The Word spoken in silence

As Christmastide becomes the season of Epiphany, as days begin to lengthen and we embrace the new year with all its opportunities and challenges, we invite you to continue to journey with us here at Wild Fortune, a threshold place of contemplative stillness, creativity and welcome.  

Our next Quiet Garden morning is Wednesday 11^th January, 10am – 12.30pm. This is now fully booked, but there are a couple of spaces on March 8th; please let us know if you would like to come as booking is essential. Our focus through the year will be creation as ‘God’s big book’ drawing on celtic spirituality, words from the Christian mystical tradition and the practice of stillness and silence. As previously, along with the garden and woods, the house, prayer loft and ‘shed’ will be available for quiet space and there will be refreshments in the kitchen. Please bring soft shoes or slippers for indoors and stout shoes or wellies for outside.

This Saturday, 7^th January, is Still Waters, in the prayer loft from 8.30-10am. On the basis of numbers and on what we feel able to offer, we do wonder if the current format has run its course? So, in response to a suggestion, we propose a shift in focus to ‘Lectio Divina’, the ancient practice of reading and reflecting on the Word of God, which many have found to be a deeply enriching and creative process of contemplative listening. It has been called a communion beyond words, a time of becoming one with the Word. The format would be something like – 8.30 gathering in quiet and then from 9am the process of reading the chosen passage (lectio), reflecting (meditatio), responding (oratio) and resting (contemplatio), finishing by 10am.  Would you like to join us? Do please let us know; no expertise necessary, it is a very gentle and prayerful guided process.  

The season of Epiphany will be our inspiration for A Service of Silence & Beholding on January 22^nd at 8am at St. Mary’s Sullington. For further details, please select the relevant page on the right hand side. 

The Father spoke one Word, which was his Son,

and this Word he speaks always in eternal silence,

and in silence it must be heard by the soul.

St John of the Cross

Peace be with you 

Come to be born, to bear us to our birth

 O Emmanuel
by Malcolm Guite
 

O Come, O Come, and be our God-with-us

O long sought With-ness for a world without,

O secret seed, O hidden spring of light.

Come to us Wisdom, come unspoken Name,

Come Root, and Key, and King, and Holy Flame.

O quickened little wick so tightly curled,

Be folded with us into time and place,

Unfold for us the mystery of grace

And make a womb of all this wounded world.

O heart of heaven beating in the earth,

O tiny hope within our hopelessness

Come to be born, to bear us to our birth,

To touch a dying world with new-made hands

And make these rags of time our swaddling bands. 

from Waiting on The Word

 by Malcolm Guite

This Christmastide, wherever you are, 

whatever your circumstances, 

may you know the peace and joy of 

Emmanuel, God-with-us.

Advent Words & Images - Doorways into Mystery and Promise

Advent: Alpha, Omega and the Eternal Now

In my preparation for the Advent Service of Silence & Beholding last Sunday, I stumbled (and there is no other word for it) across the online blog by Malcolm Guite, poet and author. His words resonate with me at the start of this season, with what has been a year of paradox for us as a family; in his introduction to his book 'Waiting on the Word' (Canterbury Press 2015), Guite both honours the tradition of looking back to the birth of Christ and looking forward to the promises of fulfilment in the new heaven and new earth. At the same time, he invites us to find a third focus, one of awakening to the possibility that "the God in whom we live and move and have our being may come and meet us when and where he pleases, and any door we open, may be the door to the 'chapel perilous'" (Guite: 2015). For me, this speaks of the 'Eternal Now' of Christ. 

Throughout Advent, Malcolm Guite is publishing his poetry to the Advent Antiphons with accompanying art-works on his blog, with the option of signing up for a daily email. The link is:   https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/tag/advent-antiphons/

               

Maranatha: Come, O You Who Are Come

Come, O You Who Are Come ...

An Advent Service of Silence & Beholding

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

Sunday November 27th

8am St. Mary's Church, 

Sullington, RH20 4AE

O Wisdom:

I cannot think unless I have been thought,

Nor can I speak unless I have been spoken.

I cannot teach except as I am taught,

Or break the bread except as I am broken.

O Mind behind the mind through which I seek,

O Light within the light by which I see,

O Word beneath the words with which I speak,

O founding, unfound Wisdom, finding me,

O sounding Song whose depth is sounding me,

O Memory of time, reminding me,

My Ground of Being, always grounding me,

My Maker’s Bounding Line, defining me,

Come, hidden Wisdom, come with all you bring,

Come to me now, disguised as everything.

Advent Antiphons

Malcolm Guite

https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/tag/advent-antiphons/

Peace be with you

the energies of love ...

As leaves fall, evenings darken and the temperature drops, it seems to me that there is a withdrawal of natural energy into the depths of the earth's being, not into passivity but into the quiet inner activity of preparation, resourcing and renewal. So it is with contemplative practice ...

So, for this month of remembrance of the saints of the ages and of all those fallen in the wars of this world, past and current, I offer these words from The Unbearable Wholeness of Being by Ilea Delio for meditation and reflection.

Without religious convergence, evolution cannot go forward because we cannot harness the energies of love for greater unity and being. Religious convergence is not by way of doctrine but of what we hold together across languages, cultures, and religions: earth, community, peace and justice. We must enter into communion 'with the very source of all interior drive' (Teilhard de Chardin). The convergence of religions must be centred on love, as each religion expresses love and union with the divine in its own particular way. To live from the inner depth of love, as persons in evolution, is to live with purpose and direction not as an 'I' but as a 'we', a collective whole. To know God as the wholeness of love is to enter into oneness at the heart of all life. That is why prayer and contemplation are essential for the next stage of evolution. Without the eye of the heart or the inner space to welcome the new ways love shows itself in others, we cannot love toward greater unity. God is the ultimacy of love, the heart of life, and the power of the future. Any religion that attempts to grasp or control God kills cosmic hope. To recognise the face of God in the face of the other liberates the other ... Rather the other becomes a brother or sister, bound together by the luminous thread of love. 

May our practice be graced with love for one another 

across time, distance and difference.

The peace of Christ be with you

In Fullness of Being

A Service of Silence & Beholding:an unhurried time in which to dwell at the heart of the Eucharist

Sunday 23rd October

8am 

St. Mary's Church, Sullington. RH20 4AE

We are love creatures.

We yearn for wholeness, happiness, and peace in love.

But the more we look outside ourselves, the less we are settled within...

the very yearning of the human heart is thwarted 

by modern culture's preoccupation with material things.

Love cannot be bought or purchased; it is not a commodity to exchange. 

love is the law of evolution written on the human heart.

we are created to love and to evolve in love...

Love is a form of worship, a transcendent spiritual power ...

Ilia Delio

The Unbearable Wholeness of Being

Come and be awakened in Love.

Peace be with you 

Hearing the Song of the Beloved

Christ sings the Song of Songs as his own holy song of songs. 

Christ in our midst sings the Song of Songs in his midst...

Christ in the Song knocks at the door of your heart, saying:

Come within, and see.

Priest-Monk Silouan

Wisdom Songs

Drawing on the wisdom writings of the Song of Songs and of the Christian mystics, we shall gather again for 

A Service of Silence & Beholding:

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

Sunday 25th September 8am

St. Mary's Church, Sullington

RH20 4AE

All are welcome

Come within, and see.