Conk-ed Out

Yesterday I had my first game of conkers for about 30 years!

From boyhood memory, conkers was quite a rapid game. A few exchanges of blows. One conker shatters. Game over.

But yesterday, after several minutes whacking each other’s conker, no discernible damage was done.

Except to ourselves. I had forgotten how much it hurts when your conker misses, and you end up thwacking your own wrist! I have a tender bruise today.

So, my opponent and I called a truce on the field of combat, honour was satisfied, and we walked away! No conkers were harmed.

So, what is the truth of the matter?

Was the conkers of my youth a rapid-fire game? Have we just lost our touch? Are conkers particularly robust this year? Or is my memory a false memory?

Which started me thinking about memory. What do we remember and why?

Because it is clear that we do not remember everything that happens to us every day.
Try going backwards in your mind about the minutiae of your day yesterday, or a week ago, or a month ago. There will be vast swathes of time for which you have no recollection.
But some things you will remember. You will remember those moments that were particularly meaningful – for good or bad.

As a child, I think I had physical fights with other boys about 3 times. I can remember each of those incidents, even 50 years later.

I can remember the wonder of Christmas Eve and lying in my bed, straining to hear any sound of Father Christmas climbing the stairs.

Remembering the important things that happen to you is a vital element in the spiritual life. We can understand much of the Bible as an attempt to preserve the memory for future generations of what God has done in human history. The gospels are a memory of Jesus – who he was, what he said, what he did.

In our own life we need to remember the important spiritual moments we live through. They might be good memories, when God spoke clearly to us, when we encountered God in worship, or in Scripture or whilst praying. Moments when God worked in response to our prayers and we saw something amazing happen.

Or they might be difficult memories. Moments when our faith wobbled. When God seemed absent and we doubted his love for us.

We need to remember these moments. The good memories we build our sense of hope and expectation, that God could do it again. The bad memories will help us to remember that although the night was dark, finally the dawn broke. Again, something that will give us a hope to hold on to.

How do you remember your spiritual moments?
Do you keep a spiritual journal, recording these moments, so that you can go back to them, remind yourself of them?
If not, it is something I would recommend you try.

A final verse about my boyhood pass-time;

Revelation 3:12: The one who conkers(!), I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God.

Making Your Place Thinner

In this COVID-19 lockdown we find ourselves distanced from our normal places of divine encounter – churches, sacred places, holy wells, places of natural beauty.

This situation made me wonder whether theology of ‘Thin Places’ is worth exploring.

Writing about his own experience of a ‘thin place’ a journalist explains,

“There is a name for spaces such as this: “thin places”, a Celtic Christian term for “those rare locales where the distance between heaven and Earth collapses”, as Eric Weiner puts it in his spirituality travelogue, ‘Man Seeks God’. They’ve been called “the places in the world where the walls are weak”, where another dimension seems nearer than usual.”[1]

I’m sure each one of us has encountered a ‘thin space’ many times. Maybe it’s a place of extraordinary beauty, or a moment in time – a sunrise or sunset, or maybe it’s a place where someone deeply spiritual has lived and prayed, or maybe it’s a moment of deep significance in your life.

At each of these ‘thin places’ we sense the presence of God, we know in a way beyond explaining that there is more to life than life. We know, deeply, unshakeably, that the simple reductionism of science that would make existence merely an interplay of atoms and molecules is just plain wrong. In the moment of encounter we are convinced that life is more than merely what we can measure.

the simple reductionism of science, that would make existence merely an interplay of atoms and molecules, is just plain wrong

I have experienced many ‘thin places’ in my life.

Some of these it was the place itself that is ‘thin’ because of what had happened there, or because of its intrinsic qualities.

I remember kneeling in prayer inside the ruins of the church built on the islet where St Cuthbert first retreated to be alone with God when the pressure of leading Lindisfarne Abbey got too much. That was a deeply spiritual moment in my life.

Other places are deeply ordinary but become ‘thin’ in a moment of divine encounter.

I remember sitting in my living room holding my new-born son and I suddenly felt a love sweep over me for this child that rocked me to my core.

As I struggled to make sense of this I heard the voice of God say,

‘If you, as a human father, can love your son this much, how much more do you think that I, your heavenly Father, love you?’

That was another life changing moment where my relationship with God was transformed, my understanding of religion turned upside down, and the direction of my life irrevocably altered.

The very ordinary place in which I found myself had become ‘thin’.

Separated as we are in our isolation I wonder if there are things that we can do, that might make our places thinner?

Are there practices that we could adopt that might transform the places in which we are confined into ‘thin places’?

I believe there are some things that might help;

The setting aside of a space to pray and the regular practice of using it.

Set up a prayer space in a quiet corner. In all Orthodox homes there is an icon shelf in the corner of the room opposite the door, so as you enter a room the first thing you see is a reminder of God’s presence here.

When Jesus was asked to teach his disciples how to pray he gave them these instructions,

‘But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.’ Matthew 6:6-7, NIV

So set up a quiet space to pray, establish a regular practice of prayer – it doesn’t have to be long, just make it regular to start with. Don’t worry about words if they don’t come – use prayers like the Lord’s Prayer, or just BE with God in silence.

Maybe that will help your place to become thinner.

Sacred Art

You could also decorate your home with things that draw your thoughts upwards and outwards. There is some good advice on what helps us become more spiritual from St Paul;

‘Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.’ Philippians 4:8, NIV.

Artwork that includes biblical texts, or spiritual themes, icons, pictures of extraordinary beauty – anything that lifts your spirits and your thoughts away from earthly preoccupations and draws them to respond to God in thankfulness and hope.

I have a small icon of Christ that I picked up in a charity shop in Rome, a charity that worked with people living on the streets.

The icon only cost a few euros and it is not a high quality item.

And yet there is something about it. Perhaps it’s about where I bought it and why, but something has made it significant in my life.

It is my regular practice to spend time in prayer before it – it is placed on my desk and I regularly take a moment just to be with Jesus – face to face. It helps.

Listen Well

 

Listen to podcasts, music etc. that you find has a similar tendency to draw your thoughts upwards to God and outwards to others. Handel’s Messiah I find particularly powerful. An acquaintance told me recently of how Mendelssohn’s Elijah had been spiritually profound in his life. Find something of spiritual quality that draws you to God, that opens your heart and mind to a divine encounter.

Isolation mustn’t become the new normal

Of course all the above is in the nature of making the best of a bad job.

The Christian faith is unalterably communal; we cannot be children of God and not be brothers and sisters to those in a similar relationship with our Father.

In fact, Jesus made genuine Christian community the irrefutable proof of us being his disciples,

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35, NIV

So whilst our private spiritual practices are important and necessary, than cannot be a substitute for corporate spiritual life – worship, prayer, fellowship, bearing with one another, loving and caring for one another.

But maybe in these unusual times, we can find ways of making the places in which we find ourselves holed up ‘thinner’. Maybe this time of isolation is a call to go deeper with God, to open up more of our life to his influence, to be less distracted by the passing from the eternal.

I pray that your and my place might become thinner.

 

[1] This column will change your life: where heaven and Earth collide – Oliver Burkeman, Sat 22 Mar 2014,www.theguardian.com

Lessons from the dram

I had a holiday in Edinburgh recently, which was wonderful, although somewhat bizarre, as I once worked there every day for about 3 years! But you approach a place very differently when you are in holiday mode rather than work mode.

I discovered many things that I had never seen before. I hadn’t even known that you could climb to the top of the Scott Monument – which is awesome, if a little claustrophobic getting to the top and then vertigo inducing once you’re there!

I discovered Saint Margaret’s chapel, inside Edinburgh castle – a small place of worship dating back 900 years.

During our few days’ stay we did lots of stuff and one of them was to visit ‘The Scotch Whisky Experience’. Which was fun and informative and explained the whole process of whisky production and included a guided tasting of a single malt.

As I reflected on the process of whisky making synapses started to fire and I realized that there are many parallels with spiritual growth. You might say that;

increasing the spirit content of a dram

and increasing the Spirit content of a man are analogous.

The first thing that I noticed is that increasing the spirit content of a dram does not diminish the differences between the whiskies, rather it augments them. As with beer and bread, two other ‘simple’ recipes with only a very few ingredients, an infinite variety of taste, texture and aroma seem possible.

As the spirit content of the dram increases, this is expressed in a character that is completely original and dependent upon a large variety of factors – the ingredients themselves, the peat used to toast the grain, the processing and brewing, the shape of the still, the skills of those involved in the process and the qualities of the barrels used to age the whisky etc. etc.

In a similar way, as a man opens himself up more and more to the Spirit of God, an utterly unique character will be expressed. A man does not ‘lose’ himself in becoming Christ-like, rather he finds his true, unique self.

The second thing I noticed was that making a dram takes time. Three years at the very minimum and most good whiskies takes at least 12 years to reach their full potential. They wait, in obscurity, quietly developing their character, until the day when they are sent out into the world.

Spiritual growth in a man is also a slow, time-consuming process; where it often feels like nothing is happening and that God has forgotten about you. You are just quietly soldiering on, doing the right things, living the right way and imperceptibly your character is growing. One day, when the time is right, God will release you into your service in His world.

The third resonance that I noticed was something we were told during the guided whisky tasting. Our guide said that whisky should be experienced through colour, nose, body, and taste. He said that in the ‘nose’ phase people often make the mistake of sticking their nose right into the glass in order to appreciate the whisky’s aroma. This in counter productive as whisky is a strong spirit, and all this does is to ‘burn’ their nose, to overpower the nose’s capacity to discern the complex nature of the whisky. Rather you should hold the glass at a hand’s distance below your nose and swirl the whisky, this will release the vapours in a less overpowering way, allowing a fuller appreciation.

It is here that the analogy between ‘growth in the spirit’ and ‘growth in the Spirit’ break down. For it is precisely at the moment when a man feels himself about to be overpowered by the Spirit that he should not draw back, but rather totally let go and abandon himself, in his entirety, to God. It is a wonderful adventure but to embrace it you have to grab it with both hands, you must jump off the cliff if you would experience the wonder of flight.

I love a fine single malt scotch whisky, and I really enjoyed the Scotch Whisky Experience, which has further developed my appreciation of this good gift of God; but I had not expected that it would inspire me in my own Spiritual growth too.