“Progress in intimacy with God means progress towards silence.” (Richard J Foster).
How can we make space for God during this busy Advent season? One way is be silent! In ‘The Big Silence’ - a three part BBC documentary broadcast recently, a group of five busy professionals (only one of them a Christian) found God in incredibly deep ways through spending time in silence at a monastery. But the hardest challenge they faced, was making space for silence once they were back home.
St Beuno’s, the monastery where part two of ‘The Big Silence’ was filmed, was the home of the famous poet and Jesuit priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins. Many of my books grow out of the soil of silence written either at home or while staying at my local Anglican convent. But you don’t have to visit a monastery or convent to find some silence. Here are some suggestions:
- Switch off the radio, TV, cell phone and computer etc.
- Go for a walk.
- Sit in the garden. (Even better build a shed or poustina in your garden)
- Wear ear plugs!
- Put on your headphones but don’t switch on your iPod. Folk then leave you alone because they think you’re listening to music!
- Use your car as a sacred bubble. I often travel for hours on the motorway in silence as preparation for an event I’m about to lead. If you travel by public transport, then the ‘pretend headphones’ technique works well!
Let’s try a few minutes silence now:
In order to find the pathway that leads to intimacy with God, we need to discover the gift of silence, for it is in the silence of the heart that God speaks.
So let’s spend a few minutes just enjoying the silence… You might like to close your eyes…Don’t worry if thoughts or distractions pop into your mind – that’s quite normal… Simply visualise yourself placing them to one side like piles of papers (you can always pick them up later if you choose to)… Now try to ‘tune out’ the noise and clutter of life and ‘tune in’ to the stillness and peace...
Silence is...
A space in time to retreat.
A place to grow, to be watered and fed.
To learn only those things
that flourish
in its soil.
from ‘The Pilgrim Heart’ Liz Babbs
I've been meditating on various scriptures relating to water recently, including Noah building the Arc and Peter walking on water. Trusting God can sometimes seem as scary as walking on water or sailing across the ocean in a flimsy coracle! Saint Brendan the Navigator is famous for his courage at sea - his trust, determination and obedience were so strong, that he is said to have been the first person to sail across the Atlantic! I love the faith and humility expressed in this emotive prayer which is attributed to St Brendan:
Stone upon stone
"Oh, my goodness! St. Patrick’s Day is huge in America. But for Americans the saint means green stuff: green beer, green carnations, shamrocks, cupcakes with green icing…and it’s also a time for celebrating Irish America, which is a good thing. However, my experience has been that Americans know little about the saint himself. The stories we hear is that he drove the snakes out of Ireland, that he brought Christianity to Ireland, and that he explained the Triune God by using the three-leafed shamrock as an example. None of these things, by the way, is supported by historical evidence. There is so much more to St. Patrick than that!
Most people know that there were no snakes in Ireland—there still aren’t. It’s generally accepted that the reference to snakes was symbolic, either as evil or as the old religion. However, none of St. Patrick’s writings refer to snakes. He did spread Christianity throughout Ireland, however what most people don’t know is that there were Christians in Ireland before St. Patrick came to convert it. What a lot of Americans don’t realize is that St. Patrick was not Irish. He was kidnapped and brought to the island as a slave, and was born somewhere in Wales or Scotland or northern England."
Top Ten Things You might not know About St. Patrick
As part of that celebration I've been learning how to play the Bodrum drum to accompany one of the concert jigs. I only managed to borrow one the other day days and so I'm not particularly skilled at it yet, in fact, I'm still learning how to keep hold of the beater so that it doesn't fly out of my hand! But then, Celtic spirituality is all about joining in, you don't need any qualifications, you just need to let go and enjoy being fully alive! 
Simeon Wood will be playing music from his composition 'Across the Blue Sea' which was inspired by St Columba and his missionary travels to Iona and beyond, and he'll be playing a whole range of instruments (plus his bass flute, which American Airlines have just returned)! We hope that folk will catch our passion for Jesus, too, and see how our Celtic journey has both enriched and deepened our faith.
When we are marked with ashes, it is a sign of the spirit of penitence which we retain throughout the season of Lent. Ashes are also a symbol of our own mortality and remind us that we are but dust, and to dust we shall return.
Yesterday was Valentine's Day, which can leave many of us feeling excluded. I must say that I much prefer the more inclusive tradition in the US, because any of your friends, male of female can wish you a happy Valentine's Day and send you cards. I still have a lovely rose which doubles as a pen, which my Texan friend and her husband gave me some years ago. And that is the nature of God's love, too - it is totally inclusive and binds us together through each other. 
Novelist, Mary DeMuth in her memoir 'Thin Places' (Zondervan 2010) describes thin places as, '..snatches of holy ground, tucked into the corners of our world, where, if we pay very close attention, we might just catch a glimpse of eternity.....They are aha moment, beautiful, realizations, when the Son of God burst through the hazy fog of our monotony and shines on us afresh.'
Posts
