Eternal Echoes

a silent longing...

Not for the first time in recent years I have found myself loosing the will to live when it comes to choosing hymns and songs for worship. It has nothing to do with the age of the material available, nothing to do with the musicians, nothing to do with the setting really, but a lot to do with me and how I  find I relate to God.

I find deep within myself a silent longing, a longing so deep that it moves beyond words and cannot call a 5 hymn prayer sandwich, even with creativity, deep worship and while I lead this type of worship service every week and strive to make it meaningful for all concerned, and I know from feedback that this does happen,  I yearn for something more.

I am hungry for God, not a concept or an idea, or a set of how to rules for living, but for the living God who has made and formed me, the God who knows me inside out and loves me anyway. There are times when I simpy want to say to the gathered congregation " let's go climb a mountain and sit and wait, let's watch the sun move across the sky, let's breathe the air, let's simply be."

Or let's share a meal and chew over this Bible passage, let's mine it for treasures together...

...let's watch a fim... let's ponder a painting, a poem, a place, let's look for God together...

I also yearn for silence, both solitary and corporate, a place where I can let the clamour of even my voice(s) fall away and find the still small voice in the depth of my soul and beyond the edges of the universe.

I think this longing comes from a number of needs within me, first a need to connect my life, my real life with the God I worship, to find that God in the mundane everydayness of stuff, in the joys and sorrows, in the frustrations and celebrations, in the big and the small things. 

It also comes from a real engagement with the gritty stuff of life where there are no easy balck and white answers, where struggle is an everyday experience for the people I love and serve and so becomes an everyday experience for me. When we close the church doors on a cold December evening and say goodbye to folk we know ill be sleeping rough religious platitudes are not merely empty they are insulting. Sometimes we find God more easily through our tears and groaning than our praises. When there are no easy answers, where the rubber hits the road I need to dig deep or I will loose my faith entirely.

I find that I am finding God more these days in poetry and art, in creation in films, music ( not hymns), novels, and more. I see God at work in and through others and am often humbled by what I see and encounter...

... and more than anything I want to escape "I", this post is full of I's and ( here comes another one) I want it to be more about God than me; that is my silent longing! I guess it isn't silent anymore.

 

on emptiness...

I have nothing to give,

nothing to share,

I am nothing,

all is empty,

I survey the horizon

and see nothing,

my heart craves love,

my mind craves truth,

but nothing,

there is nothing, nothing of myself...

BUT there is you,

and when  I dare to lean on you,

dare to trust you,

dare to draw upon you

I become more,

I am freed,

I am me

hidden in Christ with God,

 a new creation,

transformed,

loved, 

known,

one,

filled,

confident,

me...

with God...

Evensong; a prayer for the ending at the beginning of a day ( responding to Stephen Cherry's poem)

  
As this day ends

may I see

echoes of your grace

woven through its

words and actions,

may I know that I have not

walked it alone,

may I have trusted you,

waited on you,

listened for you,

please lift me when 

I stumble,

please hold me when I quake

with fear,

rejoice with me

weep with me,

and help me to be open,

when this day ends

grant me

your grace,

your healing,

your forgiveness

and your love

when this day ends

may I find my peace

in you...

Awe and wonder .  Photo mine

My true self; big pictures and details....

 

Out of the depths I cry to you O God,

show me my true nature,

my true name,

take me beyond the outer things,

below and beyond the surface,

beneath and above the excuses,

set me free to be myself,

my true self, 

my God created self,

my loved and beloved self,

let me hear you calling me

to be, and to become...

out of the depths I cry,

I cry to you O God....

 

Over the last few weeks I have found myself lost in details, learning names and getting to know people, finding my way around, sorting out who meets when and where, and filling my diary with appointments many of which will become recurring and therefore almost second-nature. Through it all I have tried to listen, tried to take in as much as I can, and to be honest it has been exhausting. One of the reasons for this is that I am a big-picture person, I like to step back and look to the horizon, to scan for possibilities and opportunities. 

Knowing that I am a big-picture person helps me to understand myself, and over the years it has helped me to come to appreciate others whose gift is found in the details, people who will ask questions that require precise answers, answers that need to be found, answers that folk like me  skip over optimistically assuming that all will fall into place. Over the last few weeks I realise that I have frustrated one or two folk, wonderful details folk because in many ways although we are seeking the same objective we don't speak the same language. 

I have come to really value details people, in fact I admire them in so many ways, but I am also aware that we need one another, and that we need to find creative and liberating ways of working together. This last week I have valued a couple of opportunities to stop, to reflect and to take in the view from a physical perspective, once in the Lake District, and again more locally walking on the beach, both of these reminded me that I also need time to step back and survey the spiritual scenery both within myself and with the churches that I am called to serve. When I take the time to do this the gift of the big picture becomes clearer and I am able to convey it to the details folk in a way that makes sense, not only that but I am able to then understand how the details fit it rather than drowning in them. I am thankful for a meeting with my Spiritual Director today as in many ways that helped me to clarify this for myself again; it's funny how you know something and yet need to be reminded!

 

creativity....

I haven't blogged for ages, well over two weeks and that's a long time for me, this has partly been due to moving house and the chaos and exhaustion it brings, and if I'm honest partly because I've been spiritually drained for a number of reasons. Today though has been a reminder that creativity brings me life, today we got around to beginning to bring order to what will be a creative/prayer space and a spare bedroom when needed. In that room were a collection of boxes containing fabrics, candles, paints, pens, pastels, music books, icons, pictures of various types, art books, paper of all kinds, prayer books, incence burners, and general creative stuff. 

Some of that stuff has been packed away in files and folders and I've haven't looked at it for months, some for even longer. Some of the boxes contained prayer journals reminders of the ebb and flow of my spiritual life...

And while the room currently looks like something has exploded in it, it gives me hope, this evening we have moved shelves around, some are filled and some are not, we want to put a table in there for painting/drawing and a sofa bed and chair. I've found my music stands and guitar stand so they will have a place too. We'll put pictures on the walls find room for a music system too...

And it will probably not be the neatest room in the house, but that's OK...