Returning to the Heart of our Being

A Eucharist for Christmas Morning

25th December 2013

8am

St. Mary's Church

Sullington

RH20 4AE

I too will proclaim the greatness of this day:

the immaterial becomes incarnate,

the Word is made flesh,

the invisible makes itself seen,

the intangible can be touched,

the timeless has a beginning,

the Son of God becomes the Son of all people,

Jesus Christ,

always the same, yesterday, today and forever.

This is the solemnity we are celebrating today:

the arrival of God among us,

so that we might go to God,

unhindered and free,

returning to the heart of our being,

becoming one with God.

Gregory Nazianzen Oration 38, For Christmas (adapted)

Peace be with you

Being, Beholding, Bearing

A Service of Silence & Beholding

an unhurried time in which to dwell at the heart of the Eucharist

8a.m.

Sunday 22nd December

St. Mary's Church

Sullington

West Sussex

RH20 4AE

What good is it to me

if this eternal birth of the divine Son

takes place unceasingly

but does not take place 

within myself?

And,

what good is it to me

if Mary is full of grace

and if I am not also full of grace?

What good is it to me

for the Creator to give birth to his/her Son

if I do not also give birth to him

in my time

and my culture?

This, then,

is the fullness of time:

when the Son of God is begotten

in us.

from Meditations with Meister Eckhart

 by Matthew Fox

Peace be with you

Waiting for the Dawn

Still Waters

a time to enter silence, still the mind 

and encounter the present moment in quiet

Waiting for the Dawn - the now and not-yet of beholding

Saturday 7th December 

8 - 10am 

St. Mary's Church 

Sullington, West Sussex RH20 4AE 

You are welcome to come at either 8 or 9am for an hour, 

or to stay for the whole time. 

Please dress warm and comfortably as the heating can only do so much! 

Peace be with you

The Living Flame of Love

O living flame of love
that tenderly wounds my soul
in its deepest centre! Since
now you are not oppressive,
now consummate! if it be your will:
tear through the veil of this sweet encounter!

O sweet cautery,
O delightful wound!
O gentle hand! O delicate touch
that tastes of eternal life
and pays every debt!
in killing you changed death to life.

O lamps of fire!
in whose splendours 
the deep caverns of feeling,
once obscure and blind,
now give forth, so rarely, so exquisitely,
both warmth and light to their Beloved.

How gently and lovingly
you wake in my heart,
where in secret you dwell alone;
and in your sweet breathing,
filled with good and glory,
how tenderly you swell my heart with love.

John of the Cross

Fire in the Earth

A Service of Silence & Beholding -

an unhurried time in which to dwell at the heart of the Eucharist

8a.m.

Sunday 24^th November

St. Mary’s Church

Sullington

West Sussex

RH20 4AE

It is done.

Once again the Fire has penetrated the earth.

Without earthquake, or thunderclap: 

the flame has lit up the whole world from within.

All things individually and collectively are penetrated and flooded by it, from the inmost core of the tiniest atom to the mighty sweep of the most universal laws of being: so naturally has it flooded every element, every energy, every connecting-link in the unity of our cosmos; that one might suppose the cosmos to have burst spontaneously into flame.

Teilhard de Chardin

Peace be with you

Walking the Walk ...

It is easy to talk about stillness and silence, but for something so simple it can be elusive in practice. Time set aside can be eaten up – or not even be set aside in the first place, good intentions side-lined by all sorts of ‘good’ reasons.

I find that a regular practice of stillness and quiet is really helpful – essential even, like the air that I breathe. This is not in order to become better at it – there seems to be a sense of always beginning at the start every day. No, the practice for me is so as to become more hungry, more empty, more available to the infill of God, to the Beloved. This work is one of commitment to being and beholding, as the Cloud of unknowing says, to ‘smite upon that thick cloud of unknowing with a sharp dart of longing love; and go not thence for thing befalleth.’ Feelings of failure are normal and part and parcel of the whole - what matters is the trying. The rest is up to God.

Still Waters provides an opportunity for an open ‘community of practice’ to meet regularly. Our local sessions here on the South Downs, in a little church in the middle of a farmyard, consist of a few minutes of shared insight offered, before keeping silence together for about 30-35 minutes. The session is then repeated and we leave as we arrived, in quiet, taking the silence with us into the day. It happens even if nobody else comes – an opportunity for each us to be still, to enter silence, to wait, emptying ourselves into the void for the sake of love …

Still Waters:

A time to enter silence, still the mind 

and encounter the present moment in quiet

Saturday 2^nd November 2013

8 – 10 am

St. Mary’s Church, Sullington, 

West Sussex RH20 4AE

Come for an hour at 8 or 9 or stay for the whole time.

Stillness just is.

Attentive but effortless, 

wise stillness lets be what is arising

and lets go what has arisen.

At the still point, we let strain and stress arise

without strain or stress.

For stillness as such is neither strain nor stress.

It is open, boundless and free.

Nothing to gain. Nothing to lose.

Priest-monk Silouan

Wisdom Songs

 Peace be with you

Silence & Beholding

A Service of Silence & Beholding

A time of unhurried silence in which to dwell at the heart of the Eucharist

8 a.m.

Sunday 27^th October 2013

St. Mary’s Church,

Sullington RH20 4AE

  The presence of the Incarnate Word penetrates like a universal element.

It shines at the heart of all things.

Teilhard de Chardin

Peace be with you

Wild Geese

Autumn has arrived at Wild Fortune; following a few mild weeks, the temperature is dropping as are acorns, conkers and leaves. The water butts are full once again. Fungi arrive as if from nowhere and the apples are now picked, crisp and sweet, waiting to be either stored or given away. This is my favourite season. The clarity of light along with the rich colours of earth and foliage and the sharpness of the air is for me enlivening and inviting. And everything seems to be slowing to a pause; days shortening, the year turning, from fruiting and harvest to withdrawal and rest.

                                                   

And every day for the last couple of weeks, the wild geese have been passing by overhead, announcing their impending departure with their harsh calls and straggling v-shaped formations. Sometimes they seem to be practising, flying in wide circles, in small clusters and large groups early morning and late afternoon.  

In Celtic spirituality, where creation is 'God’s big book', the wild goose is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. I can see why. Some years ago on retreat on the Welsh coast my little room overlooked the bay. Each evening dozens of geese would pass over, strong-winged and determined in their flight. I would run outside barefoot to greet them and to be caught up in their calls, often interpreted as being ones of encouragement, blessing them on their way. Here at home this year, the tree tops framing their fleeting presence, they continue to inspire. Crossing boundaries of land and sea, journeying together, they seem to epitomise the raw energy, strength and beauty of the Spirit of God. In doing so, I sense they offer creative insight into what it is to journey with one another.  

Peace be with you.

Absence

A few weeks ago, we arrived home from taking our youngest daughter to university. We have for the first time in 26 years come home to an empty nest. The house is full of reminders of recent presence – a newly vacant bedroom, old shoes, cat sprawled in her usual place, a half pack of favourite breakfast cereal, odd socks in the airing cupboard, photo on the sideboard, the piano (and the television) silent. It is very still, very quiet … and we are aware of the felt-sense of vacuum and absence.

It would be easy to shift our focus and to fill up the place with people, to fill the diary with activity. Whilst that is an option, it feels to me that it is also to turn away from being at the unfurling edge of being present in this place; this is a recurring invitation to attend to the felt-absence, spoken of by poets and mystics alike as painful and raw, a searing ache, a numbing sense of lack, a gaping vacuum. Despite what others might say, I have found that this feeling of absence is an invitation to go deeper in silence and solitude, in loving attention, waiting on God. Allowed to be present and heard, it speaks of the heart’s desire, bringing its wisdom and gift of emptiness into place and time.

  

The Absence

It is this great absence

that is like a presence, that compels

me to address it without hope

of a reply. It is a room I enter

from which someone has just

gone, the vestibule for the arrival

of one who has not yet come.

I modernise the anachronism

of my language, but he is no more here

than before. Genes and molecules

have no more power to call

him up than the incense of the Hebrews

at their altars. My equations fail

as my words do. What resources have I

other than the emptiness without him of my whole

being, a vacuum he may not abhor?

R.S.Thomas

Trees

‘Apprehend God in all things, for God is in all things.’  So said Meister Eckhart.

In this woodland garden, trees are a constant reminder to us of the Presence, branches soaring heavenward, roots hidden deep in the earth. I had no idea before we came to live here that there were different types of oak tree. Amongst the rhododendron and silver birch, we think there are two different sorts in the garden – a couple of Sessile and maybe an English oak. There is another just over the fence in the woods which seems to have adopted us – at least that’s how it feels when the leaves drop!  We often wonder how old they are – a hundred years maybe – young for oak. We are the guests here, enjoying the hospitality of their presence.  I discover each year another sapling growing where the squirrels have hidden their store and am amazed by how deep the tap root of an oak sapling grows. It is also possible to fill a wheelbarrow full with acorns each autumn – each one a potential oak tree – imagine, a forest in a barrow! The canopy is home to birds and insects, lichen and all sorts of other life in micro form.  And then there is the autumn carpet of leaves which is beginning to form again. Wonderful to behold.  

On my walks through the woods behind us, there are other oaks which silently inspire and speak to my spirit. There is ‘fallen oak’, which fell in the storm of ’87. Over the years, our children have climbed it, made dens around the trunk lying amongst bluebells and I have from time to time sat in the crook of a branch reading, or just sat delighting. Until recently, ‘fallen oak’ has come into leaf each year with a regular crop of acorns. This season it is waning, limbs darkened, bark flaking, its bulk shrinking into the ground. Fallen, waning, yet present and beautiful, an icon of the natural rhythm and mystery of life. I am deeply thankful as I touch, pause and walk my way home.

Peace be with you

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, “Stay awhile.”

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,

“and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine.”

Mary Oliver

Syria

Again,

I wonder, watch and weep,

uncomprehending.

Within the rhythm of prayer, I notice

the dissonant voices of shared arrogance,

humility trampled like a broken stem,

questioning, what place silence?

Without, that which will not be silent or still,

postures, debates and threatens,

straining against the bit of dissent.

Whilst against the self-made wall

of silent disinterest

the sound of suffering

echoes and rebounds,

sorrow magnified.

And yet, it seems to me that

silence born of Love, listens,

makes space within itself

for what is heard;

all of it.

Broken open to the other,

wounded, such silence,

through grace, 

becomes a healing presence;

suffering transfigured in ways

that are beyond

knowing and seeing.

Held within this threshold place,

I trust in this other way of being …

Tessa Holland

2^nd September 2013

August

It is August and we have gone to ground here at Wild Fortune – it is a sabbath time for us. Going slow and taking time out is part of our rhythm of life during this month, so there is no Quiet Garden, Still Waters or Service of Silence & Beholding – it is instead a time of slow work, reflection and rest. There is a definite disengagement from the insistence of the diary, getting places and seeing people; it is instead a time to review and take a break here at home, to reconnect with the deeper rhythms of stillness and creativity, ones which have their own renewing dynamic.

                                                

It has been said: ‘Stillness is the language God speaks, and everything else is a bad translation.’ Stillness is really another word for space. Becoming conscious of stillness whenever we encounter it in our lives will connect us with the formless and timeless dimension within ourselves, that which is beyond thought, beyond ego. It may be the stillness that pervades the world of nature, or the stillness in your room in the early hours of the morning, or the silent gaps in between sounds. Stillness has no form – that is why through thinking we cannot become aware of it. Thought is form. Being aware of stillness means to be still. To be still is to be conscious without thought. You are never more essentially, more deeply, yourself than when you are still. When you are still, you are who you were before you temporarily assumed this physical and mental form called person. You are also who you will be when the form dissolves. When you are still, you are who you are beyond your temporal existence: consciousness – unconditioned, formless, eternal.

Eckhart Tolle – A New Earth

Peace be with you.