Slow Train Coming

From The Times    July 15, 2009

The Americans know this will end in schism

Support by US Episcopalians for homosexual clergy is contrary to Anglican faith and tradition. They are leaving the family

Tom Wright

In the slow-moving train crash of international Anglicanism, a decision taken in California has finally brought a large coach off the rails altogether. The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church (TEC) in the United States has voted decisively to allow in principle the appointment, to all orders of ministry, of persons in active same-sex relationships. This marks a clear break with the rest of the Anglican Communion.

read full article 

Deep and Wide: the Poustinia and the Labyrinth

My 2 themes for this year have been:  DEEP and WIDE. They were the themes I took up for our recent sacred:space (4th July) as part of a search for a spirituality for mission. 

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.                                                                                               (Eph. 3:14- 19)

'DEEP' -   the POUSTINIA 

Deep is about going deeper -  spiritually, mentally, personally, faith-fully   'being rooted and established in love'    

I personally have found a 'Poustinia' helpful ( I have built one in the garden) And the following quotes are all from Catherine Doherty's book   Poustinia - Encountering God in Silence Solitude and Prayer 

POSUTINIA means 'desert'  but usually represent a hut in the woods, where in the Russian Tradtion, a Poustinik would go to pray.   It is ‘a quiet, lonely place that people wish to enter to find the God who dwells within them’ 

An entry into the desert, a lonely place, a silent place where one can lift the two arms of prayer and penance to God in atonement, intercession, reparation for ones sins and those of ones brothers’ 

         The Poustinik enters his Poustinia and takes humanity with him. He lifts that humanity before God, with all its pains and sorrows, joys everything 

  

         He would arise and go into the place ‘where heaven meets earth’ departing without any earthly goods, usually dressed in the normal dress of a pilgrim…. A simple handwoven shirt of linen, down to his ankles.....He took along a linen bag, a loaf of bread, some salt, a gourd of water & a staff

Let your Poustinia be a quiet secret garden enclosed, for it is a hallowed place, a holy place where the soul enters to meet God. It is not a show place to be discussed and shown off’. 

‘But the essence of the Poustinia is that it is a place within oneself’

'WIDE' -   the LABYRINTH

Wide is about impacting society more widely -  I have found the concept of the Labyrinth very helpful. It is about wandering into the complexity of the world, on a 'journey to the centre of the earth'  into God and back into the world. ('There and Back again') 

The Labyrinth is also a metaphor of a spiritual journey - a pilgrimage 

"A beautiful spiritual tool -- a pattern, an emblem, a walkway -- has captured my attention and my heart.  The labyrinth is its name."-   Jill K. H. Geoffrion

"Why does the Labyrinth attract people?  Because it is a tool to guide healing, deepen self-knowledge, and empower creativity.  Walking the labyrinth clears the mind and gives insight into the spiritual journey.  It urges action.  It calms people in the throes of life transitions.  It helps them see their lives in the context of a path, a pilgrimage.  They realize that they are not human beings on a spiritual path but spiritual beings on a human path.  To those of us who fell we have untapped gifts to offer, it stirs the creative fires within us.  To others who are in deep sorrow, the walk gives solace and peace.  The experience is different for everyone because each of us brings different raw material to the labyrinth.  We bring our unique hopes, dreams, history, and longings of the soul."
-   Dr. Lauren Artress, Walking a Sacred Path, p. 21

"Walking a Labyrinth is a personal meditative activity and can be understood as a path of contemplation or prayer for people in seeking the Divine or seeking peace without regard to any particular religious tradition."—The Hingham Journal, 9/04

Some see these mysterious traditions as 'esoteric' 'occultic', 'new-age', 'deceptions'   The folowing quote is from  lighthouse trails research  'exposing the dangers of new spirituality' 

"Programs and practices rife with occult methodologies and techniques have been in the works at churches and youth ministries around the country:Taize, Lectio Divina, The Labyrinth (prayer walk), Renovare, guided imagery, Walk to Emmaus, Cursillo, Centering Prayer, Ignatian Awareness Examen, The Jesus Prayer, and The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, to name but a handful." Tom McMahon - The Berean Call

But I think there is so much that is good and helpful in these practices. Hence the whole experimental nature of sacred:space 

"Stand by the roads and look And ask for ancient paths, Where the good way is, And walk it it, and find rest  For your souls."  -   Jeremiah, 6:16

I believe it is possble to be orthodox and generous ( see Brian McLaren:  Generous Orthodoxy)

to be 'deeply rooted and profoundly open' . 

Deep AND wide  

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Eph.3:20- 21)

Deeply rooted: profoundly open

Details of 2 events coming soon in Guildford. A workshop I am running on 'Common Ground' as part of the Diocesan Summer School and a talk at Emmanuel Stoughton as part of a reconcilliation Tour by 2 colleagues Tanas and Joseph 

COMMON GROUND

How far are we prepared to go in terms of engaging with Muslims and people of other faiths, dealing with and working on common social issues. 
We will consider conciliatory, non-confrontational ways of bridge-building and working together without compromising our own beliefs and faith. Bearing in mind any form of engagement with the other necessitates the possibility of change. We will share stories of what works (with examples from around the world) rather than simply look at insurmountable problems.

Date:	Monday, July 13, 2009
Time:	7:45pm - 9:45pm
Location:	Education Centre, Guildford Cathedral
Street:	GU2 7UP
City/Town:	Guildford, United Kingdom

Phone:	01483484916
Email:	summerschool@cofeguildford.org.uk

TOUR OF RECONCILLIATION 

Two different men, two different backgrounds. One road of reconcilliation. One message of Hope.  What happens when 2 men who should be enemies meet the Prince of Peace? Jospeh Steinberg a Jewish believer and Tanas Alqassis a Palestinian Christian share how God brought each of them to himself and made them brothers in Christ. 

Date:	Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Time:	7:30pm - 9:30pm
Location:	Emmanuel Church
Street:	Stoughton GU2 9SJ
City/Town:	Guildford, United Kingdom Phone: 01483823416 Email: richard.jordan@ntlworld.com

Occupation - drama in Iraq

It's a while back now, but I was gripped by the BBC 3-part drama Occupation, about British troops in Iraq. It focuses on the lives of 3 British soldiers in Basra from 2003 to the present.

They all return to Iraq for different reasons, for love, for money, for humanitarian reasons - to rebuild the country.  

 

It is a powerful, gritty drama, tense and complex. There are no clear lines between  'gooddies' and 'baddies', but motives as always are mixed. And the horror and mess of war and the powerlessness to actually change things all comes across.

And I suppose it made the conflict more real for me than the snippets of news on TV over the years  about suicide bombings and unexploded ordinance and a ever rising total of deaths.  And it is not one-sided. There is a lot about the struggle of the Iraqi people who do not have the get-out-clause of a ticket home. 

The Epic of Gilgamesh, an ancient Mesopotamian poem  ('the world's oldest known epic') is quoted twice:  by an Iraqi woman Doctor to her soldier lover and at a funeral. This story-poem frames the whole drama as a sort of motif. 

"Gilgamesh, what you seek you will never find. For when the Gods created man they let death be his lot, eternal life they withheld. Let your every day be full of joy, love the child that holds your hand, let your wife delight in your embrace, for these alone are the concerns of humanity." 

OCCUPATION is still available to view on BBC  i-player   You can watch the trailer on YouTube  and read a review on Times Online

Codex Sinaiticus online

Nothing to do with a new tablet for a naval passage blockage - that would be 'codeine sinusitus' - but everything to do with the oldest version of the Bible in existence. Now available online. Worth just having a look at the text even if (like me) you can't read the 1600 year old greek. No worries there as a translation running aloongside the photographed parchment  

Codex Sinaiticus, a manuscript of the Christian Bible written in the middle of the fourth century, contains the earliest complete copy of the Christian New Testament. The hand-written text is in Greek. The New Testament appears in the original vernacular language (koine) and the Old Testament in the version, known as the Septuagint, that was adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians. In the Codex, the text of both the Septuagint and the New Testament has been heavily annotated by a series of early correctors.  The significance of Codex Sinaiticus for the reconstruction of the Christian Bible's original text, the history of the Bible and the history of Western book-making is immense.

I read about it in the Church of England Newspaper CEN  in an article by Toby Cohen  'World's oldest Bible gets new lease of life' 

Professor David Parker from the University of Birmingham’s Department of Theology, said: “The transcription includes pages of the Codex which were found in a blocked-off room at the Monaster y of St Catherine in 1975, some of which were in poor condition. This is the first time that they have been published.

“The digital images of the virtual manuscript show the beauty of the original and readers are even able to see the difference in handwriting between the different scribes who copied the text. We have even devised a unique alignment system that allows users to link the images with the transcription. This project has made a wonderful book accessible to a global audience.”

 The British Library is running an exhibition form 6 July to 7 September called 'from Parchment to Pixel' 

      have a look at the online gallery 

Ethical Guidelines for Christians and Muslims

In a previous Blog I mentioned I was attending the launch of a statement on ethical evangelism

The remarkable thing about it is it has been written by Muslims and Christians together 

The Christian Muslim Forum launched the statement on 24th June in the offices of Islamic Relief in Waterloo. You can read more about the event  and the Statement itself is downloadable

Ethical Guidelines for Christian and Muslim Witness in Britain

As members of the Christian Muslim Forum we are deeply committed to our own faiths(Christianity and Islam) and wish to bear faithful witness to them. As Christians and Muslims we are committed to working together for the common good. We recognise that both communities actively invite others to share their faith and acknowledge that all faiths have the same right to share their faith with others.

There are diverse attitudes and approaches amongst us which can be controversial and raise questions. This paper is not a theology of Christian evangelism or mission or Da’wah (invitation to Islam), rather it offers guidelines for good practice.

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The Christian Muslim Forum offers the following suggestions that, we hope, will equip Christians and Muslims (and others) to share their faith with integrity and compassion forthose they meet.

1) We bear witness to, and proclaim our faith not only through words but through our attitudes, actions and lifestyles.

2) We cannot convert people, only God can do that. In our language and methods we should recognise that people’s choice of faith is primarily a matter between themselves and God.

3) Sharing our faith should never be coercive; this is especially important when working with children, young people and vulnerable adults. Everyone should have the choice to accept or reject the message we proclaim and we will accept people’s choices without resentment.

4) Whilst we might care for people in need or who are facing personal crises, we should neve manipulate these situations in order to gain a convert.

5) An invitation to convert should never be linked with financial, material or other inducements. It should be a decision of the heart and mind alone.

6) We will speak of our faith without demeaning or ridiculing the faiths of others.

7) We will speak clearly and honestly about our faith, even when that is uncomfortable or controversial.

8) We will be honest about our motivations for activities and we will inform people when events will include the sharing of faith.

9) Whilst recognising that either community will naturally rejoice with and support those who have chosen to join them, we will be sensitive to the loss that others may feel.

10) Whilst we may feel hurt when someone we know and love chooses to leave our faith, we will respect their decision and will not force them to stay or harass them afterwards.

Christian Muslim Forum

Mapping Dialogue: essential tools for social change

I have been reading a book recommended by a colleague: Mapping Dialogue:   Essential Tools for Social Change by  Marianne Mille Bojer, Heiko Roehl,   Marianne Knuth, Colleen Magner (Taos 2008)

This is a practical book of tools for consultancy with many ideas and suggestions  

•  “conference designed as a coffee break’   
  
• ‘Networked conversation modelled on natural communication’ 

These are great for finding new ways fo constructing dialogues and getting people involved in real conversations to being about transformation. World cafe is now becoming well established as an alternative conference structure.  

You can read a book review  or better still the whole book is shared online  on scribd.com.   This remarkable site hosts thousands of online books  on a whole range of subjects. And its all FREE   

  

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