Sail Away Sweet Sister

This is all about God, prayer, community, music, art, poetry, theology, love and all sorts of things people run into on their life journey, especially when the second half of life is looming ahead. It is inspired by Fr Richard Rohr, by the Contemplative Outreach of Fr Thomas Keating, by C.G. Jung, by C.S. Lewis, Alan Watts, St Beuno's retreat house and all the communities I have a privilege to belong to. It is dedicated to and I hope will be used by my nearest and dearest, scattered all over the planet, and who are falling upwards with me.

Sunday, 8 January 2012

Church in exile

Found a church locally - well, it is the local Anglican church, so it is nominally my breed. I am done with being negative because it doesn't serve any purpose but to draw out and foster further bitterness, but it is a culture shock after 'my' churches in Oxford and Paris. This is such a young country, with a naive and sometimes brash face. They were friendly, welcoming people and we will keep going from time to time, but it is so far from contemplation. Still, these are first impressions and there is much room in the future for other realisations. The apparently very dynamic priest and her associate priest husband (Susanne and Nikolai) are on Aussie holidays until tomorrow and there seems to be a movement in the future towards traditional contemplation according to the church bulletin. From February there is to be a new 'Contemplative Church' group starting on Saturday evenings, and there are regular meditation groups on a couple of weeknights a week, so this may help my exiled heart. Oh God, keep my fragile heart alive throughout this time of desert life.
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  1. M.8 January 2012 at 17:06

    Right. Consistently seeing your glass ½ full rather than ½ empty is a life-transforming habit, and perhaps even a major virture… I wish we were taught to acquire it at primary school just as we are taught to brush our teeth.

    I remember standing in the middle of the crowd at a solemn Mass at Notre-Dame de Paris, a couple of years ago, and bitterly complaining to the Highest Authorities, because these brave people barely opened their mouths, and the singing was nothing like the mighty roar of St George ‘s assembly on an ordinary Sunday. You could hardly say whether there was any assembly at all there… So I was quietly pestering, when the Holy Spirit bended over from where He normally is, clearly irritated by my internal monologue, and said : « You want singing ? You want praising God to be done properly ? And you think, stupid creature, that all these people are not doing it properly ? Well, then go and do it yourself ! »

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