Mr GP calls the ferryman, Loch Lomond, Durham-Iona Pilgrimage May 2011
In the tradition of pilgrimage, hardships are seen not as accidental but as integral to the journey itself. Treacherous terrain, bad weather, taking a fall, getting lost--challenges of that sort, largely beyond our control, can strip the ego of the illusion that it is in charge and make space for true self to emerge. If that happens, the pilgrim has a better chance to find the sacred center he or she seeks. Disabused of our illusions by much travel and travail, we awaken one day to find that the sacred center is here and now--in every moment of the journey, everywhere in the world around us, and deep within our own hearts.
A blessing based on The Beatitudes which I used last night in prayer group. It's from the conclusion of Margaret Silf's Landmarks: An Ignatian Journey.
I bless the poverty in your heart, which knows its own emptiness, because
that gives me space to grow my Kingdom there.
I bless that in you that touches others gently, because everyone responds to
gentleness, and gentleness can capture even hardened hearts.
I bless that in you that grieves and aches for all that is lost or can never
be, because that is my opportunity to comfort you with my much greater love.
I bless that in you that longs and strives after your own deepest truth and
after truth for the world, because even as you pray, I am constantly satisfying
these deep unspoken longings.
I bless you every time you show mercy and forgiveness, because that is like a
little window in your heart, setting you free from resentment and opening up a
space for me to enter and to heal.
I bless the purity of your heart, because that is the elusive center where your
deepest desire meets mine. That is where we meet face-to-face.
I bless the peacemaker in you, that in you that seeks the peace that passes
understanding, knowing the cost of its obtaining, because that is what I sent
my Son to give, and in your peacemaking you become my daughter or son.
I bless even those things in your experience of journeying with me that feel
like persecution and abuse and misunderstanding, because they are the proof
that your faith is no illusion.
Interview with Richard Rohr OFM about his book Falling Upward
‘[T]he task of the first half of life is
to create a proper container for
one’s live and answer the first essential questions: “What makes me
significant?” “How can I support myself”? and “Who will go with me?” The task
of the second half of life is, quite simply, to find the actual contents that this container was
meant to hold and deliver… In other words, the container is not an end in
itself, but exists for the sake of your deeper and fullest life, which you
largely do not know about yourself! Far too many people just keep doing repair
work on the container itself and never “throw their nets into the deep” to
bring in the huge catch that awaits them’…”
- From Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
Much to get my head round at the moment; not easy when said head is still recovering from the riches of our Rome visit. There was a lot to take in for all of us in our joint TSSF Area meeting yesterday, with a challenging talk and discussion on 'Adult Spirituality,' or, to be more exact 'Spirituality in the Second Half of Life,' by one of the contributors to the recent Chronicle magazine on faith journeying. When are we ever not on a journey? We're always in process, a work in progress I guess. I know my own personal 'inner landscape' has had its fair share of twists and turns; not all ones I'd have chosen either. But looking back over the ground I've covered these last many years, I now realise that one of the most significant concepts I've had to let go of is the assumption that all progress is linear. The image of the spiral is one I've found helpful. You can tell I'm a fan of TS Eliot, can't you?
Yesterday's speaker used several popular models which aim to draw together knowledge of life and faith stages to offer us helpful ways in which we can try to understand our own and other's journeys: mainly those of Richard Rohr and, one which was new to me, the model outlined in Hagberg and Guelich'sCritical Journey. Another one mentioned, that of Alan Jamieson's Chrysalis I'm more familiar with and is my favourite, maybe because I'm increasingly finding myself respond more to visual imagery as I get older. This isn't unusual, apparently a renewed, (or even a new) discovery of personal creativity is common to the second half of life.
Either way, I've found some of these ideas invaluable as my life's grown and changed, especially when I struggled with the church as an institution, it's been like a lifeline for me to know that where I was wasn't all there is ; the pastures of Christianity are far wider and greener than the field I happen to be in. Neither does it do anybody harm to realise that the way of living of the cows across in the neighbouring ones are as valid as those of your own, however exasperating you may find them!
To return to TSSF - or indeed any religious grouping or community, the challenge is maybe, to reflect on we can prayerfully use tools like these (and they are tools, not the be all and end all) to resource and support each other wherever we happen to be in our Christian walk. Useful to reflect too, that just as individuals grow and change, so institutions and religious orders too, mature and change. Though the message and ethos of our founder is timeless, the way in which we live that out in response to society and culture we find ourselves merits a re-think.
