'Autumn', and 'The Canal' have been released at CNet Music - you can listen online or download them as MP3s.

Hope you like them...

Be still...

“There is a stage in the spiritual life in which we find God in ourselves – this presence is a created effect of His love. It is a gift of His, to us. It remains in us. All the gifts of God are good. But if we rest in them, rather than in Him, they lose their goodness for us. So with this gift also.”

From Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1986, p54.

I think I'm gradually coming to realise the truth of this... it's so very easy to come to rely on our own memories and reflections, to "rest in" our own perceptions of God, and so to cease to be open to his voice.

When Elijah went out and stood on the mountain before the Lord (1 Kings 19:11ff) there was wind and there was earthquake and there was fire, but the Lord was not in those unmissable things. I love the NRSV translation of what happened next: "...and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave."

When God is silent, it doesn't mean he is absent, or that he's displeased with us, or doesn't love us any more. It may mean he's drawing very close to us, to speak to us "face to face, as a man speaks to a friend" (Exodus 33:11) - or at least to whisper in our ear.

But we are always so tempted to fill the silence with something, anything - but especially with our memories of what God did, said, seemed to be, or else what we have read of what he did, said, or seemed to be to someone else. And we miss who he is, now. He is always now. "I AM," he says (Exodus 3:14) and the only time to meet him is this present instant. "Be still," he says, "and know that I am God..." (Psalm 46)

Oh, God, only help me to be still!

Eremos

EREMOS – music from The Mercy Site! Listen online or download MP3s...

The first couple of tracks have been accepted, and are online at CNet Music... more will be available as I get it recorded and mixed down. The mix on these first two tracks is a little rough around the edges, but if I waited till I thought they were perfect I'd still be fiddling around with them this time next year!

With another...

“We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.”
(From Love and Living by Thomas Merton, edited by Naomi Burton Stone and Br. Patrick Hart, Harcourt Brace 1985, p27)

So it has been with Jan... I think we have both found meanings with each other that neither of us could have found anywhere else. Jan continues to be very ill, and so I have found it difficult to know quite what to write here. She sleeps a lot, and I try to keep busy... Music too God uses to bring me peace and comfort, more powerfully than ever now.

Julian of Norwich wrote, “He said not: Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be afflicted; but He said: Thou shalt not be overcome.” We do feel somewhat tempested, but we know we shan't be overcome! Ultimately, “If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?” (Romans 8:32)

Solitude...

I've just revised and expanded the page 'Solitude ' on The Mercy Site ...

I've been thinking a lot about the solitary life recently. I've always been deeply moved by Br Ramon's writings (mainly in A Hidden Fire (Harper Collins 1985) and The Flame of Sacred Love (BRF, 1999)) and I've often wondered how and to what extent a longing for solitude with God could be reconciled with a 'normal' life, with family, work and all the other commitments and interests that go with it.

Haven't come to any conclusions yet, but interestingly, the Third Order of the (Anglican) Society of St Francis has recently issued a supplement to the Manual entitled 'Solitude and Contemplation', discussing the tension in Francis' own life between the contemplative and the active life, and the way that all his life he took periods of retreat that re-energised and re-envisioned him, and ultimately led to renewal throughout the Church in his time. I personally feel that the supplement does not go far enough towards considering the potential integration of the contemplative life with life in the world (cf. The Elder Joseph's essay on the 'Prayer of the Heart for the Faithful Living in the World '), but then perhaps this is outside the scope of a supplement dealing with solitude and contemplation!

I'm planning, with God's grace, and in the time I can find with Jan still seriously ill, to work through The Mercy Site, pruning and reformatting (and sometimes revising) all the pages - some of them have been up for five years now without any work on them, and I think a little sprucing up is in order... I'll post here when each page is done, in case anyone wants to have a look...

Oh, yes!

“To properly understand prayer, we have to see in it this encounter of our freedom emerging from the depths of nothingness and undevelopment, at the call of God. Prayer is freedom and affirmation growing out of nothingness into love. Prayer is the flowering of our inmost freedom, in response to the Word of God. Prayer is not only dialogue with God; it is the communion of our freedom with His ultimate freedom, His infinite spirit. It is the elevation of our limited freedom into the infinite freedom of the divine spirit, and of the divine love. Prayer is the encounter of our freedom with the all-embracing charity which knows no limit and knows no obstacle..”

From Contemplation in a World of Action by Thomas Merton. (Doubleday & Company, Inc., Image Books, Garden City, NY, 1973)

Gap in posts

I really am sorry for the long gap in posts here... my Jan has been very unwell, and investigations are continuing to attempt to find out what's wrong. I'll try and be a bit more forthcoming here - the problem is trying to find a balance between respecting the privacy of the situation, and sharing what is after all something that God clearly knows all about, and which may in some way be helpful to any readers.

Pray for us, anyway, please... and that I will find that balance!

God bless

Mike

Nothing new...

The realisation that animals are in need of our mercy, rather as we are in need of God's (though perhaps more deservingly!) is nothing new. It didn't even start with Francis of Assisi...

O God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, even our brothers, the animals, to whom you gave the earth as their home in common with us. We remember with shame that in the past we have exercised the high dominion of man with ruthless cruelty so that the voice of the earth, which should have gone up to you in song, has been a groan of pain. May we realize that they live, not for us alone, but for themselves and for you, and that they love the sweetness of life.

St. Basil, Bishop of Caesarea, (A.D. 320-79)

The Pope and the Homeless Cats

Remarkable article - go read, forthwith. It fits right in with the story of poor little Lulu...

Loving Our Fellow Creatures

I've discovered an article on the Anglican Society for Animal Welfare site: Loving Our Fellow Creatures by Richard Bauckham.

He begins:

Do animals have rights? It is becoming quite common to think so. Talk about animal rights follows on, of course, from talk about human rights. Those who advocate animal rights are proposing we extend the idea of rights from humans to other animals. How should Christians think about this? Does the Bible give us any guidance?

This is an excellent, well-argued and thought-provoking piece, carefully supported from Scripture, with a useful list of references. I really do urge you to read it in full. I don't know if Richard Bauckham is a Franciscan, but he'd be very much at home in Franciscan company, of that I'm sure!

I can't help ending with the article's last couple of paragraphs - the picture of learning to worship with the animals is just irresistable...

In my view, the most important way in which Scripture sets us alongside the animals as fellow creatures is its portrayal of the worship of God by all of god’s creation. Modern readers of the Bible sometimes take such passages to be mere poetic fancy. Of course, they do not mean that other creatures worship God in the ways that we do. Other creatures worship God just by being themselves. They exist for God’s glory. Their worship expresses the value they have for God.

The best way to learn to value other creatures is to learn to worship with them, to recover the sense, so powerful in the book of Psalms, that our own worship is part of the worship of the whole creation. In worship we do not stand above our fellow-creatures, but beside them and before the God who created us all. The Bible never suggests that we help other creatures to worship. Rather, a passage like Psalm 148 gives the strong impression that they help us to worship. Coming to appreciate the value they have for God raises our hearts and minds in praise to their Creator.

Lulu...

We have a new cat! Her name is Lulu - she's an 11-month old rescue cat, and mad in the best possible way. We've had her nearly a month now, and she and Figgy are getting on really well.

Lulu is perhaps the most loving, people-oriented cat I've known. She follows us everywhere, even to sitting outside the shower mewing pathetically, in case one gets washed down the plughole. She'd been abandoned presumably when she was discovered to be pregnant, and had raised a litter of kittens behind someone's garden shed, so she was very thin and anxious when we had her (her kittens just having all been homed, and Lulu herself spayed) but she's put on weight, become happy and relaxed, and grown the softest, densest coat imaginable.

It really is such a privilege to be able to give a safe home to someone like Lulu - to be able to as it were extend God's love and mercy to a scrap of Creation who'd known far too much of betrayal, loneliness and struggle in her few months of life. Thank you Lord, for little Lulu!

Merton!

Do not be too anxious about your advancement in the ways of prayer, because you have left the beaten track and are traveling by paths that cannot be charted and measured. Therefore leave God to take care of your degree of sanctity and of contemplation. If you yourself try to measure your own progress you will waste your time in futile introspection. Seek one thing alone: to purify your love of God more and more, to abandon yourself more and more perfectly to His will and to love Him more exclusively and more completely, but also more simply and more peacefully and with more total and uncompromising trust.

From What is Contemplation? by Thomas Merton
(Springfield, Illinois: Templegate Publishers, 1950), page 64-65.

This is such a liberating quote, and so completely of Christ. "There is need of only one thing..." (Luke 10:42) When I think of how many hours I've wasted in "futile introspection" I could weep...

God give me the grace to abandon myself, over and over again... not to count the iterations of that, but just to get on with it!