Seeking Gold

Beyond Lent, the intense emotions aroused are slowly being re-focussed into a new awareness that pervades every part of life… intensity dissipated as life returns: to live at such a height is unsustainable. Who, I find myself wondering, has tried to live at this fine intersection of Crucifixion and Resurrection – and was it ever attempted, even by the mystics?

Something of the fading shimmer will remain – Moses’ face slowly lost its unviewable intensity, yet the memory of that shimmering gold has permeated all life. We move to a rhythm that takes us ever closer to what we seek.

‘Seeking Gold’ timelessly, ancient footsteps pressed down into hard ground and the myriad feet marks superimposed, as the multitude follow.. nameless.

A pilgrimage of grace. And re-creating this sense of joy and journey, leads to pilgrimage – a Pilgrimage Trail for the 2012 Olympics. A suggestion taken up, a warm affirmation, and a charge to see this come into being. Who could expect that being invited to a Diocesan Committee might involve any more than a brief moment to voice an idea? Or that nearly 2 hours could be given to hearing the suggestion, seeing the Brochure, forming a plan: and commissioning it!

Expectations of 60,000 visitors each day of the Olympics, coming to Weymouth, must mean some will look for a day out – and finding our Brochure, head for the little churches on the trail. Each church has its own Pilgrim Badge – and children collecting one from each of the churches will qualify for a ‘Super-Gold’ badge, saying “Seek and you shall find GOLD”

So there comes a visit to each of the clergy and each of the ten churches – 400 miles of linked visits – sharing the excitement, asking for volunteers to welcome Pilgrims, a place to display leaflets offering simple/profound insights into matters of faith, and ones offering a gentle tour round the church with a prayer attached to each stopping point. Then, at the church, seeing for myself the approach, accessibility, loos, parking, and how welcoming it actually appears to the new eye…

Some things to draw gently into attention: the pile of unused books occupying a pew, the old notices wavering on the board – how few churches display any contact details for enquirers.

And then… the moments of sheer delight: entering a light-filled church, where there is a palpable sense of welcome, with a comfortable chair in a sunny corner [replacing two pews] and within touch of a bookshelf, a picture displayed for meditation.

‘How shall we reach them?’ constant refrain of those who want others to join them in the pews…yet it is the pilgrimage that is the meeting point, the accompanying, the hospitality of love. Conformity is for the insecure, but for the questioner here is an open space without answers but with grace to grow.

Shalom at Sarum

 

Perhaps it is better when there are no expectations, no knowledge… allowing space for the Holy Spirit to filter through the ‘static’ of our days, and fill us with presence.

Arriving beneath the Cathedral’s great soaring height, entering the vast stone space, struck again at how vibrant that space is – not cold, not empty, but alive – prayer and presence have filled it to overflowing, there is an awareness that even in the dark this place would hum – and shimmer.

We were early; queued at the long trestles lining the bitter-windy North porch, finding friends among the clergy in attendance. Booklet [the service] and a pack of gifts [fridge magnet, book mark, information] and then we were inside the light.

The great square font, lipped at the corners where light glistens on a ceaseless waterfall, the still surface as smooth as marble…

and we pass and re-pass, finding the space to gather at the West End, in a jumble of arrivals: startled at how few are here – until in time the doors cascade arrivals, and we were 300 – Shalom.

Standing waiting, the Bishop is caught in time and light – his white clothing and white mitre far from the Prince Bishops once familiar here. Gone too the great golden glitter of a Bishop’s crook – his is simple and plain, carved from horn, the same quality of support and usage of any working shepherd’s.

Singing – too fast to draw breath – we are swept into purpose: led beyond the Font [trailing our fingers to leave behind the burdens we brought here] and counted out in tens to spend the morning exploring.

Alison Morgan – she of the “Wild Gospel” – speaks of healing, prayer, miracles, and in the same matter-of-fact voice we so rarely use for faith. Defines the separation between ‘Physical’, ‘Inner’ and ‘Spiritual’ healing: where are we heading?

Glancing round from our unexamined group of strangers to see who is nearby, there is the Bishop gently part of a group: Inner Healing – what a wonderful discussion that must have been.

Ours becomes intent: introductions [leaning well back on seats]; examples of inner healing [one by one, leaning forward, involved, trusting, open]. Coincidence of suffering: a life affected now by forgiveness.

So shall we be healed: “I am the God who heals you” – “YOU” – that is a surprise…how completely personal.

And we form a long pathway, each walking in turn under the arched hands, being prayed for, and in our turn standing to pray for others passing under our own raised arms. The sense of prayer received, of immediate blessing, of the love …of God …transmitted through one another.

The Eucharist – long lines of shimmering silver chalices: lines of servers in white with scarlet scarves. The Bishop :: imagined, now real, of humility and authority.

Martin Cavender – lawyer turned healer – speaking compellingly of God.”I am the God who heals you”

And at the end, we move forward for anointing, for prayer, for the grace to pick up the broken pieces of our lives and find a new pattern, a new ordinariness – transformed and changed and made whole.

finding a way through Lent, begins again

Smoky marks form a cross on my forehead, and echo the crusted cross above the tiny church where I received them.

Tiny church – the smallest in England – rests among sheep on a green slope; an almost imperceptible stream at the field’s boundary, following a distant track to Ebbesbourne.

Enormous sums have been raised to preserve this small stone building, rebuild its roof, plaster its stonework, damp-proof floors, and place a ribbon of heaters around the cold walls.

Enshrining memories of times gone into mist, ever a small community edging along a narrow valley, rural and distant.

..and the ashes link us: a light scatter of history … touches and passes, and a smudge remains to mark the skin.

Snow business like …snow business

Snow falling like slow rain… plump pigeons perched in the tall branches of empty trees … and all the time, Christmas creeping closer with a rustle of paper and shimmering tinsel.

It could be a cold old journey even to Sussex, and the chance of a greater snowfall before then: holding on to a frozen chicken ‘just in case’.

Heathrow – having imported 2 snow-ploughs from Zurich at untold expense – cannot move any passenger aircraft away from their parking bays, because the wheels have frozen, and the ice-clearing machinery cannot deal with that.

So quantities of people, despite all the advice on tv, papers, radio, set off for their Far-Eastern holidays – and find the motorways are solid and unmoving, with jack-knifed lorries and stuck cars; that there are long, stationery queues leading to the airport carparks; and that they then sit for hours on hard seats, waiting for news of another delayed flight.

Then they become cross with everyone in authority. The airline staff are abused; the airport authority is blamed for not causing aircraft to take off – even in freezing fog, and blizard conditions – and the government is blamed for not being prepared for so severe a winter. Ummm… anyone else to blame? like the people who leave home in these conditions, when they’ve been asked not to travel unless it is strictly necessary?

‘First Sight’ by Philip Larkin

Lambs that learn to walk in snow
When their bleating clouds the air
Meet a vast unwelcome, know
Nothing but a sunless glare.
Newly stumbling to and fro
All they find, outside the fold,
Is a wretched width of cold.

As they wait beside the ewe,
Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies
Hidden round them, waiting too,
Earth’s immeasureable surprise.
They could not grasp it if they knew,
What so soon will wake and grow
Utterly unlike the snow.                       Philip Larkin

zebra stripes and tiger spots

snow outside, stripes indoors – on computer screen, which looks like a spaced-out rainbow. lively, but difficult to read through. Hoping for new graphics card – this is a known fault, it seems, and Apple repairs it.
Great relief, having consulted various expert friends, who sighed ‘hardwear’ and ‘expensive’. not words you want to hear.
Not even at Christmas – when Father Christmas’ hearing might not be that acute.

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