the sensation of life
Brahms: A German Requiem I am sitting on a chair. I am not comfortable. My bottom is sore. I am unsure of this selection of music. It is one person’s choice of their favourite pieces and performances, much of it firmly within the core canon of the Western classical tradition: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and … Continue reading Disclosure II
[This is a first attempt to articulate experiences in Ceremony and how they have opened me to more of God.] Thursday 17 March 2022 Gorecki: Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, I Qobuz | Spotify | YouTube I am sitting cross-legged on a meditation cushion. My eyes are closed as I listen to the music. I am … Continue reading Disclosure I
It all started with an email. Of course, it had been going on before that. Annette and I had been reading Gabor Maté, particularly When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress. On 29th October 2021, an email dropped into my inbox: Psychedelics and Compassionate Inquiry with Dr Gabor Maté. [The original details … Continue reading Coming Out
Thursday 2nd or Saturday 4th December 2021 If you want, the Virgin will come walking down the road pregnant with the holy, and say, “I need shelter for the night, please take me inside your heart, my time is so close.” St John of the Cross Advent is a time of waiting. A birth is due … Continue reading Retreat days for Advent
Years ago, I dipped into Stephen Covey’s book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I was hit between the eyes by this sentence: Only basic goodness gives life to technique.p. 21 I am not good, but I’d like to be, and this sentence has stayed with me as a standard to live up to. It … Continue reading Only basic goodness gives life to technique
In case you haven’t guessed, I am a big fan of Ignatian Spirituality. And with that couplet is the genesis of a problem. By using the phrase ‘Ignatian Spirituality’, I am already creating something that I’m not sure has much substance. I’m a fan of God and Jesus. I’m a fan of prayer. I’m a … Continue reading Ignatian Scaffolding
The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet. Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking Many of us long to know what we should do with our lives and how we should live on a day by day basis. Those of us with a religious bent want … Continue reading Retreat Day: “What do You want me to do?”
Sunday morning: sitting, praying. I have taken to moving my chair to face the window so I look out on the simple morning light. I tend to alternate between journaling and a still and silent awareness of being this body. I say ‘praying’ but really I am pondering what I want to do today: what … Continue reading Coterminous
Every year everything I have ever learned in my lifetime leads back to this: the fires and the black river of loss whose other side is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. Mary Oliver: In Blackwater Woods I was listening to Radio 3 over breakfast on Wednesday. Bryn Terfel was interviewed and … Continue reading Lass auch Dir die Brust bewegen, Liebchen, höre mich!
By their fruits ye shall know them. Matthew 7.16 A person is walking along the street and a thought comes to her: “I ought to phone my Auntie Julie. I know it is boring, and I never know what to say, but she must be lonely stuck in her flat with no visitors.” Another person … Continue reading It’s only your imagination