Keith sends this seasonal offering: We're now in the season when we hear the famous readings of God's light coming to shine in the darkness. We sing for the coming Emmanuel to "Disperse the gloomy cloud of night/And death's dark shadow put to flight."...
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Henry writes: A friend of mine, John Walker, was recently telling me about his son Jonny: a gifted musician…who founded the Keep Streets Live Campaign, to advocate for public spaces for people and against the criminalization of homelessness and street culture. Jonny once said: “Buskers act as civic lighthouses. We give directions, we break up fights, we call the police when we spot trouble. We talk to the lonely. We create moments of enjoyment between strangers, and contribute to the social and cultural enrichment of shared urban spaces. We are an integral part of the ecology of the street. We care deeply about the well-being of the places where we perform.” It started at a Jubilee lunch. I was giving out leaflets for a neighbourhood festival and got into conversation about death and dying (as one does!). I had written quite a lot about music and dying and it turned out they were organising a festival of dead. And so it began – three weeks of workshops, creative workshops, story-telling and discussions. Discussions in the planning centred around rooting the frippery of Hallowe’en into ecocreativity and the ancestors, and awareness of our present situation. One Thing’s Necessary this Christmas
With apologies to Hans Borli, wonderful Norwegian poet, who wrote the original One thing’s necessary — here in this hard world of ours of homeless and outcast people: Let God take residence in you. Walk into the darkness and clean the soot from the lamp. So that people on the roads can glimpse Light in your inhabited eyes. A Discussion full of Grace
Every six weeks or so I do chaplain duty in the cathedral where I welcome tourists and every hour say some prayers from the pulpit. That morning had been dull, in fact distinctly boring with few visitors, and they all seemed to be glued to their headphones and video guide... Henry writes: Sue from North Yorkshire, commenting on my story, raises some interesting questions. It would be good to read how others respond to them.
“I’ve read all the stories with great interest. I don’t know whether I’m feral or not ( it seems such a strong word, wild almost) but I do know that I don’t fit in the institutional church any more.”
“Reading Karen Armstrong’s latest book Sacred Nature: ‘A religious ritual should be a transformative event - it can never be a matter of simply going through the motions, however piously’. Church services for me feel like ‘going through the motions..’. Where is the beauty, the mystery, the silent wondering….”
“I feel bogged down in a mass of words. There is another way of communicating that doesn’t involve talking!”
“Your sense of being free when you left stipendiary ministry resonates very strongly with my sense of feeling free when I came out of the monastery. Though I believed it was of God I continue to wonder if it was just me wanting to ‘do my own thing’.”
Henry writes: In conversation recently with my friend Brian he told me of a friend who had visited this web-site and how it had reminded him of an Anthony de Mello story. Its one of my favourites and here is together with a comment on it by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:
Anthony de Mello tells the following parable of the man who invented fire: “A long time ago, there was a man who invented the art of making fire. He took his tools and visited a tribe in the north, where the climate was bitter cold. The man taught the people how to make fire. And the people were spellbound. He showed them many uses for fire: they could cook, keep themselves warm, keep predators at bay and dance by firelight. So they built fire and were very grateful. But before they could express their gratitude, the man disappeared, because he wasn’t concerned with recognition or gratitude. He was concerned only with their well-being. The fire-making man visited a different tribe, and began to teach the art of making fire. Like the first tribe, this tribe was mesmerised. But the tribe members’ passion unnerved the tribe’s leaders. It didn’t take long for them to notice that the fire-making man drew large crowds, and the leaders worried about lost influence and power. Because of their fear, the leaders determined to kill the fire-making man and they devised a clever plan because they were worried that the tribe people might revolt. Can you guess what they did? The leaders made a portrait of the fire-making man, and displayed it on the main altar of the temple. The instruments for making fire were placed in front of the portrait, and the people were taught to revere the portrait and to pay reverence to the instruments of fire. The veneration and the worship went on for centuries. But there was no more fire.” “The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire.” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin I hope the feral world will extend itself beyond the inward spirituality which it invites - and which of course needs the nourishment of stories, encounters, experiences, and explorations - into different types of dialogues, such as between religion and science, between different religions, between theology and the humanities.
The postings so far demonstrate that there is a spiritual and intellectual need that values a space for sharing and exploring. AR (Reading). Please add your comments. Andrew Maynell writes: Recently I was sent this reflection on wild places by a friend, Andy Lord, who gave me permission to quote him: "Throughout his writing, Robert Macfarlane has been seeking to connect soul and land. In his writing on “wild places” he comments on what he sees as a primary idea of Coleridge: “that the self-willed forms of wild nature can call out fresh correspondences of spirit in a person. Wildness, in Coleridge’s account, is an energy which blows through one’s being, causing the self to shift into new patterns, opening up alternative perceptions of life.”[1] Personal life is opened up by attention to nature in ways that stir our spirits. An example he points to is the immense sense of life found in limestone gryke’s, small vertical fissures of up to ½ meter in width.[2] This life is connected to the friendships he has, notably Roger Deakin with whom he visited a number of the places spoken of in the book. Life is communal with all creation – human and nature alike. Macfarlane had started out by seeking the wild places in the world that seemed to be lost and found the wild in the abundance of life that exists everywhere: “As I had moved south, my own understanding of wildness had been altered – or its range had been enlarged. My early vision of a wild place as somewhere remote, historyless, unmarked, now seemed improperly partial… I had learned to see another type of wildness, to which I had once been blind: the wildness of natural life, the sheer force of ongoing organic existence, vigorous and chaotic. This wildness was not about asperity, but about luxuriance, vitality, fun.”[3]" [1] Robert Macfarlane, The Wild Places (London: Granta Books, 2017), 209 [2] Macfarlane, 168 [3] Macfarlane, 316 |
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Just wanting to say “yes” to this. You will be speaking for, and to, many. I will certainly be passing this on to others, and will contribute some thoughts myself later. So, I was delighted to see Feral Spirituality make an appearance. I'd think you could find many wanting to join in |