CHURCH ‘VIRTUAL’ AWAY DAY, SUNDAY 31 MAY 2020
Since we cannot have our planned Away Afternoon on 31 May, I have prepared some written resources and a video, so that we can have a time of reflection in our own homes on that day (or whenever you would like to do it). The theme, in so far as there is one, is prayer and refection. Probably there is too much material here for one afternoon, so feel free to dip in and out of it and use whatever you find useful. I also include links to video and audio from other sources that you may like to use.
If the weather is nice, I suggest that if you have a garden, or somewhere you can walk, you may want to do some of this outside, in particular reading the written material and Bible texts. So, sit back, relax, breathe, take some time to be still and reflect on these strange and trying times. You can use the material in any order, but it would make sense to watch (read below) my video first as it serves as an introduction. Link to video: May Away Day
Video Text: Since the beginning of the lockdown, I have been live-streaming a time of prayer, daily (Mon-Fri) on my Facebook Page and then sharing it to the two church pages. This is not something I ever imagined myself doing! I did it fairly spontaneously, without much thought, and in the first few weeks sometimes it was mostly silence or walking around the garden. Sometimes I read a poem, once or twice I played a piece of music. When I was reading it was accompanied by a simple image of a candle and wooden cross. During Holy Week, I read a poem specially written by Malcolm Guite every day, and in later weeks I have shared material provided by St Paul’s Cathedral on prayer and the psalms.
The material from St Paul’s in particular, made me think about what prayer is. I include it below. You may want to spend your whole time reading through that material and thinking about what prayer is for you. However, in short I would say prayer is any time you spend being with God – that may be silence, painting, knitting, walking, reading devotional material or the Bible, written prayers, talking to God… the list goes on. It will be different for each individual, and personal prayer is something quite different to corporate, public prayer in church services or for national celebrations or disasters.
I don’t much like extempore prayer (praying off the cuff and unprepared) myself, preferring well prepared prayers, usually written by others, for public use. Private prayer for me is usually in silence, or walking in nature, rather than traditional ‘talking to God’ type-prayer. And, I tend to find being asked to pray out loud in a group uncomfortable. At first, I found the daily prayers on Facebook strange and a bit embarrassing. But now I cannot imagine not doing them. They provide structure to the day, and the discipline of having to do them because I know people are waiting for them. I was also surprised by how many people are watching them, including friends who I know do not attend church, and may not even describe themselves as Christian. So those few minutes a day are obviously meeting a need.
During one of the weeks of glorious sunshine in April, I did most of the prayers outside in Wheatley Wood, a few minutes walk from the manse. I also took a few pieces of film with trees and birdsong. Watch this video now as a way of relaxing into the rest of the day.
~ Nature video ~
Psalm 31 has been used in a few daily devotions and seems to resonate with people at the moment. Read psalm 31, does it resonate with you? Note how it starts with the words, ‘In you, Lord, I seek refuge, and then like all psalms of lament moves through the things that are troubling the person saying the psalm and come back to love for God and that assurance that God will take care of the faithful and give them strength. Do you always come back to God after you have had a moan about the state of the world? Maybe even complained about God’s absence or how he can allow suffering to happen? Take some time to reflect. And you may want to write your own psalm of lament. (VIDEO ENDS) Read through these reflections on prayer and maybe try one of her suggestions. I would suggest doing Friday’s activity, but it is up to you!
Reflections on Prayer during lockdown by Dr Gemma Simmonds CJ, St Paul’s Cathedral
Monday 20 April 2020
They say that nature abhors a vacuum. That certainly appears to be true during the lockdown. Our inboxes are full of well-meaning wishes, funny cartoons, online exercise programs and endless self-improvement suggestions. It’s all a bit overwhelming.
But is there a self-help App to help us pray when we can’t pray? The good news is that with prayer, self-help doesn’t work. The whole point, as St. Paul says, is that we can’t help ourselves, but the Spirit helps us in our weakness (Rom.8:26).
What mostly prevents people from praying is the mistaken conviction that they can’t pray, based on an equally mistaken idea of what prayer is. Surely prayer should be some mystical abstraction that takes us out of the chaotic grind of daily life? Wrong. Prayer is as messy and chaotic as life itself.
A great contemplative writer once wrote, ‘pray as you can, not as you can’t’. That means that we bring to prayer whoever and whatever we are, whether its aching feet or a pounding head, our tiredness or our jumbled thoughts. All we need to do is to offer these to God like the little boy with the five loaves and two fish. So little to feed so many, and yet Jesus made of that a feast for thousands.
Maybe we can’t even find words, or there’s just a tune or a favourite poem or a desperate plea going round in our heads. That will do. Julian of Norwich says that God is grateful when we remember him. If that’s true, then God will also be happy that we turned up at all, even if we don’t get the satisfaction of knowing that we have been swept away in some great mystical rapture. God will be there, even if we’re all over the place.
Tuesday 21 April
We come with a body attached. This means that our bodies matter when it comes to prayer. We can’t ignore our body. We are our body, so how our bodies are will affect our prayer. This can be difficult when our bodies are feeling less than well or are full of impulses and feelings that don’t make for quiet contemplation.
The first thing to do is to acknowledge how our body is feeling. When we settle down to pray it matters to settle down physically. Catching our breath is the first step, and it may be that we need to spend a few minutes simply breathing and relaxing into a regular rhythm. This can help us to become aware of tension carried in some part of our body: the knitted brow, the hunched shoulders, the clenched fists.
At the beginning of prayer God invites us, ‘be still and know that I am God’. As we settle into regular breathing and relax physically, we can become aware of sounds around us. Post lockdown it’s possible to hear nature all around us. Just becoming aware of being alive in a world full of life is prayer in itself.
How does it feel to be still and know that we are alive and that God is present even if that presence is a mystery to us? Simply being aware of it, staying in the moment, savouring the sense of it is prayer. One writer has called this ‘the sacrament of the present moment’. A sacrament is a sign which makes real what it signifies. Living in the present, savouring it and holding it before God is real prayer.
Wednesday 22 April
Life has got a lot more plain in lockdown. There tends to be a lot less external stimulus. Without traffic and noise, things have got quieter, nature has drawn closer. Without people and the normal routines of life that bring us close to them our own thoughts have become louder and more insistent.
Perhaps daydreaming or worry has taken over - the luxury or the danger of living more in our imaginations. That’s not real, we say, so it shouldn’t intrude into the serious business of getting on with life.
But St Ignatius of Loyola took the imagination very seriously. He believed that our imagined dreams or anxieties, hopes or fears are the deepest reality of our lives. Often the busyness with which we cram our hours is an escape mechanism from the deep desires or fears that lie at our core. He believed that if we allow ourselves to respond to Jesus through our imagination, we will come to discover our deepest and best desires. It is those very desires that will lead us to God.
In his life on earth Jesus had transformative encounters with people. No one ever left his presence unchanged: blind beggars, Roman centurions, political leaders and harassed parents met him and were changed. Jesus is alive now. Can you spend some of this time directing your imagination to meet him now?
Take time to enter into a gospel story with your imagination, picturing yourself in the scene, and you will find your emotions and desires engaged. The encounter may be unexpected, but he meets us where we are. It’s not a question of forcing things. Relax and allow the scene to play out and let yourself participate in whatever way comes to you. Hear him ask, ‘what do you want?’ This is the moment to tell him
Thursday 23 April
Sitting still in imaginative contemplation of a gospel scene may take some people time and practice. Something practical: writing or drawing or going for a walk may work better. ‘That’s not prayer’, you may say. Why not, if it leads your mind and heart to God?
Perhaps there’s a letter you want to write to God or a poem. Perhaps you had a moment of quiet and some important thought came to you, or a deep feeling that you know you need to reflect on and perhaps turn into action. Perhaps there’s been some longing that won’t go away or a dream that seemed important. Taking time to sift this, writing it out, drawing it, or using any other medium to make something that seems to symbolise what is at the heart of this feeling or these thoughts, all of this is prayer. It can lead to a deeper understanding of who we are before God and ways in which God is inviting us to grow in faith, hope or love. It’s about getting in touch with our deepest desires, and finding God in and through those desires.
It may be responding to an invitation to dare to take our longings seriously, to get round to something we’ve been avoiding for ages, to forgive ourselves at last for something that has been weighing us down. Whatever it may be, any exercise that helps us to go deeper, to get in touch with our deepest desires, will lead us in the Spirit towards that treasured creature God created us to be. And what do we do when we’ve discovered these deep desires? We take time to speak to God as one friend to another. It’s the speaking out that can help us to identify God’s presence deep within, inspiring, provoking, encouraging and reassuring. God is at work. The adventure lies in finding out how.
Friday 24 April
Life can be busy and pressurised, and we can easily lose sight of what’s going on within us, never stopping to take a breath or to assess how we feel. We keep going on automatic pilot, never taking the time to question the thoughts and feelings dominating our inner and outer world. No wonder we become sick and tired, when our bodies and our minds get so disconnected. St Ignatius taught a way of praying known as the Prayer of Awareness or the Examen. It’s a simple way of decompressing at the end of the day and reconnecting with God. Here is a brief outline of the dynamic it follows:
Relax: become aware of your breath and body, relaxing into God’s presence.
Give thanks: What gives me a sense of gratitude? There may have been little gifts: a sunny day, a loving email or phone call, a problem solved at work, a hug from a loved one, an awareness of the wonder of nature in birdsong, the company of a dog or the beauty of a tree. Whatever the gift, stay with it and savour it.
Ask for light: ask for the grace of a God’s eye view of your day, seeing it with God’s merciful eyes. What does God call to your attention? Stay with it and see where it leads.
Review the day: asking God to highlight what God thinks matters, both the light and the shadow, the gift and the burden. Stay with what stands out.
Talk: have a conversation with God, asking for whatever grace you need, thanking God and talking as a friend, becoming more aware of what has been driving the feelings, impulses and actions of this day and placing all this and the needs of anyone who features in this time before the God of all consolation.
None of these ways of praying should lead to ‘hardening of the oughteries’. (laying out things we ought to do, or not to do) We pray best in the way that feels most natural. But one of the greatest helps is to feel encouraged to experiment and explore, perhaps beyond the boundaries of what has felt ‘permitted’. Enjoy giving something suggested here a try and remember that when we don’t know how to pray, St. Paul (who knew a thing or two about it) reassures us that the Spirit prays within us beyond any words of ours.
Other Resources: For those of you without access to online resources, try to go outside or at least open a window and listen to nature – birds, bees, wind, silence, as a form of meditation
Soul Space on YouTube A few moments of calm (about 10 mins) from Brian Draper on what it can be like to be on retreat in nature (inspired me to make my short video)
Richard Carter on Silence – Why silence - Richard Carter Talks about the constant noise in Trafalgar Square – ironically, now even London is virtually silent. Take time, sacred time, look for blessings rather than thinking about negative things.
We have been stuck at home (or mostly at home) for over two months now, so probably people have already found their own ways to cope, but these may still be useful:
“Ten tips from an enclosed nun on how to live through the confinement and stay sane” based on advice by Sister Maria Teresa de los Ángeles
1. Embrace this new situation from a place of freedom. We choose to stay at home freely for the greater good, and not just because we’ve been forced to do it. In doing so, we also find a deeper freedom, an inner freedom that no one can take from us. This is about our mental attitude.
2. Search for an inner peace that will enlarge your soul. In other words, look inside yourself for inner resources, for peace and creativity that you didn’t know were there before because we live lives that are too busy to allow those things to flourish from inside out.
3. Take time to know yourself. Pay attention to your inner movements and moods, and how you respond to pressure, affirmation, encouragement, or broken expectations. Do not let fear, or sadness, or pessimism take the best of you. Instead, when a particular thought is not lifegiving, get rid of it. Instead, try to hold onto those things that give you peace, joy and life. Remind yourself of the bigger picture and that this too will pass. Consider the words of Teresa of Avila wrote: Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you, everything will pass, only God remains, only God suffices.
4. Practice kindness, patience, love and self-control with those you share your space with. The great test of these times of confinement is how we live with others without treading on each other’s feet or getting into each other’s nerves. At times like this we all become more touchy, maybe more irritable. Be aware of this, and try to share your space with generosity, don’t be hard on others or on yourself. Don’t get too worked up about petty things. Live and let those around you live.
5. Use your time wisely. This is one of the most important tips for those not able to work. Given the lack of structure, try and create a daily plan that works for you in your own family context, to give you a sense of rhythm and purpose. This can include time for activities, for being creative, for cooking – maybe even try slow cooking –, time for eating, for exercising, even time for leisure.
6. Expand your horizons. A few weeks ago we used to complain that we had no time to do the things we really wanted: to catch up with reading, or to do an online course, or to listen to music... Maybe this time is a gift to help you enlarge your music taste by listening to new artists, or to help you learn new skills, or simply to stimulate your mind by learning about other countries, maybe an exotic country you’ve always wanted to visit. Plan that journey, even if you don’t ever go. Or try something new in your own spiritual journey, maybe follow the liturgy of the hours, or have a quiet day at home...
7. If you are particularly sensitive, try to avoid listening to the news all the time, especially now that all news seems overwhelmingly bad news, and avoid having conversations which enter into a negative spiral. Do not spend too much time in front of a screen – we tend to think about teenagers as suffering from screenitis or addiction to their mobile phones, tablets or computers. But sometimes, we adults can fall into the same pattern. Instead, try and play some happy music, even when you’re cooking, and let your body move with it... even if you make a fool of yourself, dancing is a deeply healing activity.
8. You are not isolated. You may be on your own, but you are not alone. Our friends and families may not be physically with us, but we can stay in touch with them in many different ways: picking up the phone, or face-timing or WhatsApp video calling, through social media. We may also find time to sit down and write an old fashion letter to someone who’s been on our hearts recently. If you live with others, try to communicate practicing the skill of intentional listening; that is, being fully present to them, and paying attention both to their words and to their mood and body language. Know that you are connected with others, and also with God. You are not alone.
9. Take time to reflect and connect with God. Within your daily rhythm, make sure to include a bit of time to reflect and meditate on your life, on what you are learning about yourself through this new situation. Think about how you can improve as a human being, how God may be doing something new in your own life, so that when this crisis and confinement is over, you will emerge as a stronger, happier, kinder, better person. And every so many days, if you’re able, you may feel like taking a Quiet Day, just like this, to be in silence, to reflect, to think, to meditate. Times to be spiritually nourished and refreshed.
10. Pray. Prayer underpins all the above. Let prayer sustain who you are and what you do during these challenging times. Take time to be in God’s presence, to hear God’s voice in the silence of your hearts, in the reading of the scriptures, in your own breathing – the breathing that reminds you that you are alive, the breathing that reminds you that God’s ruah, God’s breath, God’s life, dwells deep within you, that God’s love fills every bone, muscle and cell in your body. And in that place of prayer, also open your heart to God, bring to God the needs of the world around you and of people you care for, and of those who are in greatest need. Take time to pray.
What does your God look like? –
Genesis 1.27 “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them.”
John 14.9 “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”
What does your God look like? I suspect that for many of us, God looks either a bit like us, or a bit like what we think power looks like.
I might suggest that God looks like Jesus. After all, Jesus says that if we have seen him, we have seen the Father. So by this understanding God is male, able bodied, articulate, a teacher, and a preacher, he is someone who leads others, and challenges preconceptions… But can you see what’s happening here? I’m describing my God after my own image. I’m emphasising those attributes of Jesus that match the things about me that represent power.
This is entirely the wrong way round: after all, we are made in God’s image, not God in ours. If we make God in our image, we commit the sin of idolatry because we end up worshipping either ourselves, or the things that we most value and admire. If we make God in our image, we deify ourselves and exclude those who are ‘not like us’. And if my inclusion results in someone else’s exclusion, whether that is on the basis of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, mental health, wealth, or ability; and as long as I accept that privilege without taking action to address the situation, I am not only participating in violence against others, I am also diminishing my own self before the God who makes all people in God’s own image. So, what does your God look like? Do you find that in your imagination, God looks a bit like you? Or maybe your view of God looks like what you have been conditioned to think of as powerful?
If you’re a woman, you may still see God as male, and a feminist critique would suggest that is a function of the patriarchy, normalising maleness as power, and inviting us to deify and worship it…
If you’re a person of colour, you may still see God as White, and a racial justice critique would suggest that this is a function of white supremacy, normalising whiteness as power, and inviting us to deify and worship it…
If you’re a person with a disability or impairment, you may still see God as able-bodied and mentally healthy, and a disability rights critique would suggest that this is a function of ableism, normalising the able-bodied as power, and inviting us to deify and worship it…
If you’re a person living with economic disadvantage, you may still see God as wealthy, with glittering golden churches built by people with gilt complexes, and a Liberation Theology analysis would suggest that this is a function of religion as a mechanism of oppression, normalising wealth as power, and inviting us to prostrate ourselves before it…
But here’s a thing: there is a way out of our idolatry. The crucified God invites us to nail all our false images of God to the cross; to see them, and the privilege and power that sustains them, die; and in their place is born a new humanity, of equality and justice.
So can we give up our deified images of power? Can we learn to worship God as God is, rather than as we have constructed God? This will be painful, because it invites us to encounter God in places we would not expect to find God. It requires us to set aside our preconceptions, and our investment in what is, and to encounter God not in power but in weakness, in prejudice, and in the ‘other’. It means we have to ask difficult questions, of what it might mean if God doesn’t look like me at all, what if God doesn’t look like power? What if God looks like a refugee, or a person with no home and no money, or a disabled person? What if God is a person of colour? What if God is not male, or straight, or mentally well? And of course, in Jesus, God is all these things:
- Jesus was not a White European, he was a Middle-Eastern Jew
- He bears in his body the marks of the crucifixion, his hands and feet wounded for all eternity
- He was the homeless, penniless refugee, whose childhood was spent on the run and whose adult life was spent as the one who had nowhere to lay his head
- He was unmarried and childless, defying the gender and sexual norms of his day and known for associating with those whose own sexual history was at best ambiguous
- He experienced periods of great psychological trauma, from the overwhelming pressure of people, to tears of grief at the death of a friend, to the devastating loneliness of Gethsemane
- His sweat in his mental anguish was like drops of blood, as his torment took its toll on his physical wellbeing
- He was tempted in every way just as we are.
And Jesus tells his disciples that if they have seen him, they have seen God. So, what would it be like for us to give up on our idolatrous images of God, made either in our own images, or cast to deify strength and power as we experience it in our lives, society, and world? What would it mean for us collectively as the body of Christ to embody a more broken, excluded, and reviled image of God?
The starting point for a journey into greater inclusion isn’t a greater understanding of the marginalised and the oppressed; it is a greater understanding of ourselves and our own capacity for sinful idolatry. It is not for us to tell others that our God is their God too. God is already the God of the person of colour, and the person with the physical or mental impairment. God is already the God of the woman as well as the man, as well as the person of non-binary gender. God is already the God of the LGBTQi community, just as God is already the God of the homeless and the God of the economically disadvantaged.
The problem here is not God as revealed in Christ; the problem is with me, and maybe with you too, as we uncritically and unthinkingly deify our version of normality, creating God in our images of power. The journey to inclusion starts when we realise that the image of the Black Christ, the female Christ, the gay or trans Christ, the homeless or disabled Christ are not idolatrous perversions but actually are authentic representations of the diversity of the body of Christ.
So, to return to my question: What does your God look like? Does God look like you, or like what you think power looks like? Can we learn to see God in all those that have been made in the image of God, and can we learn to see each of us, whoever we are, in our images of God? In Christ, God includes all, absolutely. And as the people of Christ, we are called to be the body of Christ in all its diversity.
Written by Simon Woodman, based on a sermon preached at Bloomsbury Baptist Church to mark it becoming an inclusive church.
No comments:
Post a Comment