Contemplative Intercession

I have been asked to offer an approach to what is called Contemplative Intercession. Given the scattered nature of this part of the world, this may be enormously powerful as a contribution to the world of The Spirit, when for so many they ask me what they can actually do in a world of incomprehensible suffering..... Following Columba indeed:

AN APPROACH TO CONTEMPLATIVE INTERCESSION
My offering is by no means the only approach to intercession and it is not important to treat it as a method. This approach to intercession provides a framework which you can adapt for your own or others circumstances, particularly for praying for a person in need, or some specific circumstance. Because it is contemplative, it needs more time than mentioning names on a list, important though that is. Indeed, there are those who called to give their lives and their time in this way. The holiness of it is in the fact that it is a hidden service.

The principles that lie behind this approach are based on your own desire for intercession yourself and that you are participating in the mystery of God’s presence in which you are cooperating...that is...it is an activity of love.
The word ‘Intercession’ means to move into the middle of…. To move from where you are in order to love ‘The Other’, whoever or whatever that ‘other’ may be. This is work and sometimes hard work which can be tiring. After all, one of the basic principles of Christian spirituality is that through our Baptism, we are charged with the responsibility of carrying within ourselves the pain and alienation of others. Frankly, it is the Christian’s job! This is not through some particular skill or developed ability of our own, but through the grace of the sacramental life of the Church. Indeed, it is a command – the new commandment to love one another. That means giving time in silence to pray deeply for others.
So:
I. Become aware of your body and its position....your breathing. Don’t struggle...move on to what feelings you may have: pleasant/difficult...indifference/anxious etc. Don’t struggle...move on to what your desires are...things/problems to be solved...people/yourself etc...move on to your thoughts...watch them pass in front of you...don’t judge….
2. Recall an occasion recently when you were able to ‘touch’ someone...give them a simple act of love. Enjoy it, as you remember. This brings a sense of the creative power of Christ into the moment.
3. Express your need of Jesus. Ask for his forgiveness for the ways in which you may have blocked his love and creativity. Indeed imagine, feel Christ with you. Do not be afraid of any image of Christ that may come to your imagination. Maybe it’s not an image. Maybe it is a sense of ‘presence’, ‘acceptance’ – of being loved….. Maybe it’s both image and feeling. Maybe it is neither of these. The silence itself is the act of faith in Christ’s presence with you now.
4. Picture (or name in the silence) the persons, groups, etc for whom you are praying. Take your time. Flood them with the Light of Christ, or His Warmth, surround them with his arms, look at them with His eyes, touch them....which ever comes easily to you. Either feel, visualise or think the situation in which these people or peoples are.
5. What do you want Jesus to do for them ? Laying on of
hands…. What is Christ saying to them….? Maybe it is simply the love of His Presence…. Take time over this period of your prayer, as you would over the care and love of someone whom you are with physically.
6. Let the people or concerns now pass in front and away from you. Give thanks always for the presence of Christ that you have focused on in your intercession. The rest is in the mystery of God’s love.

+Martin
Argylland The Isles

Keep it simple, stupid!

I have had a useful and a challenging conversation about my blog. The creative criticism comes from someone deeply experienced in education, who feels that my style is too opaque and needs to have a much greater immediacy and simplicity to it.... So if that is the case, I shall try to improve! It also raises the question as to what this blog's purpose might be. Well, that's important in that I fel summoned to define more clearly. But then, I wonder whether the attempt at clarity of purpose can become an object in itself... Oh well! get on with it Martin!

Following Columba means inevitably that I will be 'following', from time to time, with someone else. Two of us may be walking together. In fact, a quick look at the Gospels reveals that that is precisely what Jesus did frequently. Walking along a road or a path beside another becomes accompaniment rather than direction-giving. What I adore doing is walking with someone I love/admire/respect (etc!) and saying gently to each other what we notice on the walk, no matter how simple..... simply being in this very moment, without analysis or interpretation. Then comes the moment when together the imagination can 'stretch' the experience of the ordinary in such a way that the ordinariness is not lost, but becomes an opportunty for improvisation.... After the walk is over, over a cup of tea, (or something!) sharing the experience in an act of remembrance. 'Do this in Remembrance of Me'.

And a poem which I have written recently that will not necessarily be simple and direct, but I hope captures some feelings I have in the following.

Argyll Theophany.
Martin Shaw October 2006.

Though winter's winds and darkness' jaws
Close on our horizons;
Though the tossed histories of Argyll's dissensions' heat
Mark the psyche, acknowledgedor denied;
Though Jacobite echoes diminish
And fresh attempts at revival
Die from rootlessness;
Though the seas signal a plea for simplicity
From gratifications addiction;
Though those with a memory for words
Crafted long for God
Are now old or unreplaced;
Though the fear of death chokes
Gentle Patience's gift
And the primordial rock of order crumbles,
Yet the water flashes glory still,
And the catchers wait on the sand.
The tilled lady smiles heaven
And the poor joke's an Alleluia.
The wince at my bare foot's pain
Points me to a shell's lustre.
These are transfigurations nearly slipped.
The child's eye is wide in me still.
I will remember.

In the love of God,
+Martin
Argyll and The Isles

North Korea

I have to admit that crises, such as that created by the current tensions surrounding North Korea and nuclear weapons development, produce within me two distinct reactions. One, I have to admit, is largely to do with the question: 'If this gets out of control is my life under threat?' Well, of course, there is a neurotic self-absorbed element to this thinking and feeling. Recognising that is, however, of considerable importance. The second reaction is to want to listen to the news frequently, like the little boy waiting to hear that his mother and father have stopped rowing in their bedroom, as he will have security in his home until the next row. As an adult, there is temptation to find some sort of palliative, some sort of escape from the shame of such anxiety. The reason I write this is not out my self-absorption, although there is that element in it.
Simone Weil was said to lose a heartbeat every time she heard of suffering somewhere oin the world. What she did was to allow the heart of her prayer to be a 'crucible' where the anxiety was transformed into a Christ-like identification with the situation that caused the loss of heart beats. That, I offer to you, is a profound description of contemplative interecession, to which i shall return in a future posting.
Reflection on anxiety is fundamentally important - not escape. I can't help wondering how many people listen or watch the news and don't know what to do or be with the anxiety created in them, about which they feel they can do little, if anything. To be massively simplistic, if someone listening to the news felt they could genuinely do something about intractable crises in the world, they would not be trapped in the anxiety.
So where does this take me? Well, the first issue is that terrifying though nuclear weapons are, even if one can remotely understand the effects of their use, it is not the weapons that are at issue but the psycho-political use of them in the struggle for power. The people and nations who get into the position of wanting to use such negative imagery must be understood. So my project this week is to find the time to understand the circumstances of North Korea and why there is this desperate defensiveness there. It is simply not good enough to point the finger at some lampooing imagery of the North Korean leader, or to indulge in the increasingly dismissive atttitudes to the President of the US. Uninformed and lazy dismissiveness is more dangerous than sitting outside the door of the powerful 'parents', waiting to know if they are going to kiss and make up. At least I can acknowledge my short trousers and go and change into something that will fit a dose of reflection. Following Columba.

+Martin
Argyll and The Isles

Resistance or accommodation?

Sr Clare's comment on my last posting was useful indeed and, if I may call it so, a jolt. Following the debates around Martin Luther's Theses and Articles, including the prestations at the Diet of Worms (featured on Radio 4's 'In our Time' this week), there is no way of avoiding the fact that Luther became at times vindictive (see John Osborne's play: 'Luther'), but also blatantly anti-semitic. What is more, according to Diarmaid MacCulloch, the reformation Historian, Luther was deeply disappointed and even insulted that Jews were not turning to Christianity, as he felt that he was living in the last times. As a result of that disappointment, he supported the torching of Jewish businesses to name but one atrocious reaction.
Of course, it is ridiculous to write about Luther and Niebuhr in one short posting. For that please accept my apologies. However, Niebhur has been used by both American Neo-Conservatives and by left wing Liberals, became more and more critical of the cold war political justifications. What is more Liberation Theology has been a reminder that resistance has always been a major issue for the Church. Resistance or accommodation?
No individual, no matter how astute, courageous or, for that matter spiritual, has a corner on the truth. That is where the apostolic nature of the Catholic Church is so utterly essential. The Body of Christ is where the Mystery of God in Word and Sacrament is 'held' and 'released'. However, as Kierkegaard made the distinction between Christianity and Christendom, there must always be, it seems to me, Christianity's critique of Christendom (the organisational aspect of the Church).
This is an incomplete response to Sr Clare.... I'll be back! Thank you Clare.

+Martin
Argyll and The Isles

Reinhold Niebuhr and Power

I have been looking (briefly) at two personalities in Theological history which might give me some indication as to how Christianity - Following Columba - might be articulated in the real world of politics and culture. The first is 16th Century Martin Luther, who was an monk and theologian and became enraged (if that is the right word!) about the abuse of Christianity by a Church that jealously guarded its power and control and used these to raise finance for its own purposes which had little to do with the Kingdom. Eventually he managed to gain the attention of the political powers in Germany despite the possible risk that he would arrested and executed. And so the Reformation began for real. Now I am no reformation historian, but I gather that there was a struggle between the secular powers in Germany and Papal authority into which Luther injected his polemic.
Also I have been recapturing in my mind something of a 20th Century theologian Reinhold Niebuhr whose writing was principally about Christian realism. For some it was an attack on liberalism... the illusion that the task of Christianity was to create a just society invested with Christian values. Not that he was wishing to expunge that from Protestant theology, but that a wholesale adherence to it was deluded and dangerous. The reality was, for Niebuhr, that politics is about power and influence and the forces waged to dominate. Politics was not about 'values'. In fact, there were times when he saw all institutions as being determined by these forces, including the Church. Christian realism was about recognising that. The over simplification of Niebuhr's thining leads to the well worne view that the decisions we actually make are always about the lesser of evils in the political sphere. However, be that as it may. From this, we can see that the Cross is the criticism of all activities that seem to have the mask of 'betterment' but are in fact about power.
Now the reason I attempt to summarise these two giants is that there was a passion in each of them for the truth. One of the essential Christian resources for addressing the truth is in prayer. So to move into prayer at its depth is to move into a place of discernment where I begin to have the spiritual 'equipment' to discern the truth.

+Martin
Argyll and The Isles.

Compromise or cowardice?

I do think I have been involved in making a decision recently which - at root - is probably unjust, so much so, that I am deeply troubled by it. Was it a decision of compromise or was it one of cowardice? Maybe it was both. Given that I am an Episcopalian Bishop, it will not surprise the reader of this blog to know that, of course, I am refering to the issue of ordination of those in same sex relationships and ordained priests who are living in same sex relationships.
When I was chaplain of King's College Cambridge in the mid 1970s, I was asked by a fellow of the College whether I had ever been in love with another man or whether or not I had felt sexually attracted to one. To be honest, I replied that the thought, or the image of such a relationship did not appeal in the slightest. His reply remains with me to this day. 'If you do not understand and even have a little sense of such a relationship, you may find it difficult to be Chaplain in this place.' Now, he may have had a point. After all, Norman St John Stevas in his book on ethics highlighted the reality that all friendships, are 'sexual' at their roots, although they may not be genital.
All I can tell you is that I have made many friends, who remain friends, who were gay then and still are. What is more, my spiritual life has been enhanced and healed through the sacramental and spiritual ministry of priests who are gay. (Yes - I have experienced being 'ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven through their holiness and priesthood) In that sense I have been loved and I do love them.
The question around for me is about the job of being a Bishop, what is rather blandly called: 'a focus of unity'. There are not only voices around me who are, with pale faces, angry at what seems to them a discriminatory approach to the issue, by putting my name to a moratorium on consecrating a bishop who is in a same sex relationship, for the time being..... (The Lambeth Conference of Bishops in 2008 will be having major sessions and hopefully clarity on this issue... if not, my view is the Bishops of the SEC may have to review urgently the moratorium) Because of this explanation, if it is one, I am quite aware that I am no less unjust and - yes - perhaps discriminatory. The trouble is that such descriptions do not get any one very far, except to make me feel a coward, which I may well be. Other voices are with red faces equally suggesting that their valued adherence to a Biblical righteousness is being discrimated against. I am only too aware that because I have articulated these as opposoties, I may seem to be justifying a position of compromise. How can anyone compromise when injustice is being done? Perhaps for some justice seen to be done is more significant and important than the future survival of the Scottish Epsicopal Church as an Anglican Province. Does such an approach make episcopacy almost impossible to practice? Mmmm!?
Even more, I do not pretend to feel that the wincing awkwardness of this is anywhere remotely like the sense of rejection that gay Christians in partnerships feel. Nor do I suggest that my discomfort is anything like what seems a raid on so dearly held Biblical 'truths'. Or as one of my Colleagues has suggested, may be there is a much more deeply seated issue in how we 'see' and articulate God... What is my image of God....? That's for another blog!!
What makes matters more complex comes from the perspective offered by my daughter who has lived and worked among people who are gay for many years. She sees the issue almost exlusievely as a generational one. For her era (she is 29), there is only the scratching of heads and that stuttering laugh that wonders: 'What is the problem?'. Oh yes, the issue is a new one. After all, many of us were around when the actively gay would have been in danger of imprisonment. In the space of 50 years we now have Civil Partnership. Such a shift in consciousness and culture is rapid indeed. The call that I might make for patience may be a blandishment.
I do not have answers. But I do thank my gay friends for their love. Flabby though mine may be, I do return it.

+Martin
Argyll and The Isles

The Examen

The saints with whom I make the inner pilgrimage had a profound sense of awareness and senstivity. Following Columba is about entering that awareness and sensitivity in order to perceive the Love of God 'moving' within me.
The title of this posting - 'The Examen' - may feel inhibiting! 'Examen' is not to be equated with 'examination' or 'analysis' in the context of spiritual disciplines and practices. It means a gentle but acute awareness of what is going on! I offer this little exercise as a useful way of increasing awareness and attention to the movement of God within. That 'movement' is happening in all things. As St Ignatius pointed out the art is 'finding God in all things'. 'The Examen' is a way of increasing the potential of that 'finding'. I try to practice this regularly. You will find out for yourself, from your own rhythms what are appropriate intervals and times to practice this simple spiritual art.

Stage One
What have you experienced in the last few hours or days that has given you 'life', that has given you a creative awareness? Now, this may not necessarily be an experience which is 'visionary' or out of the ordinary. On the other hand it might be! Allow what comes from your memory and feelings to be with you. Do not analyse or test it out. Remember the experience may not even be a delightful or happy one. It may be a serious, even a difficuly one.... If it is delightful all well and good. Notice, observe.... and move on. You might find it helpful to write it down as a record of what is happening within you.

Stage Two
What have you experienced that has given you sorrow? What has been 'deadening' for you? In this stage, analysis becomes even more destructive to the process. Notice what is happening in you. Don't dwell on the experience. Perhaps note down the experience and then pass on...

Stage Three
What is within me that is 'asking' for me to address it.... Now, what is important here is to avoid the 'oughts' and 'shoulds'..... This stage is not about writing out my 'to do' list. What maybe on some list may be important. This exercise is about what I am or am not feeling about what is pressing on me. Just notice the drive or the excitement, the expectation or the dread, or the boredom or anxiety, the pleasure or.... Notice and perhaps write it down.
Whatever you do, practice doing without judgement and aalysis. This is not at all easy.
FINDING GOD IN ALL THINGS.
This is not a project because God is not a project!

+Martin
Argyll and The Isles

Close the door!

I am somewhat concerned at an attitude that I have been coming across in this strange land and seascape of Argyll and The Isles. There is, of course, a sense in which we are particularly 'on the edge' geographically. In no other part of the country have I felt such a deep and yet strange fragility. The countless aeons that have seen the massive changes in and on the earth's crust are constant reminders of the mere 'click' in time that we are. With a nuclear explosion, most likely from some lazy miscalculation or some insane belief in the righteousness and certainty of a belief, this can only be turned to glass in seconds. And yet, I meet many who feel they have to 'admit' to a fragility in their faith. As if they were getting something out of a plain brown env elope, I receive whispers in my ear: 'But I am not sure what I believe - worse - whether I believe'. For me, I am concerned that Christianity for some still feels like a set of propositions that leads to undisputable certainty. This in turn misleads many to an unnecessary anxiety that they do not have and never will have that certainty. Jesus Christ, God enfleshed, is NOT a proposition leading to certainty, but an experience of the mystery of divine presence in this moment. How can I possibly believe in it in the sense of being comfortable and satisfied? To believe in Jesus Christ as a certainty is to reduce belief to some illusory comfort zone - El Dorado. By its very nature, there is an imperative in the mystery that draws me into a response of love and compassion. Certainty has no place here. Certainty becomes a form of idolatry. In fact, I wonder whether the desire for certainty is primarily about me feeling comfortable and secure. Worse still it easily then slips into a means of wishing consciously or unconsciously control over others spiritual lives. The reality is that proposals of certainty mask a deep and unowned insecurity. Insecurity is a wisdom provided it is honest and open and not a matter of shame or inadequacy. Certainty has no place in Christian wisdom and 'faith'. In fact, faith is not something that I can work up. It is a strange wistful gift that arises from the risk of living the sacrificial life of love.

Towards the end of this month, in the spirit of following Columba, I am planning to follow the Gospel of St Matthew in what may be a fresh way. This will not be a commentary, but using each little section of the Gospel as a way into silent meditation. I hope to work threough the whole Gospel as a pilgrimage.... After all, it was St Matthew's Gospel that inspired Columba to bring 'The Twelve' across from ireland to Iona. I hope there might bbe some interest in this.

+Martin
Argyll and The Isles

Pilgrimage or Collector's Item?

Yes, I am back, having spent a few days in Barcelona (Barrrrthelohna... with a lot of tongue behind teeth stuff). Ben, my son and Madeleine my daughter joined me in taking Elspeth - my wife - to Barcelona for her 60th Birthday. (And before there are any queries - yes - we both now have bus passes...!) The tapas was on the whole enjoyable, if you were the patient one among us. The climate was wonderful.... The Sagrada Familia Cathedral(Gaudi's work in progress) was astonishing. Here is an extraordinary piece of archectural courage and vision, a holy place emerging almost organically. What is so outrageous (thank God) is that this Sacred Building is being created and does not have functionality as its prime objective. Nor is it a statement. What a relief. There is a declaration, a proclamation even, in the composition which pushes the intellect and the imagination beyond themselves... However, we went to Montserrat (The jagged mountain range 30 miles West of Barcelona) to the famous Benedictine Abbey and Basilica which 'houses' the shrine of The Black Madonna... The Abbey is situated on what seems a precarious site on the edge of the mountains. The fact that a funiculor railway and a cable car transports people to and fro - sorry - up and down, sadly distils (if that's the right word) the sense of this Sacred Space being 'on the edge'. No effort is required to get there or even to be there. In the basilica, we were squeezed in to wait and watch for the famous boys choir who sing there every day at 1.00pm. I, along with a vast number of others, fired away with my digital camera, despite the forbidding notices. This was no pilgrimage. This was ticking a box in 'special places', 'special events' lists. Cafeteria, Restaurants, Shops and Interpretative centres did nothing to give a sense of the holiness of the lives of the monks who were somewhere on the other side of a wall, let alone the sacred history lived out for centuries here. As I left, licking my chocolate and vanilla Magnum I realised that the experience was a warning. Beware in Following Columba that I don't turn him into another box to be ticked. Making a pilgrimage is not visiting a Christian resource centre. What is it? Well, let me try and answer breifly! Pilgrimage enables me and sustains me as I seek to live the Christ-like life charged and enlivened by being in and with Christ in a place where prayer not only has been, but is valid.

Well now. The journey inwards - following Columba! My previous posting attempting to expand a little more on being aware of feelings and not being identified with them. These feelings are in a deeper place within us than emotions. This final stage of the meditation is a simple but demanding one. Having gently and carefully disidentified with the circumstances of place and my own body withits thoughts, emotions and feelings, I now let the question 'Who am I?' settle in my mind and my heart. I am in a specific place. I have a body, thoughts, feelings etc. But I am not these. 'Who then am I?' There is not an answer in the sense of a response to a problem or a puzzle. (Problems have solutions; questions have answers, mysteryis about struggle...) There is only the mystery of being 'made in the image of God' which is, of course, beyond understanding. In the silence of meditation then, I just remain with the simple reality of the mystery of who I am in God.

Next? Well, St Columba is nudging me on a path that doesn't change course, but takes in a different view.

+Martin
Argyll and The Isles