Available Light

This is a recreation of my talk at the 3 in 1 gathering, in St Michael's church, Dunedin, last Sunday. I want to tell you a parable. The kingdom of heaven is like two young fish who are swimming along when they encounter an old fish. "Good morning boys," says the old fish, "isn't the water lovely today!" The two young fish swim on until the old fish is well out of earshot, then one turns to the other and asks, "what the heck is water?" I borrowed this parable from a speech by David Foster Wallace. He was using it for other purposes, but it fits nicely with the verse from John's Gospel I mentioned last week: No one has ever seen God. It is the only Son, himself God, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known. (John 1:1) No one has seen God, or heard, smelled, felt or tasted God either, for that matter, but that doesn't make God unreal, just as the fish's unawareness of the water in which they live, move and have their...

Two weeks ago I invited our diocese to take time and pray about the changes we will shortly have to make together. The weekend was brilliantly organised by our Bishop's Chaplain, John Franklin. John invited people to listen rather than speak and, wherever possible, to record the thoughts and images which came to them in the silence. Over the last few days John and I have read the responses, and John has collated them. The following is what our people heard: We are called to acknowledge God’s greatness and God’s goodness.  The mission, and its agent, the church, is Christ’s! We may not know what is going on, but give thanks!   For unless the Lord builds the house, we labour in vain.   We attend to the builder with prayer and trust. We did not invent the church, so in all humility, we must let go of what we have created that no longer serves the kingdom. We are utterly dependent on the Holy Spirit; Jesus says, ‘Without me you can do nothing”. Se...

In a couple of weeks our diocese will hold its annual synod, and given the significant changes that are in store for us I have asked that this weekend, August 31 - September 2, we set aside time to pray, specifically, about our future. John Franklin has done a great job of organising this weekend and I am excited and humbled by the  inventiveness and enthusiasm with which people have taken up the call. I will be attending events in Gore and Dunedin over the next couple of days and look forward to hearing what happens in other centres. When we pray together this weekend three  things will happen: We will be bound into community. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray he told them to begin "Our father" not "My father". All the personal pronouns in the Lords prayer are plurals. We shouldn't be surprised at this, for the revelation of God has always been given to communities - Israel, the disciples, the Church - and its implications worked out by communitie...

It was a day off today and I went for a walk to St. Clair and back, along an almost deserted St. Kilda Beach under a clear blue mid winter sky. In all, I walked about 15 km. This was a step (sorry) in my preparation for the Camino Santiago, which Clemency and I will return to complete in September. The preparation wasn't just about getting fit enough to walk the remaining 400 km. It was also about getting ready for a shift in my prayer life. My daily routine is Centering Prayer, which involves parking myself in a corner for periods, keeping still and not saying much. I use a special little wooden stool to sit on and wear an old woollen cloak because sit still for long enough and you will get a bit cold. I do, anyway. The Camino poses a few problems to the way I am accustomed to do things. I want to keep my pack well under 10 kg for one thing, and a stool, let alone a large woollen cloak will upset that a bit. For another, I will be sleeping most nights in alberges which are no...

Caravan blessing in the carpark of Holy Trinity Invercargill. 3 deg C. Raining. Everyone is doing well to look so cheerful. Photo courtesy Keith Gover. It's -2 outside and foggy and I'm ensconced in the driveway of Holy Trinity Gore. I've just had breakfast and checked my email but more importantly I have earlier spent 40 min inside the church in silent prayer. And now, with the heater humming beside me and the kettle singing on the gas hob, The idea that came through intuition and feeling - getting a caravan - is making the journey into my cerebellum. I have had a wonderful few days. I've had god ( I meant to say "good" but my computer, in this instance knows better than I do) conversations with people in five parishes. I've sat in silence in three churches. I've slept In a car park and a driveway and been astonishingly warm and comfortable. Most importantly, I've been present, and been SEEN to be present. This is a bigger caravan than I i...

I am in Southland this week with John Franklin, my chaplain. We are conducting a Week of Guided Prayer, which is also known in some circles as a Retreat In Daily Life. The WGP is a process I have used for many year now. It derives, ultimately, from the Ignatian spiritual exercises, and is, in essence a fairly simple thing. Participants gathered yesterday at Holy Trinity Gore and together we used a fairly simple prayer exercise . Then, after an initial conversation, each of the retreatants has covenanted to spend half an hour a day in prayer, and another half hour a day in conversation with a prayer guide, ie John or me. I recognise that for most people, the prospect of half an hour in prayer is a bit daunting, so every day I will suggest a way of prayer, and if necessary provide the resources that are needed for it. Next Saturday morning we will gather again for eucharist and a final group exercise and the process will have ended. I know that someone as experienced in Spiritual Direc...

I went for supervision this morning and took this photo with my iPhone of a leaf on Paul's patio floor. It hasn't got a thing to do with the words that follow, I just like it. In July I am going to take some annual leave and we are going to visit my daughter Bridget in Qatar. There is an itinerary sort of planned and there have been lots of excited texts passing back and forth between us and the Middle East because we still don't have an internet connection and can't email or skype. Last night was time for finalising tickets and all went well except for one small detail. Or to be more accurate, two small details: passports. We couldn't find them and we couldn't book the flights without them. Our house is cosily furnished but still the garage is filled, wall to wall, corner to corner, floor to about waist high with boxes, boxes, more boxes and yet more boxes and somewhere in the middle of all that junk were two passports. It was needle in the haystack stuff; wel...

Some Christians are a bit nervous about meditation because it doesn't quite fit their idea of what prayer is . Most Christians trying to maintain a regular prayer life, sooner or later come up with some pattern of prayer or other which involves talking(even if that talking is carried on within the confines of their own skull); for example the well used ACT pattern. In this, we go through a cycle of Adoration, Confession and Thanksgiving - telling God how great he is, telling him what we've done wrong lately and thanking him for whatever it is that has come our way lately: all stuff you might have thought he knew already. Usually we also ask for things to be done for us or for others, and again, presume upon the foreknowledge of the one who created our desires. Down through the years many Christians have thought, 'surely there's got to be more to prayer than that', and in various ways and at various times, have begun and continued a great exploration of the human psy...

Get up early and sit in an uncomfortable position in the dark for a long time and do nothing? You're kidding, right?  It's hard to explain why anybody would want to meditate. For  a long time I didn't want to myself,  and then for an equally long time I did but couldn't gather up the requisite willpower to make a regular thing of it. But now there's been a corner turned and the quiet spaces in the day are my favourite bits of it. Partly, it's a cognitive thing. My life has been dominated by an insatiable quest to understand and lately there's been a sort of nagging inner certainty that the path to understanding somehow lies through this period of enforced inner silence. There's also Ian Gawler, who seems to think that meditation is as important, more important even, than any other lifestyle change you might want to make if you are intent on pursuing healing, and I have been quite predisposed to listen to him of late. And then there's lots of frazzled...