Matthew under the arm 78

All day today, Columba was silent. Not only that, but he seemed to be walking with a slower pace than usual. [Why is it that holy people always seem to walk so fast...?] Everytime I asked him if something was wrong, all I got was the hand going up halting me from pursuing the matter. After a while I gave up talking and asking. In the evening, after supper during which Columba seemed to eat little, he went outside the inn and sat on the bench looking at the sunset. He asked me to join him. he opened the palms of his hands and let them face upwards. I copied him. 'What am I supposed to be doing?', I asked feeling rather silly. 'During this pilgrimage', he said with a sigh, 'I have come across so many people who are feeling lost and are hoping to find something, some way forward, some deeper part of themselves on this pilgrimage. Many come to me, including you, and are expecting me to give a sign, give an answer. I feel useless. So all I can do is first to open my hands and accept the uselessness as a kind fo crucifixion...me, picking up my own cross. Then I imagine I am carrying them. Help me!'


Matthew 16:24-28....
Notice carefully that Jesus indicates that the follower must take up his/ her (own) cross. We have our own journey and our own responses to circumstances. For the writer, some form of 'ending' was near, figured in the Son of man's immanent appearance. Behaviour here is not some moral code but an extravagant expenditure of life....almost like 'going for broke'! Christ is with us in the expense.

Be awake to the expense of My Love in you and from you

To enter into silent prayer is ‘to take up your own cross’. It can include, perhaps, the painful discovery that nothing of any significance may lie at the heart of you...an emptiness. Prayer does not necessarily increase spiritual strength but it deepens humility and suffering. Now, suffering here is about living in the heart of someone's pain or loss. For Christians, spirituality is not about righteousness or self-development. It's not some programme, some project. Certainly, it involves an athletes dedication as Paul would have it. It is looking out at the agony of a people and experiencing in prayer their agony, while staying with your powerlessness. Receive courage to use the sentence to enter this prayer.

+Martin
Argyll and The Isles

Matthew under the arm 77

Yesterday evening we had a good meal and, after our being apart for those days, we had a lot to catch up on. 'We're well into our pilgrimage now' he said as a throw away remark. 'So?' Iadded. 'Well, you have become very attached to me and I to you. We have already been through a great deal together. You left me for a while and felt insecure. I have tried to teach you that there is a wisdom in insecurity. It is the wisdom of Christ Himself. You have learnt a great deal about prayer...the importance of daily discipline, of silence, of being formed by Christ through prayer and service. The conclusion of our pilgrimage is still a great distance away. But now we must move into a time of you learning more about The Way which is not someone else's path but that bcomes yours as you become more and more Christ-like.' I laughed. 'Me? Christ-like?' Columba's face darkened with anger. He didn't have to say anything.

Matthew 16:21-23....
Peter's attitudes were dealt with harshly. At one moment, he had been promised the powers of binding and loosing. The next....Peter received another promise: the source of these powers would be executed. So the promise made to Peter seemed to him, futile. Futility is often the judgement made by those who are frightened of losing control. The hard reality of Christianity is that the way to fulfilment in God is through suffering and death: a loss of control. A denial of that demonstrates a lack of listening to God.

In obedience to the Way of Christ within me, I would be open to suffering with others


Following Christ is only experienced in living alongside those who suffer. Imagine in the silence, those who are or have been alongside you in your suffering no matter how insignificant: an experience of Christ being with you. Perhaps visit, write, email or telephone someone you are aware is suffering. Get involved, perhaps, with a group that relates to those who suffer in some way.... You might spend 10 minutes imagining Christ's silent love alongside the suffering, with your silent love and service. With the sentence, draw alongside that person (or group or people....) and in the presence and Way of Christ love them. That is the power of binding and loosing.

+Martin
Argyll and The Isles

Matthew under the arm 76

For two days, I looked for Columba in the centre of the town, where I was told I would find him. There he was leaning against a wall next to the prison. He had tears in his eyes as he watched men arriving bound, pale faced and with that strange mixture of defiance and fear. I was transfixed at Columba's intense identification with the prisonners. By now, I have learnt that on these occasions when I see such intensity in his face, to let him be. Eventually when all the prison gates clanged shut, I rushed across to Columba to express my relief at finding him at last. 'I have found you and caught up with you at last,' I said lamely. 'More importantly,' Columba said in a low tone, 'Follow Christ'. 'Stop being so pious!', I retorted irritated that he didn't seem to miss me. I added in a fed-up tone,'Where is He anyway?' All Columba did was to point to the prison and put his finger up to his lips. 'Shshsh'


Matthew 16:13-20....
The centre is the revelation of God. God becomes present now and that presence is experienced in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the realisation of God. The terms 'prophet', 'Son of man', 'Christ' have enormous and unfathomable significance for Jewish and Christian cultures. The disciples at this stage could not possibly take in this breath-taking encyclopaedia of theology. The silence that Jesus demands allows space for awe and understanding to grow. To keep the realisation quiet is to acknowledge that religious cultures have the inclination to 'own', to 'possess' creeds. Christ points beyond such imprisonment.

That in your heart and mind you may realise the Christ in you: the hope of glory

So the 'strict order' for silence is the demand that you enter the Love of God… in silence. The mystery of Love you will meet in the silence of you prayer but also in the silent action of Love, where Love can only be understood 'at a tangent' and, because of limited perception, never ‘head on’. Envisage who you think Christ to be for you. ‘Picture’ that Presence. Write or draw what you experienced in the silence.

+Martin
Argyll and The Isles

Matthew under the arm 75

Columba waited for sometime but eventually decided to go on ahead of me. According to rumour, he is quite a few days ahead. This is the first time I have been on my own on this pilgrimage. What's more, the rain has not stopped all day. Despite the fact that I keep my Gospel of Matthew under my arm, as it were, it's getting sodden and dog-eared! True, I do find Columba sometimes a pain. True, I occasionally feel even humiliated with him. But...to be on my own now. All I really want is to find him... He is my guide. I feel secure with him. Every village I have been through, I have been asking people if they have seen this little man called Columba, with wide eyes and a scraggy beard, walk through with that urgent step of his. Invariably, all I heard was 'Oh yes! Him! He passed through here several days ago. All he said to us was, "If my fellow pilgrim asks for me, tell him I have been here."' So, what if I never catch up with him? What if he goes in one direction and I in another - and I am lost! It was only when I found a bunk in a hostel earlier this evening, that I remembered him saying to me: 'The wisdom of insecurity will guide you.... the wisdom of Christ!'



Matthew 16:6-12....
Religious certainty is destructive. To believe in a religious system that gives certain guidance leads to the feeling that we have licence to decide others fate: anything from over-riding control, rejection to a crucifixion - even genocide. That person, those people are denying my religion, therefore they are blasphemous and must be alienated. We are hungry for certainty as if it were bread in the wilderness. We are deluded enough to believe that certainty in religion will banish our deepest secret - fear. The dangerous ‘leaven’ of religion.

Through Your Wisdom, I would realise the freedom of insecurity.

What is the gift you have received, the generosity you have experienced that has been given without any expectation - that has created a sense of freedom in you? Picture the giver and the gift. Go before Christ and 'hold' it out to Him in deep thanks. Allow yourself to smile! What certainties have you been given? Any? Do you really want them? Generosity is an act out of uncertainty, even insecurity, otherwise it wouldn't be generosity. Generosity is risky. Now enter your prayer and experience the freedom that spiritual insecurity, uncertainty brings. (‘Blessed are the Poor in Spirit...’)

+Martin
Argyll and The Isles