Matthew under the arm 61

[I'm back on the pilgrimage...! Hope to catch up with you somewhere along the route.]

As I started out again on the pilgrimage this morning, I came across a young woman walking by herself. She had the most wonderful sandles on her, which I envied. 'I want ones like that'. But of course, I couldn't afford them and who was going to make them anyway? All morning I tried to suggest to Columba that he might lend me some of his money to go into a town and have sandles like that made. He looked at my feet and then at his own. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to. What's wrong with the ones I have? - was the question in his eyes. Maybe the pilgrimage would be better, easier, more comfortable. The blisters would go and I would be happier. 'I tell you what!', he suggested. 'Why don't you go and learn to make sandles; pull out of the pilgrimage and then you will eventually be surrounded by the sandles you love.' 'But I want them now for the pilgrimage.' So Columba, catching up with the young woman, asked if he could buy her sandles. 'We could stretch them for you', he mocked. At least, my mind is back on the pilgrimage. Humiliated? You bet!

Matthew 13:44-46….
In the two parables about the treasure hidden in a field and the pearl of great value, there is a hunger to expend everything in order to have a single desire met. If we come clean about what we really want, two things happen. One is that we discover we don’t want it quite as much as we thought. Second is that we are not really prepared to give all in order to have our desire met. The desire for God is that which ‘costs nothing less than everything’. God wants us and pays everything including death. Unity with God is the mystery of the universe. What is our response?


I would have my desire to realise Your Presence of Light with me strengthened



Begin by asking yourself what you really want? Are you prepared to give everything for it? Then allow yourself to feel the desires that so often get in the way of your being free. You may choose to have a conversation about this with someone you trust and respect. What is the image of God that you desire? Perhaps write it down or draw it…. Create some symbol of it. Begin the exercise with the sentence so that your heart and mind are open. Take the sentence with you throughout the day and notice how other desires are noticed as a result.

+Martin
Argyll and The Isles

Matthew under the arm 60

[I'll sneek a quick one in before I have to take a dip out of the pilgrimage until 28th June...]
There was an inn yesterday that seemed to be so isolated. It was in the middle of a valley with no houses around - plenty of sheep - and only Columba and me! However, inside the inn, the lady pulled us, from the barrell, a long drink. We sat outside and looked across to the mountain range that we would soon have to climb. The lady appeared and asked if one of us was Columba. She handed him a huge packet tied with string - letters galore. All were marked important. If it was me I would have moaned and groaned at the correspondence I would have to deal with. Not Columba...he walked back inside the inn and simply said to the lady: 'Send them on to my address when you can.' 'But aren't there important letters in the packet?' 'Maybe', replied Columba. 'The Son of Man is here on the Pilgrimage with me and he has my first priority,' he added cryptically. 'Who's he?' enquired the lady. Columba laughed and pointed at me!




Matthew 13:36-44….
The explanation of the parable of the field is rather like someone explaining a joke. The tension is lost. The parable is all in the telling, the company, the context etc... There maybe have been a desire to convey to the readers of the Gospel important material for teaching purposes. It’s also important to remember that the Gospel was written among early Christians who had experienced the mystery of Jesus’ Resurrection. Everything in the Gospel has to be read through that perspective. The Son of Man, a figure spoken of in the Hebrew Scriptures, develops into the presence of the Risen Christ in the tiniest aspects of creativity that brings them into the fulfilment of God.


I would know the mystery of Thy revealing Wisdom within me



By entering into the depths of meditation where Christ is, there is the ‘field’ in which Christ works in the tiniest detail of your life. Nothing will remain unexposed by his loving presence. The soul becomes more and more transparent. The ‘angels’ are the messengers and the messages of your life that if you are aware of them, your spiritual life becomes the adventure of being more and more purified in this life and in the mystery [or mysteries] of life you still have to come. The sentence if used slowly enables this process to be stimulated in the depth of you.

+Martin
Argyll and The Isles
[Don't leave the pilgrimage. I'll catch up with you]

Matthew under the arm 59

Columba and I wont be able to reflect on our pilgrimage until 28th June.... We have given ourselves some silence! (Sorry to our blog followers...but don't go away.... Back on 29th June)

Yesterday morning, I was with a group of people waiting outside the bread shop. Someone asked me about what was special about my pilgrimage companion, Columba. So I went on and on about his difficult and combative background; his rebelliousness in Ireland and all that... Then I spoke about his preaching and his holiness. Glazed eyes! It was as if everyone was saying to me: 'So what?' Then I remembered. So I told them of a little girl who had lost both her legs in an accident. She was being carried by her father. Columba had then turned to me and asked me to carry his rucksack as he had a sore back. I protested, but... it dawned on me... So I did. Then I spoke to someone else about my anxiety over my brother who was far away...would he pray for him and carry him? Before the day was out the pattern had spread... all kinds of people were carrying others 'loads'.... all from a little girl with no legs...


Matthew 13:31-35….
In a sense Jesus IS a parable. How do you speak of God the source of all being fully human? The paradox is too heady to engage with, other than in parables. So a tiny seed becoming a huge tree or a hidden little piece of leaven bringing about fermentation - indications of the paradox of God’s being in Jesus... Christ who is born apparently unnoticed becomes a universal realisation of God’s love. A what? No wonder Jesus spoke in parables.

I would know Your Wisdom in my heart as Your touch of Eternity



The heart is the place of hidden spiritual activity. Move there in simplicity. But spirituality is plagued by the notion that one can either fail at it or be successful. There are no measurements because it is what you are – it is the ‘being’ of who you are. When the microcosmic event of pregnancy begins there is nothing a woman can do to speed the completion of the pregnancy. In a sense that is what prayer is. Allow this sentence to help you to be simple and let God do the secret growing from what is being sown in you.

+Martin
Argyll and The Isles

Matthew under the arm 58

The terrain that Columba and I are walking through is dusty and hot. What makes it worse is the hot wind which makes to dust feel as if it is burining into the skin. High on hillside, we came across three people, two women and a man, sitting on rocks a little way off the path. One of the man was being 'lectured' by the woman and the other man, so much so that you could hear their ranting from away down the hill. Columba stopped and looked at them. The woman shouted on him to come and help. So we both went and sat beside them. Columba was thirsty and asked if they had spare water. They were too focused on their difficulty to hear his request. 'This is my brother', said the woman. 'He is not joining in our prayers any more on this pilgrimage. He doesn't do his share of washing of clothes. He is selfish and...and...etc He is so negative about the pilgrimage that he must be attacking the holiness of it. So we are trying to persuade him to own the dark forces within him!' 'I resist your pilgrimage as well!', whispered Columba. 'Ask yourselves what is within YOU that is bringing about his response.' Columba got up quickly and wept for them.



Matthew 13:24-30….
The prophetic challenge of the Gospel is that the only enemy within us is the one we create. To root out the enemy’s weapons (the tares, the weeds) is to leave the enemy intact – within. They are not the issue. The burning by fire is the work of the Spirit within that purifies the self that is made in the image of God and consumes all the falsity that gets in the way. The parable simply points to God working within us alongside that which is destructive – not avoiding it – allowing it to be transformed by love.


Let your awareness of My creativity grow within you


The knee-jerk reaction is to find that the negative elements in you are somebody else’s fault. You have, frankly, created your own enemies. Once you see them as your friends, they lose their power! The sentence is an importance means of dropping down into the depths of your heart and becoming more and more aware of Christ working creatively within you. That process, if allowed to work and given time, of its own, reveals that which undermines your life in God. Let the negative elements within you rise to the surface gently. Take responsibility for your own enemies. Christ will transfigure them in the depths of you with the Spirit.

+Martin
Bishop of Argyll and The Isles

Matthew under the arm 57

For months I have been on this pilgrimage with Columba and I still don't get it! He gets up early, which is sensible.... He nips down to the bread shop and brings back some wonderful hot rolls! I can smell them now! It seems always that he has been up for ages. 'How early to you get up?' He simply smiled and said, 'Early enough to be with God before you come and natter at me!' He laughed this time. Why am I making this pilgrimage with such a man? Anyway, this morning I cheated! I got up at about 5.30am and there he was sitting on a log outside the bunkhouse with scraps of paper. He had his eyes closed and he had that stillness which is not like a block of cement, but he had a suppleness, an ease to him. After a while, he became aware that I was watching him. Without turning his head, he asked what I wanted. So I asked him what the papers were. 'Well, before we left I got a brother to give me his scrappy copy of St Matthew's Gospel, which is basically in pieces! I read a passage and then allow a sentence to arise from the passage. Then the sentence takes me into the heart of silence and the Gospel.' He smiled and closed his eyes...but then added, 'How many times have I told you that now?' He's an aweful man!



Matthew 13:18-23….
In Jesus’ explanation of the parable of the sower, there may well be a process that reveals itself. Three sowings produce nothing. The seed is exposed to destructive forces through lack of understanding. There is no rootedness and there is constriction. Fruitfulness comes from energy given to understanding the Word of God, allowing it to be rooted deep within the heart and an accompanying lifestyle that is uncluttered; giving space for productiveness.

Be open to Me in your understanding. Discover Me in your heart. Work with Me in My Love.



If you are committed to the spiritual life you will give time and energy to finding God in all around you and reflecting on that finding. However, that reflection must be deepened by entering into the heart and allowing the ‘seed’ of God to be planted deeply. That activity in turn reveals an important critique of your life. It must be simplified so that the seed can be nurtured. Someone who is skilled in Spiritual Direction can help you with this process to discern ways forward. In the meantime let the three sentences work (be sown and nurtured) at depth.

+Martin
Argyll and The Isles

Matthew under the arm 56

Columba was tired today and went to lie on his bunk to catch up on his sleep. Well, he's not a young man. So I went into the inn to have a drink with some pilgrims whom I have come to know quite well in all these months. One of them asked me about Columba. he had heard of him and wondered what made him so special. Several times he had asked Columba for advice as to how to handle difficult situations back at home and at his work. Columba had not given the answer he wanted. The basic advice seemed to have been: 'Wait!' Soon the other pilgrims joined in the general destructive criticisms of Columba. I started to collude with them! (That aweful inclination to 'dump' my own inadequacies on someone in high esteem, particularly if that person is not present, in order to undermine, in the vain attempt to make myself feel better.) What we didn't notice was that Columba had got up from his bunk and was sitting a table by himself but within earshot. I quickly went across to him and spoke of those 'moaning' pilgrims. He smiled at me, seeing right into my soul. He knew I had colluded. So, crest-fallen I asked how to avoid getting caught in the negative slip-stream of others destructiveness - and my own. His answer? ''Wait - and you will sow the seed of love deep in the heart..."


Matthew 13:1-17….
A parable has just one point to make. An analytical approach to a parable such as this gets in the way of listening with the heart. What is more, in the case of the ‘Sower’, there is the uncomfortable sense that there is not very much we can do. The seed will be sown in you. So wait on its growth. Nature can’t be forced anyway. The power is in the waiting. The poor quality of the sowing of the other seed purely demonstrates how little we are actually in control. Waiting is the attitude of expectancy and service. The best way to serve someone is to wait on that person.

Be still and wait on my planting and growth within you


Here is an opportunity to allow all images to ‘fall away’ from your mind. The seed is somehow in the mystery of God sown deep in you. The planting is the work of Christ deep within you. Let Him get on with His work. Be as still as you can and trust the growing. Use the sentence rhythmically and in time with your breathing. This helps to ease your mind of wanting to control and to create images that simply get in the way. Listening is only listening if you don’t put your own construction on what you hear!

+Martin
Argyll and The Isles