The One Centre

This week I've continued to ponder the call to move through the surface agitation of events, fears and distraction to come to rest in God and to source responsiveness here.

I've been thinking about the relationship between contemplation, action and activism and sensing that, despite the manifest need for action on many fronts, there is danger in allowing ourselves to get too caught up in activism. The danger is that the energy we expend in these ways ends up exhausting itself or (even worse) is somehow co-opted to fuel the very energy of destruction we seek to counter. What you resist persists, so the saying goes.

This is clearly a subtle matter calling for discernment. There is (I think) a real place for activism - for public protest against injustice, for creating communities of resistance and so on. But somehow the energy we bring to this needs to come not just from indignation, anger and fear, but from the non-anxious source of all things. It needs to be a response grounded in the energy of creation and reconciliation that can transform alienation and isolation into real communion, real peace.

In contemplation, this is the energy we seek to be awake to, receptive to, available for.

This morning, I went to the island in Lake Ginninderra, where we celebrated Easter last year. The island itself seemed agitated when I arrived. A very large flock of corellas has moved into the neighbourhood - they were noisy and felt like invaders.

The other birds seemed agitated - the crows were cawing and moving heavily through the trees; even the waterbirds seemed not quite themselves. But I found a spot among the she-oaks to sit quietly, and practised being still amidst the agitation. The water sparkled, the wind soughed in the trees and I saw a water rat swim by.

Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of meditation as a process of sinking deep into the ground of your being, just as a pebble thrown into water sinks to the river bed. John Main wrote similarly: 'The purpose of meditation for each of us is that we come to our own centre. In many traditions, meditation is spoken of as a pilgrimage - a pilgrimage to your own centre, your own heart, and there you learn to remain awake, alive and still' (Moment of Christ). What's important is that as you sink into your own centre, you discover 'there is only one centre' and that our life task is to learn to live out of that 'one centre'.

What makes this a journey of faith is the ungraspability, un-encompassability of the centre. We sense it, intuit it as we find ourselves drawn into its field, its orbit ... but we don't see 'it'. We can do no more than trust we are not deluded, and that our availability to this energy really is the 'one thing necessary'.

Shalom,
Sarah

Stillness

As part of our morning pre-meditation routine, I've resumed using the daily readings drawn from John Main's work in the collection Silence and Stillness in Every Season.

I think, in practising and teaching, I've tended to emphasise the understanding of meditation as a practice of silence. But in these daily readings, I've been quite struck by John Main's emphasis on stillness as well as silence.

Speaking of our call to be wholly at God's disposition, for example, and to begin to live out of the divine energy, Main writes: 'Stillness is the way to rootedness and it focuses the challenge that faces all of us, to be rooted in our true self. To put it another way, it is the challenge to be wholly open to the gift of our own creation. Stillness helps us to be rooted in the gift that God has give us in our own being, which we learn by being still in one place' [from The Way of Unknowing]. And he speaks of 'outward stillness' being an effective sign that draws us into being wholly grounded, rooted in God.

Last week, on my Wednesday retreat, I had an experience of this efficacy of stillness. There's always a little journey to make at the beginning of retreat - from agitation to stopping, from restlessness to rest. Even if I start off in a fairly unstressed, peaceful place, there is always a little transition into the deeper rest and openness of this time. And what I noticed was that simply by sitting still, that transition started to happen. Outer stillness helped settle my spirit.

So this week, as I took myself off to the botanic gardens, I was more aware of the significance of stillness as a contemplative practice, as a form of prayer. It was a beautiful late summer morning - with just a tinge of autumn hovering - a shift in the light, a less intense heat. And what struck me was the deep rootedness of the trees in the garden - their stillness - and how their still presence was such a joy to be with and alongside.

Their stillness and my stillness led me into a sense of deep rest. 'Rest' can seem a relatively 'thin' word - signifying merely an absence, a 'not' doing or working. But the experience of this kind of deep rest is an experience of plenitude, of fullness and completion. I thought of the way in which 'rest' and fullness goes together in the Scriptures - from God 'resting' on the seventh day of creation, to the Hebrews being instructed to keep the Sabbath day holy as a day of rest unto the Lord. And I thought of Jesus teaching: 'Come to me all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest'.

Rest is the gift that is there for the receiving, if we can sink into the ground of our being in God. And stillness of body, stillness of mind and spirit, is the way.

Shalom,
Sarah

Threshold

New Year's Day, 2017.

Along with many people I know, I've become suspicious of New Year's resolutions. My own have tended to be too ambitious and too will based - setting me up for failure some time around mid-January. But I find myself still strongly drawn to take stock around this time of year. I want to reflect on where I am and what the coming year invites and promises, on how I might be different or freshly available.

A member of Benedictus invited us to a New Year's Eve picnic yesterday, at her beautiful property out near Tarago.

Jen is a potter and there were some delightful and quirky juxtapositions to enjoy.

As well as the vista of the Lake George wind farms, seen from the other side.

It was a wonderful way for a few of us to gather, pause and connect with the bush on this threshold of the new year and a great blessing.

Then this morning, Neil and I re-read David Whyte's poem, 'What to remember when waking'. I was particularly struck by these lines:

What you can plan
is too small
for you to live.

What you can live
wholeheartedly
will make plans
enough
for the vitality
hidden in your sleep.

For me, this is a lovely and timely reminder not to clutch at the shape of life and vocation: 'what you can plan is too small for you to live'. It's an invitation to yielding or total self-giving - wholeheartedness - trusting that in and through this self-giving, I will become available for and open to what is still to unfold and yet also present to enjoy what is already, not letting an orientation to the future squeeze out delight and joy in the here and now. In place of will based resolutions, it asks me to be disposed to participate in 'the vitality' that is the source and the redemption of things.

I hope I remember this not only today, but throughout the year!

Shalom,

Sarah

How Long is Long Enough?

This morning, for one reason and another, my retreat time was curtailed. I was late starting and had a lunch appointment which meant I'd be early finishing.

I felt anxious about my lack of time. Would there be enough for what I needed? Would I touch into that deep place of refreshment and simplicity?

Then I had a false start. I headed off to the Botanic Gardens, but when I got there it felt all 'wrong'. The carpark was full and the gardens seemed unusually busy and noisy. I hadn't brought my customary thermos, and I really felt like a coffee. I started walking towards the back of the gardens, but realised I didn't really want to be there. So I paused, and decided just to head home. I could get a cup of coffee and sit quietly in our courtyard. I could walk to lunch. I could relax.

As soon as I arrived home, I knew it was right to have come back.  I stopped fretting about the supposed lack of time, and the time I had became enough. Because the necessary time is really just the time it takes to drop into stillness and quietness, the deeper current - and that can happen in an instant.

Sometimes it's true that you can only make that drop when you have a certain sense of spaciousness - a morning, a day, a retreat. But if you don't always have that, sometimes just an hour can be enough.

Here's our tea tree, coming into flower.

I thought of the hints we get from the gospel stories of Jesus taking time where he could. Sometimes we hear of a whole night in prayer. But other times, we glimpse him just taking a breather in someone's house, away from the crowds. Or a pause by a well, while the disciples go off for food - until a Samaritan woman comes along, that is.

How long is long enough? The spaces we need can't always be snatched, encroached upon, limited. But sometimes they will be - and that's just how it goes.

This week is Christmas week. I'm conscious that January will have a different rhythm. We'll be away for two weeks and then I'm in New Zealand leading a retreat. I may not manage much blogging in that time, but I hope for spaces of stillness and quietness in the midst of it all - for myself and for you too!

Here's one of our gallant clumps of seaside daisy, whose indomitable spirit always cheers and inspires me.

May we all be gifted with the perseverance and resilience we need to be bearers of hope in these troubled times.

Christmas blessings,

Sarah

Practising

I mentioned in last week's blog that I've tended to expend quite a bit of energy 'letting' myself have these retreat mornings, justifying them to myself, telling myself they are necessary and OK.

This week, I simplified it a bit. I began them in the first place because I felt called to do so - called to allow more space for prayer and simply 'being' in my life. I continue with them because that sense of call has not fundamentally changed. So, this is just another practice - like meditation - which I commit to whether it seems productive or not, whether I feel like it or not. It's just practice ...

So off I went to the Botanic Gardens to practise. As soon as I arrived, I felt as you do when you enter a sacred space - immediately drawn in, immediately calmed and quieted. I thought later that maybe it's because, like cathedrals in some other cities, the Botanic Gardens have for years been a place prayed in, reflected in, wandered through and loved at a deep level by the people of Canberra.

This was the first flower that captured my attention.

After that, I took quite a few photos ... and sought simply to be there. The word in the Hebrew bible is 'henini', 'here I am'. I was attentive and inattentive, present and not fully present. Hanging out, trusting that if a bush were burning somewhere, I might notice it despite everything.

And that even if a bush was not burning today, the practice of availability is what ultimately matters, what ultimately serves.

I hope you enjoy these images of the life I encountered this day.

Shalom,
Sarah

The Real Work

Recently, we discovered a poem by Wendell Berry called 'The Real Work'. Here it is.

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

From Standing by Words (copyright 1983)

This poem came to my mind today, as I underwent my customary struggle to let myself enter into retreat (the familiar internal monologue telling me I should be 'working', that other people were 'working' this morning so why was I just doing 'nothing' etc etc).

Berry suggests that our 'real work' can only really begin, can only really be revealed to us, once we are in the place of poverty of spirit - once we no longer know what to do, and no longer know which way to go, once we are baffled and to some degree blocked.

It struck me, as I sat at the edge of Lake Ginninderra, that these retreat mornings are fundamentally about returning to that place of poverty. I have no particular agenda - I don't really know what to desire or hope for. I am aware of a vast not knowing encompassing my life and the life of Benedictus. What are we being called to? How will it happen?

These mornings are about letting myself dwell awhile in that space of unknowing. They are about letting myself touch back into the ground, letting myself be renewed by its energy as I wait on the silence of God. They're about being available to become aware of 'the real work', and maybe available to let 'the real work' be done in me.

And this morning, I realised, they're also about praise - the praise that isn't forced jollity. but the rising up of wonder at things and being so deeply glad that they are. Praise isn't a word I've resonated with particularly in the past - so much of the church's 'praise' seems about just saying what we think we ought to say to God.

But did you know that the bark of a silver birch is studded with diamonds?

When we are able to be really present to what is, then gladness is our response. Gladness - and the urge to praise - so that the words of the Gloria seem suddenly real: 'We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you, we give you thanks for your great glory'.

Praise and poverty of spirit ... both doorways to, both aspects of, 'the work'. Praise be.

Shalom,
Sarah

Walking on Country

My first Wednesday Retreat post for quite a while, and the first since returning from our 8 week pilgrimage in Portugal, Spain and France.

Today was also my first opportunity to 'walk on country' since coming home to Australia.

After some indecision about where to go, I finally decided to walk from home onto Bruce and O'Connor Ridges. These bits of remnant bush are sandwiched between Gungahlin Drive and Belconnen Way, and the traffic noise is more or less constant. Even so, there's a whole different world from the surrounding suburbs being inhabited here. It's also a world very different from the European country we've been walking recently. The bush is straggly and unkempt looking, yet beautiful in its own way. It was a joy to be in it again - absorbing its smells, the look of the vegetation, the movement of ants on the hard ground.

The birds are far more abundant and far noisier than any we encountered in the forests of France. These kookaburras were laughing uproariously - maybe it was a competition?

I was feeling a bit of agitation as I walked into this time of retreat. Since returning home, the sense of the spaciousness and well-being of pilgrimage has lingered with me. Even though life has been full, it hasn't been overwhelming, and I've experienced our re-entry into 'normal' routine as relatively easy and gentle. But yesterday, I went to visit my spiritual director and spoke about invitations I've received to do things next year - talks to give, retreats to lead and so on. All of a sudden, things seemed to start pressing in. The question of what to accept and what not to and how busy I am likely to be became real - I felt anxious and unsure how to discern my responses. A familiar fear of being overwhelmed began to rise up.

I have experienced such plenitude, I want to live plenteously. I don't want to decline invitations out of miserliness or the fear of not having enough (time, energy, things to contribute). On the other hand, nor do I want to live dissipated and stretched - unable properly to prepare for or take delight in what I do because of being spread too thin. 

Neil asked - 'what are your priorities?' This morning, the white-barked scribbly gums asked the same question. As I contemplated their clarity, the way they provide structure and definition for the surrounding bush, they asked me: what are the bones of the coming year?

And immediately I felt calmer, returned to myself. 'Country' was holding me, bringing me to the ground of things.

Vocationally in this next year, I know there are two things that are necessary. One is Benedictus, and nurturing the next phase of our life in community. The second is to explore what is called for and being called forth by this land, Australia. The particularity of place, country, has not in the past seemed so important to me ... but this feels like an area of growing awareness and significance, and one that I must explore. I sense there's a gift here for the contemplative movement as a whole, and not just for those of us in Australia.

Starting here, the question becomes: 'what must I do?' And in the light of that, what can be let go?

That still doesn't make everything immediately clear ... but I feel restored to equilibrium and to a spirit of trusting the unfolding of things. And whenever I'm tempted to think I don't have time for a morning's retreat, an experience like today teaches me that I don't have time not to!

Shalom,
Sarah