Twenty-eight years ago in God’s Truth: Essays to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Honest to God, published in 1988 and edited by Eric James, John Bowden wrote “There is need for vision not only inside the churches but outside them. Vision and a concern actually to make some differences where there is a crying need for change. Honesty is quite manifestly not enough; more people are going to have to do some fighting.” The same concerns haunt me today.
On 26 December 1986 I set off around the world on a three-and-a-half-month sabbatical. I had been given one task to fulfil on the sabbatical – to keep a journal, solely for my own use. Two months into the sabbatical found me in Australia, at Wynnum North on the edge of Brisbane. I stayed with the Roman Catholic Capuchin Friars where Peter Hand, the parish priest at St Barnabas Southfields when I was confirmed, aged 12, was now resident. In my journal, I wrote: “If coming to Brisbane has taught me anything, it is that now is the time to stop delving back into the past. For the moment I must leave what can’t be changed or remembered behind me, and become absorbed in my new-found confidence and peace, living for the present, enjoying being alive, relaxing, and affirming above all God’s unconditional goodness and love for us all.”
Last weekend I attended the Heart of Silence conference organised by the Association of Core Process Psychotherapists at Regent’s University in the heart of Regent’s Park. The website said the conference was not just for psychotherapists but for anyone wanting to explore and experience the value of Silence. “Through Silence we are able to deeply listen to ourselves, one another and our Planet and from this place we can act.”
I was asked to lead a workshop on Saturday with the focus on contemplative prayer and silence. It turned out to be quite a challenging event. I’d prepared a sheet of notes outlining the ground I wanted to cover – vision of God; vision of ourselves; vision of Christ-like life; contemplative prayer and silence; breathing; with a check list of elements of a spiritually healthy life to conclude. It was an ambitious agenda!
I believe there are two core ingredients which are essential to the formation of an integrative, evolutionary spiritual path for Christians being called to growth and depth along a path to truth, holiness and G_d. One is the development of a vision of God which opens to unconditional, infinite, intimate love and the other is a willingness to open the self to truth, beauty and inner presence in silence and meditative/contemplative practice.
Abram, says Wittenberg, was one of those who heard. God is a presence which transforms the nature of the journey undertaken by Abram. He says: “It’s no longer only a form of wandering, of following a path half-plotted and half stumbled-upon amidst the exigencies of time. It has become a quest between the exigencies of the human and the other, between the transient and the transcendent. It’s the talking and the listening between them, the arguments, the long silences, and the singing on the way.”
My faith journey has sought to explore and deepen my innermost and whole being in which the holy, godly, divine self which is the core of every human being can form true partnerships and relationships with as much I – Thou quality as I can muster. I have come to believe that following this path in prayer, personal development, proclamation of the faith, relationships, work and play – in every dimension of life – is our prime task as human beings and as Christians.
A friend of mine emailed me describing how impossible it has become to explain to people how they now believe ‘nothing’ but that this is at the same time ‘all’. My friend said they feel uncomfortable because it is unexplainable and diminished by the attempt to put it into words. Therefore, they think, they just won’t try to explain any more.
Jesus is the one supreme teacher on being the West has. Only Jesus has fathomed the depths of being. Jesus’ way of putting it – I am – engages viscerally with the fundamental of the self. The Jesus teaching comes in the form of a story and compels us to engage with his experience and what he learns on the way – and to walk in his shoes. It is within the mystery of the narrative that Truth resides.
