Ultimate Rest -a review.

 A number of years ago I had a sea-change in my way of receiving communion and recently one of my colleagues in ministry confided that they had undergone a similar change. It was a move to recognising that it was all about the gift, about God's grace and allowing God in Christ to bless us. Previously he and I had been schooled in a free church sort of tradition that had the effect of making it all about our remembrance and somehow we'd imbibed the notion that we had to make it effective by having the right sorts of holy thoughts as we chewed and sipped. 

It seems to me that this approach is very consonant with what David Hewitt is exploring in this book: the change in posture from striving to receiving and resting.

The subtitle is 'The Essence of the Beautiful Gospel" and that is a helpful description. The beautiful gospel is that in Christ God as done everything to bring us into the divine life and so we rest in what God has done. As I read, the old song  'Do not strive' kept coming into my head. This book is an extended meditation and exploration of entering into God's Rest. It was good to be reminded latterly in the book that "if the version of the gospel you have heard doesn't sound to you like good news, then you've not heard the gospel". And I also found it helpful to be reminded that "the gospel has often been presented as a proposition, when in fact it is an announcement." I think that definitely bears reflecting on further.

The exploration and reflection takes us through various biblical passages and this is a strength of the book -that it is scripturally based but in a way that is not picking at minutiae but pulling out a major theme. I felt the approach to the early chapters of Genesis was helpful by focusing on the spiritual dynamics as they relate to contemporary readers which must surely be the right sort of approach.

I was intrigued by a reflection on the word 'insouciance'. David takes it positively as a state of mind of being unperterbed. This challenged me as my associations for the term are drawn from Peter Pan where the insouciance of youth is more focused on a sense of not caring about others.

I found the contemporising of Philippians 4:7 quite helpful too. 'Talk through everything at the beginning of the day or before things happen. And (if you cannot understand it all) be thankful for what you can see God is doing. God's peace becomes the hallmark of the day.' (Though I think that some of the meaning of the preceding verses is carried over into that rendering. The single verse goes like this: "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."). I felt that this was a useful peace of advice.

I think that this is a book to be read a chapter at a time and reflected on rather than read all the way through. As a reviewer I was asked to turn around the review in a month. I think I'd have liked to be able to take longer in order to really let some of the thoughts sink in before feeling I had to move one

I have to confess that I enjoyed too that this is a book written from a British context (Scottish to be more precise though he was brought up not far from where I was brought up in the English midlands) rather than north American. Not that I have anything against the latter but it was just nice to see something by a fellow Brit. I enjoyed too that the theological underpinnings of this mentioned names like the Torrance brothers and Karl Barth. Welcome too was the inclusion of insights by Julian of Norwich. There are a lot of quotes also from John Crowder.

I liked too that there are appendices with a practical slant and that these have been written by other people. I commend the collegiate approach especially in a book that has clearly been written from a community base.

I've also got some homework to do following on from reading this. David uses a couple of English language Bibles which I'd not come across before and I felt that their renderings of the passages discussed were helpful in putting things across and opening out layers of meaning. These weren't the only versons; David seems happy to use a variety (ESV, The Message ...) choosing according to which seems best to convey the meanings that he's wanting to emphasise. One of them I need to look up is The Mirror the other is the Passion translation.

I think whan I wanted more of was ways to help me/us to rest in God in practical terms. Now the appendices do this and there are nuggets of this in the text. It probably says more about where I'm at with it, but I did have a sense of 'yes, I know this' but what I am looking for is things that will help me to interrupt those times when I move away from acting out of peace or rest, to recall me. I recognise there are no easy ways in this respect; knowing the truth and picking oneself up to start all over again is the most likely rhythm of learning in this.

One of the strangenesses in the e-text as I received it, was the occasional changing colour of the typeface. I read white on black text most of the time because I tend to be reading these in the evening and I'm resting my eyes somewhat. So the fact that paragraphs, seemingly randomly (sometimes a sentence or two in) became grey or blue was disconcerting and sometimes required me to alter the light levels to see clearly. I imagine this as an artefact of the preparation of the text for publication which probably didn't show up to a proofreader who would have been simply reading in a more conventional way dark type on a pale background.

 

Links related to this review:

Ultimate Rest on Bookshop

Ultimate Rest on the Rethinking God with Tacos Podcast

Ultimate Rest on the Eat Me, Drink Me Podcast

David Hewitt’s Website

#UltimateRest

 

Smartphones and the art of conversation: we only have a Bible because there wasn't sound recording technology...?

I just thought that this was a really intriguing thing. I hadn't come across it before and I'll be on the look out for it among the students I work with.

using the voice memo function on WhatsApp as a sort of dictaphone to “talk in turns” rather than hold “a live conversation” is now a thing

The title of the article that introduces this seems to be adding to the moral panic reaction. The actual article is actually better than that. But I did read this because I was wondering in what way I was going to disagree. And in relation to the sentence quoted above, I felt I could see how, in fact, this development might be viewed as a positive by users. Now, I'm not sure in what I'm about to write, whether I'm interpreting rightly in terms that users would recognise. What I'm offering is an interpretation of why I could imagine myself doing that.
Perhaps you might sympathise if I tell it this way: have you ever found that you wished that your conversation partner would stop interrupting and just let you say the whole thing in one go? Have you ever found that the data-bandwidth of your phone connection keeps meaning that you lose chunks of what the other person says because of your own interruption, cough, or background noise at your end forcing the connection to switch and choose between send and receive to the detriment of the conversation? (Because at that point you can't listen and speak at the same time). If you have then you have possibly come across the situation that this clever little trick may have been designed to overcome. Add to that the possibility that you are holding the conversation in conditions where interruptions are taking place (having to give change, get on the bus, etc) and it becomes a way to optimise communication. It also gives a way to listen again to parts to make sure you have got it right before you compose your own response. In fact it could helpfully slow down a conversation to proper thinking speed. It also gives the speaker the chance for a 'do-over' when something is not well expressed.
Far from an indicator of the end of civilisation, it may actually be the harbinger of better listening and speaking.
As Neil Postman and Andrew Crouch would remind us, though, we might do well also to consider the downsides: what is disabled or made harder by this. And I guess for some people it is easier to spot these. Probably it means that some of the joyous spontaneity of a lively conversation is deadened: that sense of mounting excitement as ideas and perspectives are shared and well received and a synchrony of thinking and feeling develops. What is also lost is the feedback of visual clues and verbal cues that as a speaker you have tried the patience of your listener(s) or that you have failed to convey your meaning and are puzzling your hearer(s) -or are angering them. Those feedback clues that enable us to adjust our speaking and self-presentation in order to communicate better and to rebalance rapport in the present moment.
If we think about what it is like to hear an answer-phone message, we get a clue also to how it might go. There is a slightly greater degree of 'objectivity' in the listening because we are less directly involved. For the speaker it is just a little bit harder to order our thoughts, but we do have to think a bit more about how what we are saying will be received because we don't have the visual and verbal cues to give us in-the-moment feedback. These factors will prove to have their plusses and minusses and we will have to evolve our practice to take account of them as they become apparent.
But the thing to remember is that it is the trying these things out that shows what is and isn't possible. If the things that it enables are useful -and more useful than the downsides are difficult, then the thing will develop and pick up its own etiquettes which will also affect the perceptions and notions of 'good practice', respect etc. So try it, wait and see if and how it is useful. It won't kill the art of conversation: there are too many pleasures in synchronous conversation for it to die. But it might be supplemented by this less synchronous form.
In Christian terms, I think I welcome the possibility of having a slow form of conversation where people can think about things less immediately. Being able to listen more fully and to meditate on what is being said and shared chimes well with a big stream of Christian thought over a long time. It can be a positive expression of loving neighbour by giving them space and consideration to express themselves and to give us a chance to respond better in loving attention and reply. It could be a school of re-ordering our responsiveness by giving us a chance to practice good replies and self-awareness at a speed we can think by initially -until our neural pathways have built a highway for charitable responding.
Perhaps too, it helps us to ponder what communication is and in doing so to think more about divine-human communication. While we are only too used to thinking about the word of God as something written, we have tended to forget that originally it was/is spoken, indeed performed. The Bible is a record of that (an inspired record and interpretation, but still somewhat second hand). So re-learning through a slightly strange medium what is involved in 'live' oral communication may benefit us in considering human-divine communication afresh. It may be worth considering that perhaps we only have a written Bible because there wasn't sound-recording technology ... ! ... ?

Have smartphones killed the art of conversation? | Technology | The Guardian:
And PS -see whether this article from four months later picks up the same thoughts.

Mind Your Life -a review

There are things that warmed me to this book before I even read it: I was pleased that the author, Meg Salter, had learned to 'do mindfulness' in everyday life -some of it rather busy and ordinary- rather than by going away on retreats. I was interested too by Meg's coaching background in relation to this, intuitively feeling that this could potentially form a helpful alliance with mindfulness in the everyday; not least because there is a feeling of kinship between that and some of the spiritual direction work I do.

The book reads very calmly and seems likely to suit real novices in the mindfulness 'game'. It doesn't take much for granted and explains fairly carefully what is involved and -importantly in my view- why. There's a good explanation of what mindfulness exercises are intended to do and this is cross-referenced implicitly by including some helpfully selected first-person pieces from a variety of ordinary practitioners. There is also a well-distilled and presented case made for the potential benefits which doesn't overpromise but rather simply presents the evidence.

For myself, as someone who leads mindfulness meditation sessions, I found different takes on familiar things and some potentially helpful exercises or ways to do them which may benefit me and those I regularly give examples to by leading them through exercises.

What I really appreciate about this book is the careful descriptions of exercises from the point of view of experience and what it may be like. It is well observed, at least it seems so from my subjectivity, and helpful in the detail at each point even though a number of exercises are the same basic thing simply run through different sensory modalities, yet the differences are captured and enable the 'translations' to be better calibrated, so to say.

There's also an interesting set of exercises on noticing the endings of things that we have in our sensorium and this is used as a further set of exercises towards transcendence. This is really intriguing and worth pursuing.

All in all, I'd say that this book is likely to be useful to people starting out in meditation and mindfulness as well as having enriching things to offer to those, like me, with some experience. It's the kind of book to be kept around as a kind of workbook and reference book, perhaps alongside a journal.

Mind Your Life on Amazon
Meg Salter’s Website
Meg Salter on Facebook
Meg Salter on Twitter

#MindYourLife

Mind Your Life: How Mindfulness Can Build Resilience & Reveal Your Extraordinary:

Just so you know: I received this book free from the author and publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I am not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

'via Blog this'

Learning Calm: Christians and mindfulness.

I was very recently asked by a Christian student at my university with regard to a set of meditation sessions I had just advertised under the title 'Learn Calm and Carry On'.  "May I ask based on what philosophy behind will the meditation be conducted?". This is the answer I quickly formulated, but it seemed to me that in brief it helped me to articulate why I do it. You may discern that I have answered more than the simple question as asked: coming from a Christian tradition which has sometimes been more wary of things like this, I judged that placing the answer within a broader context was needed.

The philosophy behind it, from my point of view, is slightly sophisticated. In overview; it is rooted in scientific research on exercises involving focus on breath and awareness of one's own consciousness. As the person who leads this particular package of exercises, and as a Christian I understand what I'm doing as in Christian terms. I think that self-awareness is an important discipline for Christians to develop in order for us to become aware of how we do and don't follow God's will (even into the recesses of our personal formation) and to help us to become more conscious of God's presence in our everyday life.

These exercises can help us to cultivate those awarenesses.

However, these sessions are open to people who don't necessarily share a Christian commitment because I think, based on the scientific evidence, that the exercises can help people develop better mental and emotional health and because I believe that Christian faith calls us to 'do good to all', offering something like this is part of a broader Christian outreach. I occasionally talk with people about how they link up with Christian faith. Within the sessions themselves, I just use exercises that can be accessed by a wide variety of people with no particular content that requires a specific faith commitment.

As a Christian I see mind-body wholism as a part of the heritage of our faith reaching back into Hebrew anthropology and exemplified in the philosophical commitments that the churches of the first four centuries recognised as consistent with Christian commitment. That mind-body wholism leads me to expect that by engaging in certain kinds of psycho-somatic exercises, people would gain some health benefits. It is no surprise, either, therefore, to discover that by engaging in exercises of this kind, Christians can also find things that can help to mature their own discipleship of Christ.

On a more personal note, my own engagement in these exercises came through recognising that the effects and some of the component parts were actually part of practice and experience of many Christians, myself included. It was just that taking them out of the familiar context of a specific spiritual tradition made them seem somewhat unfamiliar at first.

Now, of course, there are others who might lead a range of exercises such as I do who don't share a Christian faith. And, of course, they would have to work out for themselves how they square the scientific results with their own philosophies. In what I've written above, I hope I've given you an indication of how it seems to me that these exercises can fit within a Christian understanding of the world. 

Further comments

My response ended at the last paragraph, but a few further comments might be called for.  There is in this response an implicit view of the relationship between the philosophical entails of Christian commitments and the 'public square': I'm not an exclusivist in this respect: I think that because world-views are seeking to explain the world which is a common heritage, there are enormous overlaps of explanations. In fact, missionally, I see these as the reason we can, as Christians, engage in conversations about how we collectively 'do' society and expect that sometimes our views can gain some degree of collective acceptance -because there is common ground in the human experiences of ourselves, our bodies, minds and the world. But maybe that's another post ...

Looking back on the Long Slow Eucharist

So, it's done. Last night the last movement of the Long Slow Eucharist at Greenbelt was concluded. You may recall that I advertised it beforehand a post or two back. I have a few reflections on the experience and felt a, perhaps slightly meandering, blog post might be a helpful thing -to me at least.
The idea was to have a communion service which took most of the festival and wove together the wider festival and the act of worship. There was a further aim to reference and use the festival theme "The Bright Field" taken from the RH Thomas poem of the same name. The outworking of this in the case of the LSE was a focus on mindfulness as a way of learning to pay attention to the created world with the hope that we could become better able to notice and enjoy the epiphanies and the "ordinary wonder". So the liturgy aimed to help form (or at least introduce) participants in practices of giving attention as well as of making strong connections between the wider festival and the acts of gathered worship that formed the Long Slow Eucharist.
These aims showed themselves in the inclusion of various kinds of mindful meditation practices into the liturgy. And these were done both as individual exercises and also small group work (it is, after all, a corporate thing -a liturgy). Many of these exercises also drew connections to the wider activities of the festival by using it as raw material for reflection and bringing insights and recollections from it into the liturgy.
I should say that 'liturgy' I mean more than the words on the page (which are reproduced below) and include guided reflection and discussions and sharing in small groups. Also included are the symbolic actions within the sessions.
In the primer session on the Friday night which was simply a talk by me to give a bit of a prospectus about what would be happening.

In that I mentioned the aims as set out above and also that the aim was to have an event covering the time of the whole festival. In a sense to try to make visible the claim on the Greenbelt website that in a way the whole festival could be regarded as worship by giving that claim a concrete eucharistic form.
It's quite a big ask at a festival to get people to come back to the next bit of the same liturgy rather than to come to one in a series of essentially stand-alone events. Therefore, I did not expect huge numbers: it's a significant commitment when there are so many other things happening and there is an increased chance of having to make (invidious) choices about what to attend when inviting things are happening at the same time. So I was expecting we might only have about 20 people. In fact we probably had about 50 at the primer session on Friday night, 40 or so on Saturday and Sunday and 30 on Monday -the rain may have deterred some, but then there were a handful came who hadn't been before. I'm not sure whether the blurb in the programme should perhaps have been clearer about the continuity issue and I'm not sure how it would have felt to simply be at the final session without having experienced the prior two. Certainly some of those I spoke with at the end wanted to see it happen again next year.
One of the ways to weave together the wider festival and the gathering for LSE that I put in place was "Re.immersion cards" these were given out between gathered sessions and had on them suggestions for ways to engage the festival, I will include these at the relevant points below.
One of the things I was quite pleased about which doesn't show up in the way the liturgy is set out is the way of helping people to form small groups for discussion. One of the participants made a particular point of thanking me for this at the end of the Saturday evening session. While thinking about this beforehand, I realised that it was likely that there'd be a number of people who would have come with one or more other people and a number who would essentially have arrived in the session alone. Since I feel that the theology of Eucharist gives a preference for a Communion to be a corporate event rather than one where people essentially attend as individuals and remain so, that there should be some way to encourage people to interact together as part of the LSE. This meant trying to find a relatively uncringeworthy way to get people to talk together. I considered asking those who had come alone to identify themselves so that they could be 'adopted' by others around them. But then it seemed to me that this would potentially feel patronising or stigmatising in the context of a culture where singleness is suspect. So I opted rather to ask the accompanied to stand and then to look around to befriend one of those still sitting and for them all to introduce themselves to each other. This took place near the beginning of the Saturday (that is the first 'proper' session).
In the main sessions, the non-congregational lines were mostly spoken by one of two or three other voices apart from myself as presider. This includes the lines in the thanksgiving. The role of presider was enacted by leading the responses into the thanksgiving and standing at table to handle the bread, wine, water and vessels as well as the opening and closing prayers.
We had a slight logistical problem in having microphones tethered by wires at one end of the tent. I very much felt that the communion table should be in the dead centre of the space which meant that there was a gap of 3 or 4 metres. So, if I wanted to speak something while at the table, I couldn't; I had to either rely on the voice of one of the helpers or tread back to a microphone. Mostly the way was to use the voices of others while I performed the actions. This was mostly okay or even good. At one or two points it was less smooth than I would have liked.

Long Slow Eucharist Primer

Read out the RSThomas poem at start of GB guide. Highlight the bit both sides of the laid-out stanzas (not hurrying into the future or holding back in the past), making connection to mindfulness, being aware of the present moment.

Genesis of idea

The idea began in leading retreats and days of prayer involving spending time praying and learning together, and then ending with HC. BUT then I thought, HC is meant to be about praying and learning -not just a set-piece hour relatively disconnected from the rest. And vice versa: life and activity is meant to inform and be informed by our worship; centrally worship is HC.
AND the GB website claims that the whole festival is meant to be worship.

Rationale

To integrate the  festival and acts of worship (liturgical events) and help us to FEEL the connections more fully.
Slowing down -taking time to worship -so why not take a good long time ...
Mindful in the sense of paying attention to the simple and commonplace as potential epiphany. So the worship is to try to help connections and epiphanies to occur.

Mindfulness (I lead sessions at Northumbria University) is fundamentally about learning to direct attention and be conscious of oneself in the present moment. -More later.

The Liturgy

I intend 'liturgy' to mean the whatever we do together as God's people before and with God to build up each other and to be equipped for God's work in the wider world.
So: not wedded to particular forms just because ...
Smearing the Communion service across the days. This means messing with the order otherwise it might feel backloaded (a discovery from early experiments)...
7-fold /4-fold action (Doing in remembrance) Take bread, take wine, bless them, break the bread; ... wine; eat bread; drink wine (> take; bless; break; share)
the sessions pick up these but spread them across the 3 sessions and interweave ministry of the word and prayers.
There will be times of communal reflection as well as individual...

Slowth (vs sloth or slowness)
Ctr hurry or hurriedness -supposed curse of modern life and esp. of so-called time saving tech like transport and ICTs. Leading to Slow mvt and "multitasking is a sin". I disagree  a bit: the problem is with our attitudes and taking hold of them. Not the tech in itself. It is a convenient shared fiction that these things own us / control us. But it's actually our need to learn to use or not use them wisely. To make them servants of human welfare not tyrants of dis-ease.
Our experience of Time: memory and attention. Age and busyness. Slowth is about deciding for slow when it is appropriate for the sake of our mental and emotional (and physical) health.
To be mindful is not emptying mind but filling it with single attention on just one thing in order to be in the present moment.
Breath, a sight, an awareness of God .....
Also about self awareness especially with attitude of being compassionate to ourselves: slow to 'anger' about our reactions, slow to judge, curious about what we find.
Exercise: Basic breath awareness exercise.

Immersion exercises for Friday to Saturday

Take a few minutes to be still amongst noise, activity and/or hurry. Just be physically still without interacting with those around and simply observe the sounds, smells, sights and feel of the moments as they pass. Sense yourself as a quiet centre amidst it all. And enjoy …

Perhaps set an alarm to call you to stillness.

Long Slow Eucharist, Introit

Saturday 6pm

In the worship text, bold parts are to be said all together, italicised parts are headings or information, ordinary type is normally said by a single voice.

Surfacing
A Light in the name of God; author of all being, who lights the bright field of our world with Life
A light in the name of God the eternally begotten, who invests the bright field of our world with grace
A light in the name of God the Go-Between who energises all with God-ward-ness
Three lights in honour of God
in whose three-fold friendship we now gather.
Three lights attracting festal fragments
So may we gather them and full-feel them
To know them with brightening hearts.

Introductory comments. (in this case mainly offering some words of welcome and to reaffirm that this was the first of three gatherings. The main theme would be 'taking' more about which would be said later in the session)

Blessed and hallowed be your name, O God; Giver of good gifts;
you have guided and sustained us and brought us to this space and drawn us to this occasion.

We are gathered here to encourage one another to grow more fully into the loving purposes of God.
We are gathered here to grow in our appreciation of God and God’s ways.
We are gathered here to be nourished with the acknowledged presence of God.

Taking in the Festival: orientation, groupwork and ownwork. The 'taking' of bread and wine to be complemented by taking our own experiences and bringing them to table. The groupwork

Petitionary prayer, Closing with
Our Father ...

Reading
1Chronicles 29: 10-12
So David blessed the LORD in the sight of all the assembly; and David said, "Blessed are You, O LORD God of Israel our father, forever and ever. "Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O LORD, and You exalt Yourself as head over all. "Both riches and honour come from You, and You rule over all, and in Your hand is power and might; and it lies in Your hand to make great and to strengthen everyone.

Reflection on 'Taking' and Taking and tasting exercise

Taking bread and wine for hallowed use
With this bread that we bring
We will remember Jesus
With this wine that we bring
We will remember Jesus
Bread for Christ's body, wine for Christ's blood
God's gifts, and ourselves to this table we bring. *

Re.immersing...

Blessed are you God; you gave us to each other for a time and now you call us to join you in the wider relationships and activities of this bright field. People called by God, when you leave this venue ...
go knowing you are loved
go secure in God’s sustenance
go revelling in God’s continuing presence.

Saturday's Re-immersion in festival (Saturday to Sunday)

Try to 'collect' at least five experiences of 'ordinary wonder' -where you have a sense of the beauty, is-ness or glory of something ordinary in the festival that you encounter. Give yourself permission to notice them consciously and tarry a while to appreciate them.

*Prayer based heavily on Church of England, Common Worship prayer of preparation © Archbishops' Council: under license for use.

Long Slow Eucharist, gradual

Sunday 6pm

"Gradual" is a word meaning a journey from one point to another. Often, usually, in liturgy it refers to the music and process of taking the gospel book to the point where it will be read. In this case the term is used because this is the middle gathering of three and helps move us from the taking phase of the LSE to the final.

Resurfacing
A light in the name of the Father of lights
A light in the presence of the Light of the world
A light in upholding of the bright inspiring Muse.
Three lights drawing in festal fragments
So may we gather them and full-feel them
To know them and God with brightening hearts.

Introductory comments. The main focus at this session is 'blessing' or 'thanksgiving' (brief explanation about Jewish blessings, hallowing by thanking etc)

Blessed are you, God; giver of good gifts; we are thankful for companions and conversation, time and place, and leisure to bring them together. As we are gathered:
May we encourage one another
As we converse:
May we grow more fully into your loving purposes.
As we share:
May we be nourished with your presence O God.

Exercises: “Take of your shoes...” -literally (just one if two is a faff because you are wearing boots, for instance. Or even do the exercise with your hands). Just feel the grass beneath your feet for a minute or two. Try to fill your attention with the feel of grass beneath your feet. Then, with or without footwear, walk slowly around for a bit, noticing and filling attention with the the sensations of walking, moving.

Reading
1Timothy 4:3ff
They forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by God’s word and by prayer. If you put these instructions before the brothers and sisters, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound teaching that you have followed

-Reflections: rationale, communal exercise in 'counting our blessings'. Essentially this involves sharing in groups one each of the things discovered in the prior re.immersion exercise. We write them down (on the exercise cards and bring them to table.
 Thanksgiving...
God be with you
And also with you
Let's lift up our hearts
We lift them to our God
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God
it is right to give thanks and praise

Blessed are you God: for every good and perfect gift comes from Above;  [the cards with the blessings written on are poured/dropped on the bread and wine on the table] …
Thank you for blessing us by your presence and bringing us joy.
You reach out to commune with us through every particle of creation.

We laud you for Jesus who shared our condition, suffered our abuse, and entered our death.
dying and living, he declared your love, gave us grace and opened the gate of glory

We praise you for Jesus' sharing of our Earthliness & connecting with our brokenness.
In Christ we know ourselves beloved of you, that we are truly children of God.

Blessed are you God; your generosity brings us this bread & wine; earth-& rain- & sunlight-born, products of human care and delight. In our sharing of them now, renew us and mend us.
Father as we do this, may we re-present Christ in the world

Re.immersing...
God, you draw us into the field of your nurturing presence, you give us to each other and to the world that we may create together care and flourishing, life and delight. May we show forth your image as we seek your love-bright purposes in the wider field of this festival.
Amen.

Re-immersion in festival (Sunday to Monday)

Try to notice three things that remind you of the brokenness of the world. Spend a little while tracing in your mind the connections between this festival and the wider world through these things.

Long Slow Eucharist, consume/ation

Monday 6pm

Resurfacing
Source of all life, as a child to her mother:
We turn to you
Saviour of all life, as a flower towards the sun:
We turn to you.
Sustainer of all life, as music to silence:
We turn to you.

Explanatory comments. -Focus this time on breaking and sharing. 'Breaking' is also taking in the breaking of the world as well as the breaking of ourselves as we connect with the broken things and places of the world and in our own lives.

Blessed are you, God; giver of good gifts; we are thankful for companions and conversation, time and space, and leisure to weave them all together.    
As we are gathered:
May we encourage one another
As we converse:
May we grow more fully into your loving purposes. O God.
As we share:
May we be nourished with your presence.

Breaking open of wordly sorrows: exercise. By 'worldly' is meant not 'sinful' necessarily but rather 'belonging to this earthly vale of tears'. The exercise is to share in small conversation groups something that we lament over, perhaps it is something we've heard about in the festival, perhaps it is something from the wider world. In token of this we fill a flask each with a few drops of water to symbolise the tears shed (recalling the Psalm that pictures God saving all our tears in a jar). This flask of water is brought to table ready to be added to the wine later.

Call to confess our sins … (framed as how we have prepetrated or perpetuated brokenness in the world)
We acknowledge that we have played our part in the breaking of the world.
And that we have allowed ourselves to despair
(a moment of silence)
We refuse the risks of faith, preferring the safety of our sorrow or cynicism
we are afraid of being broken.
(a moment of silence)
Loving God, father and mother to us, speak hope into the bleak fields of our life
Speak comfort into the sorrow of our hearts
Speak love into the brokenness of despair.
forgive us and make us whole
words of forgiveness are spoken leading into...
Let us choose faith even where we find it hard to see God or to hear God’s voice and our minds are awash with questions
We turn to God and choose to persevere
Let us choose hope in this world created in goodness, but where goodness is run through with pain, crushed, and death is always present
We turn to God and choose trust
Let us choose love even where love hurts and selfishness, greed and apathy seem mightier
We turn to God and choose life
God in Christ asks us whether we would continue in the way of Spirit and truth:
Lord to whom shall we go
you have the words of eternal life.
We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God

Preparing ourselves, and the bread and wine
We are the Body of Christ
God's Spirit is with us
We have blessed God:
We have given God thanks and praise

By your Spirit brood over us and over these gifts of your creation: as we eat and drink unite us in the body of Christ.
As bread and wine are made one with us, may we become one with you; living our prayer and praying our life.  *

Proclaiming and celebrating Christ's death and rising in glory, let us find in this bread and this wine an assurance that we are indeed your beloved children.
As we eat and drink now, make us one in Christ, once dead and now alive.

Around this table we come with creation groaning in childbirth anticipating its liberation from decay. We offer our sacrifice of praise and join with the eternal song of heaven.
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Heaven and earth are full of your glory,
hosanna in the highest.

Breaking of bread
We break this bread |the bread is broken and placed on tables| to share in the body of Christ.
Though we are many we are one body because we all share in the one bread. **

Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world; have mercy on us.  (x3)

We pour this wine |the wine is poured from bottle into glasses| to share in the blood of Christ.
Though we are broken we are healed and forgiven because we all share the wine of the new creation.

The tears of affliction |the water in the flask is added to the wine| we bring for hope:
Tears may stay the night but joy comes in the Morning.

sharing of communion;
the hallowed bread and wine are shared with these or similar words:
The body of Christ broken for you
The blood of Christ for your forgiveness

Gospel reading John 21:15-17
Hear the words of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to John
Glory to you O Lord.

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ He said to him the third time, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep.

This is the gospel of the Lord
Praise to you O Christ.

reflection: drawing a parallel between Peter's being commissioned and ours as we go into the rest of our lives, having been fed by Jesus, the Bread of Life.

Ending
Blessed are you God; you lent us to each other for a time and we give thanks for what we have learnt and the support we have known.
Whatever we have heard that is Good
Let us remember and take to heart.
Whatever we have found challenging
Let us recognise the benefit and find wisdom to carry out.
If we have offended in some way
Let us come to know it gently and make amends wisely

As people loved by God and called into the wider world:
We go to seek God in all
And find God in each
To discover God at work
in creation and human culture
To discern God’s blessing
And to be God’s blessing to others

Sharing signs of peace as we leave

Re-immersion in wider life

Choose one of the things that you feel God might have been drawing your attention to during the Festival. Draw up at least one thing you could embed in your life as a response to that thing.

*This phrase from Iona Commmunity Communion
**Prayer from Church of England, Common Worship prayer of preparation © Archbishops' Council: under license conditions for use.

Meditation and Christian fundamental[ist] misconceptions

Typically I have found certain types of Christian rather wary when I mention that i lead basic meditation sessions at our university.  When you look into it, you discover the common difficulty is that a number of Christian conservative and fundamentalist sources run a common critque. Meditation, the claim, is about learning to empty the mind -and that's dangerous because it then allows demonic infestation to occur. The only real Biblical basis for this claim is the gospel story about a demonised person being delivered but, because they don't follow Jesus, are then 'swept and clean' for seven more demons to infest them. From this it is deduced that an empty mind is a standing invitation to evil spirits.

However, there is a fundamental misunderstanding going on here. While it is true that i have talked to some new-age meditators who do seem to be aiming to empty their minds, in actual fact, mindfulness style meditation is not this. As the article Meditation for anxiety, depression? says:

"A lot of people have this idea that meditation means sitting down and doing nothing. But that's not true. Meditation is an active training of the mind to increase awareness, and different meditation programs approach this in different ways."

Far from emptying the mind, it is an attempt to fill the awareness and to decrease mind-wandering. I would actually say that emptying the mind is impossible; there's always something going on. In fact what mindfulness meditation is trying to do is something that can be quite useful for Christians.

Mindfulness meditation ... emphasizes acceptance of feelings and thoughts without judgment and relaxation of body and mind.

The attitude of 'not judging' -which is really about not prejudging or pre-empting in order to see what is really there and going on, is a vital skill set in self-knowledge which can help us to confess sin accurately and to become aware of our own motivations and habits of thought thus allowing us to put on the armour of light and to put away childish things. The research indicates that mindfulness meditators tend to be more empathic and this for Christians would relate to allowing our self-understanding to inform us about the way others 'tick' thus enabling us to fulfill better the  'do not judge lest you are yourselves judged' teaching of Jesus as well as helping us to the insights which would allow us to love our neighbours as ourselves.

Also, mindfulness practice seems to enable people to concentrate better -which is helpful in scriptural meditation or in simply contemplating or being aware of God.

The interesting thing, and one might think this could be an implication (I think rightly), is that by having regular disciplines of scriptural meditation -Lectio Divina and the classic Evangelical Quiet Time (which are very similar practices)-  or of self-examination for the confession of sin to name but two, the kind of mind-training being uncovered by research into mindfulness takes place. These 'deliver' (leaving aside the spiritual benefits) increasing ability to concentrate and focus attention and also greater self-awareness and other-understanding. So it's also easy to see have mindfulness practices can be congruent with Christian formation.

Relating Christian disciplines to research on meditation

A year or so back, I flagged up briefly the possiblitiy that we could relate results of research into meditation with Christian spiritual disciplines (see Research on Meditation: -changes in brain's emotional processing: for my original posting).

my question is whether (as I suspect) practising prayer related to these meditative practices. For example, how about looking into the effects of self-examination and confession? I'm pretty sure that these have made a difference to my neural 'wiring' over the years in ways that might well show up in the amygdala. Or what about intercessory prayer related to matters of compassion? Come to that what about lectio divina /traditional evangelical Quiet Time?

I'm feeling that I'd like to spin that out a bit more. Obviously, the research has tended to accumulate around something that has caught the imagination -meditation. But my intuition -related to my experience- is that Christian disciplines can do the same sort of things albeit sometimes starting in a different place. I would say that since it's all dealing with human psychology and physiology, we would expect to find similarities and the use of common human capacities albeit accessed in different ways or for diferent (to varying degrees) purposes. This also means that there can be cross-overs, borrowings and adaptations between different spiritualities which would in effect be reframings.

So, what of the ways that we might see Christian disciplines producing similar 'goods' to those being investigated through meditation? The synopsis of research can be found here.
In that synopsis we note words like 'continued practice' and 'develop psychological distance'. We also note 'increase empathy' and 'eliminate attachments ... and aversions' and 'skill set for reducing biases'.

The key definitions of the disciplines being studied are these:

mindful attention meditation -- the most commonly studied form that focuses on developing attention and awareness of breathing, thoughts and emotions -- and compassion meditation, a less-studied form that includes methods designed to develop loving kindness and compassion for oneself and for others.

And I see three things there: one is developing (training) attention through sensory focus; another is awareness of thoughts and emotions; the third is strengthening empathic identification.

I'm inclined to take those in reverse order.
First strengthening empathic identification. This is important because in empathy we find motivation to help, to expend effort for others' good. We should notice, in passing, that empathy need not be a good thing: we can develop empathy with those engaged in cruelty or lustful acts, for example, where such empathy draws us into evil. However, we are focussing on the capacity for empathy to enable us to understand the hurts, hopes and fears of others and drive us to make things better. Now it seems to me that this is what we're being invited into where Jesus calls us to love neighbours as ourselves or to do to others as we'd have them do to us. Compassion meditation as I've experienced it gets us to start with ourselves and those emotionally close to us, to feel our bonds of compassion, love and benevolence towards them and to bring others imaginatively into the compass of our feeling -or perhaps to expand the compass of our feeling out to wider bounds.

Loving others as we love ourselves is inviting a similar exercise: to become aware of our desire and drive to work for our own well-being and to extend that to others. For Christians this exercise tends not to be a set-piece meditation so much as an ad hoc reflection. In a situation we become aware that other-love is required and we reflect on how we might recognise love being shown if we were in the other's position. This kind of imagination is bolstered by the disciplines of scriptural reflection where passages encourage us to consider what neighbour-love might be and by petitionary and intercessory prayer where we consider what might be for the good of others and begin to desire it for them. It can happen in reverse, so to speak, when we reflect on what we may ourselves need, we can become aware of others who have similar needs. All of these I have experienced and the disciplines of reading scripture -especially the gospels- and praying have helped cultivate, it seems to me, a growing tendency and ability to empathise as more and more connections are made between the imperatives of scripture and the awareness of human life and my own needs for nurturance and compassion.

Secondly awareness of thoughts and emotions. My thoughts go to confession of sin and the self-reflection that is require if it is taken seriously as part of cultivating a lifestyle of repentance. Whether one confesses sin in the hearing of another person or simply to God, to do it properly one has to unpick what it is that is being recognised as sin, and what it is that is simply circumstances or unblameworthy; what belongs to others or simply the tide of events. It is also necessary to consider it in the frame of what is required to prevent it happening again. All of those considerations mean looking honestly at what took place and discerning our motivations, perceptions and reflexes and with that discernment to ask and accept forgiveness then moving on to consideration of how to use our self-understanding to approach (or even avoid) such occasions in the future. The more we do this (and Christian spiritual traditions all promote various patterns and aids for self-examination) the more we become aware of how our minds are working in the flow of life: the reflection begins to inform our self-awareness 'live'.

Thirdly we consider training attention. I think that this is less emphasised in Christian disciplines as something in itself. However, it does show up a propos of other things. For example, I suspect that the discipline of memorising scripture may actually do this as might also things in the Catholic tradition like adoration of the blessed sacrament. Lectio Divina or a traditional Evangelical 'quiet time' may also fit the bill in that they require giving attention to the passages concerned.

Noting that research indicates that both meditation and participation in religious community seem to confer health benefits, it may be worth considering that some of those benefits may devolve from the spiritual disciplines benig faithfully practised. of course, we should beware of practising them in order to live longer, be happier or healthier. It seems that the benefits come obllquely and not as some kind of gym membership: they have to be pursued sincerely for spiritual growth or it seems that the health benefits don't tend to appear. Nonetheless, it is good to know that in pursuing the things of God, 'all these things' may be added to us as well.
The article at the bottom of this is here.
It actually helps by defining the forms of meditation (emphases mine):

Three main meditative techniques are taught: mindfulness of breathing (i.e., cultivating awareness of one's breathing), mindfulness of mental events (i.e., cultivating awareness of the contents of one's mind, such as thoughts, emotions, etc.), and awareness of awareness (in which awareness itself becomes the focus of meditation). In contrast to mindful-attention practices aimed at improving attentional skills, compassion meditation is a distinct form of contemplative practice aimed at cultivating higher levels of compassion.

We really should keep journals

At the moment I'm working on a couple of projects at work involving putting together learning materials for people to help them to be better resourced at work. In one of them, I'm proposing to encourage participants to practice, at least from time to time, journalling and other self-reflective disciplines. Some of it is emboldened by knowing that research in psychology etc seems to show that they help well-being in various ways. For me the sweet-spot is that they are also involved in spiritual disciplines helping us to relate positively to God. 
I'm amused/bemused by this bit:

... you shouldn't view journalling as an attempt to formulate solutions to your problems; the real benefit comes from the third-person perspective that's attained when you externalise your thoughts. It's interesting to speculate whether the effect may be similar to that of meditation: not changing your thoughts and feelings so much as changing your relationship to them – so that you no longer take them to be an unquestionable, intractable, non-negotiable reality. Why you really should keep a journal, no matter how cheesy that sounds

The reason is not because of the starting advice: I think it's vital that we find ways not to approach problem-solving directly at times. No, I'm convinced that finding the third-person reframing is vital and is part of cultivating a proper obliquity. The reason for my a/bemusement is that it seems that prayer is clearly going to perform this function (obliquely to relating to God, naturally). I guess that it's the relatively large amount of research on mindfulness meditation that pushes the mention of meditation to the fore, but really the way that this is being explained does seem to indicate that prayer can function in this way. In fact, I think it is time to look more carefully at the 'fashionable' mindfulness/meditation research and consider how the various aspects uncovered are represented in Christian spiriutal practice. I do this in an earlier blog post albeit in a very outliney sort of way which references an article which actually prefigures some of the Guardian article's references.

I'm also interested to note that the advice is to not do it daily but less frequently. That'll go well with some of the people I'm wanting to work with on this. Check out this article for a bit more thinking and advice on the topic.

Research on Meditation: -changes in brain's emotional processing

Reading the synopsis of this research
Meditation appears to produce enduring changes in emotional processing in the brain: had me asking questions about prayer. First a bit of result.

In the mindful attention group, the after-training brain scans showed a decrease in activation in the right amygdala in response to all images, supporting the hypothesis that meditation can improve emotional stability and response to stress. In the compassion meditation group, right amygdala activity also decreased in response to positive or neutral images. But among those who reported practicing compassion meditation most frequently outside of the training sessions, right amygdala activity tended to increase in response to negative images -- all of which depicted some form of human suffering.

This would play well with what I think is a Christian noetic principle: what we fill our minds and hearts with changes our attitudes, behaviours and character in turn. So my question is whether (as I suspect) practising prayer related to these meditative practices. For example, how about looking into the effects of self-examination and confession? I'm pretty sure that these have made a difference to my neural 'wiring' over the years in ways that might well show up in the amygdala. Or what about intercessory prayer related to matters of compassion? Come to that what about lectio divina /traditional evangelical Quiet Time?

It's useful in considering this to look at this synopsis of research.

"Through continued practice, the person can develop a psychological distance from any negative thoughts and can inhibit natural impulses that constantly fuel bad habits," ... continued practice can also increase empathy and eliminate our attachments to things we like and aversions to things we don't like. "The result of practice is a new You with a new multidimensional skill set for reducing biases in one's internal and external experience and sustaining a healthy mind,"

This is a set of interprentations of research which puts together a set of plausible mechanisms for what is happening to produce healthy thought processes. In doing so it helps to begin to see how other kinds of religious practice might also contribute -as clearly they do.

Matching meditation technique to people...

I'm thenking about now about how best to offer opportunities to learn meditation into the life of Northumbria University. So it was interesting to see this report Finding right meditation technique key to user satisfaction. The main thrust of it is this: "Because of the increase in both general and clinical use of meditation, you want to make sure you're finding the right method for each person,"

Basically, the research found that people stuck with it if they took to it. There's going to be more research needed to fine tune what's involved in preferences. Those us involved in spiritual direction and prayer guiding are -many of us- used to encouraging people to consider what works for them. I'm wondering whether patterns could be discerned that might work with different personality types or whether it would be cultural backgrounds ore something else that would prove to be the key factor in what 'works' for different people.


In the mean time, I'm thinking that it may be good to flag up to learners that there are a handful of different approaches and they might need to experiment a bit. I'd already been considering that there should be a short 'course' in which different things could be tried out. But if anyone would like to leave a comment about research or even informal observations of what kind of people take to which kind of approach, I'd be most interested.


I have suspicions or hunches in terms of MBTI types: S may prefer mindfulness as it involves giving attention to sensory experience; becoming immersed in it. I'm less sure, but I think that perhaps mantra-style approaches might work better for Ts. ... I've seen these things worked out in termss of prayer, but meditation is something that overlaps with prayer but not isomorphically. So I'm not quite sure how F and N types would relate.

On the quiescence of travelling toddlers

My grandchild often gets me thinking. Today, for instance, she woke up early, full of beans and a constant source of activity and attention. And we decided to take her into town. We decided to walk in and that she would therefore be in her pushchair (it did seem to us that asking her to walk 2 miles was a bit much for a 3 year-old). But then the everyday 'miracle' occurs, as it does so often and with so many toddlers: she was quiet and simply sat there for the walk down, for the walk around town in various shops and the walk back. Ne'ery an attempt towards active play. It was like she'd reached an altered state of consciousness.

And, on reflection, that's what I suspect it was: a quasi-trance state. Then my further question occurs: how come? Why is it that toddlers and babies tend to go quiet when travelling in these sorts of ways? Well, to me an evolutionary psychological hypothesis seems plausible. The children (and their parents, probably) who survived predation on the savannah would be the ones who stayed quiet when travelling. Then that begs the question: how would kids who cannot yet consistently form the kind of complex concepts we often express as 'if ... then ...' based on an abstract conditional ('if I make a noise /remain quiet') and a hard-to-conceptualise consequent ('we will/not attract the attentions of leopards') know to stay quiet and still? This is a question about what would cue them, presumably at something like an instinctual level. I would hypothesise that the rhythm (of walking or similar) and sight of of moving scenery cues/primes a transformation of consciousness to one that doesn't' need entertaining and is able to damp down the felt need for food or 'grooming'/interaction.

If this were so, then a further question-complex arises: does this instinct survive childhood, and if so, how does it show itself? This is even more speculative, of course, but I'm going to hazard a -hopefully- educated guess.

When I go for a walk I tend to find that my state of mind is not quite the same as 'normal'. In fact I often find that going for a walk enables my mind to produce ideas and solutions to problems that I've not achieved with conscious and focused attention to them in an office or meeting. So is this the same or a derived state of mind to that I think that our toddler grandchild seems to go into when in her pushchair? And if it is is it a good state for more discursive and creative way of thinking? Does it help meditative practice? (Seems to).

Media habits of young people may make them drink more; What should be done?

I can remember, back in the 80's I used to get told that there was no evidence that what people watch significantly altered their behaviour. It seems that those days are gone:

Media habits of young people may make them drink more; What should be done?: There is a well-documented link between watching programmes that show alcohol, such as TV reality shows, and increased drinking

My position was based really on two things; one was the 'common sense' self observation that the things I fill my thoughts with tend to become the things that I seek out in real life and that I tend to notice and become involved with. This, it seemed to me, was pretty much what was endorsed by the apostle Paul as the basis for learning to focus our thoughts in what is wholesome and to eschew thinking centred in less-than-wholesome things.

I'm now also linking this with meditation disciplines which, among other things, seek to train us to be able to give attention rather than simply having it captured and to create positive thinking patterns rather than simply reactive and unwholesome...

Can we change the way the brain deals with stress?

The answer is yes: "New research suggests we may be able to change the structure of our brains by taking up meditation."
This article shows the brain scans. It's no surprise: we already know that cabbies learning the Knowledge change their brain shape because of the neuronal connection being built in particular areas. So it might be expected that regular meditators similarly change their brains' structures and habits of association. BBC News - Can we change the way the brain deals with stress?
This reminded me of my time offering basic meditation techniques as staff development at a University under their 'Stress Busters' programme. On the programme in question the claim is made that this is without religion or hippy-ness. And that is believable in the sense that a lot of this stuff is common to all sorts of religions and cultures. The real issue is what you might do with it. The interesting thing, of course, is that it seems to be that the basic 'brain training' underlying much of it is good for your emotional well-being.

IMBT revisited

A little while back I mentioned Integrative Mind-Body Technique in this blog. It gained a large number of hits and quite a high rank on a certain well-known search engine. I said then that I couldn't tell what it involved but that I was concerned that it might be a money-for-old-rope thing like TM was. Well It would seem from Contemplative Mind in Life that it is a combination of mindfulness techniques and bodily posture/relaxation techniques. See here: "stresses no effort to control thoughts, but instead a state of restful alertness that allows a high degree of awareness of body, breathing, and external instructions from a compact disc. It stresses a balanced state of relaxation while focusing attention. Thought control is achieved gradually through posture and relaxation, body–mind harmony, and balance with the help of the coach rather than by making the trainee attempt an internal struggle to control thoughts in accordance with instruction. Training is typically presented in a standardized way by compact disc and guided by a skillful IBMT coach"
So I would counsel readers to be wary: the current hype following the scientific study looks very like the precursor to a sales campaign. If I'm right in seeing this as a rehash of basic techniques known by various religious traditions -including Christian- then you may well be as well going along to a good local church or diocesan centre where such things are bing taught perhaps for free or perhaps for a fee which is more related to the costs than to the fashionableness of the the thing.
 

Integrative body-mind training (IBMT) meditation found to boost brain connectivity

I predict that this is something to watch, see here: Integrative body-mind training (IBMT) meditation found to boost brain connectivity: "IBMT subjects in China had increased blood flow in the right anterior cingulate cortex after receiving training for 20 minutes a day over five days. Compared with the relaxation group, IBMT subjects also had lower heart rates and skin conductance responses, increased belly breathing amplitude and decreased chest respiration rates."

There is already a lot of evidence to show that meditation techniques lead to positive mind and body outcomes and so part of the issue is what it is that is helping and how many other techniques can and do share it. My suspicion is that IBMT is potentially the new 'TM' in that it is hyped and marketed as if it is a special way of meditating when, in fact, many meditation methods use similar if not identical techniques and produce similar results. That said, it does give opportunities for us to offer things from our traditions which can be said to be healthy and whole-some ...

Advent Poem | Post-Partum

Hat tip and big respect to Kester Brewin for this poem. Kester Brewin � Advent[ures] in Incarnation [8] | Advent Poem | Post-Partum: "Post-Partum

Amniotics spilt, and semiotics rupture;
there are no words, just raw screams and suckles.
Child of God, child of man – no difference:
new life is unmoored emotion,
a wide sea of tears and sick,
and just one desire:
to feed, gather in, be mother-close.

But God won’t stay.

Controlled crying;
separation an immediate fact post-partum:
we must learn to settle ourselves,
become content with occasional communion.

These all foretastes of a future rupture:
a larger curtain rent, another cry of pain
thrown down into Mother’s hands,
three days to cry,
unknown seconds
before we may leave them.

� KB 2007"

Compassion Meditation Changes The Brain

Worth noting this article: Compassion Meditation Changes The Brain: perhaps not surprising at one level, but it's good (again) to have back up for the benefits of filling our minds with good stuff. If learning the streets of London changes cabbies' brains, it is not perhaps such a leap to "Cultivating compassion and kindness through meditation affects brain regions that can make a person more empathetic to other peoples' mental states"

SGM Lifewords' Easter resources

This looks worthwhile signing up for. It's atSGM Lifewords; Easter resources site: "This Easter, SGM Lifewords is hosting an online reflective journey through Holy Week – you can sign up by email on the right, and we’ll explore the story together through animation, music and spoken word."

TM -a proper critique

Joan Bakewell writing in the Independent in the wake of the Maharisihi's death does some nice assessment of TM. She hints at the possibility that it is really money for old rope (ie that the fees are exorbitant for a set of techniques which seem to be no different in principle from all sorts of other schools of spirituality in all sorts of faith traditions. And at the end she explores a much more important critique imho. Joan Bakewell: Meditation is more than flower-power indulgence: "Transcendental meditation imagines a world where everyone is so spiritually calm and at peace that wars become redundant. That is to suppose that tyrants and despots will be chilling out too. Whereas, we know full well they would welcome a meek and submissive population as being so much easier to subjugate to their will. The dangers of universal quietism is that it would abandon all the outrage we bring to our sense of injustice. There is a proper place for anger at the state of the world, for resistance to the forces of oppression. But meditation can help temper the anger."
The only thing I would really want to add to the critique she makes is that TM has tended to try hard to make out it is non-religious, whereas it is quite clearly a kind of Hindu entryist enterprise. I suspect that the main reason it can get away with it is the relative hospitality these traditions of Hinduism have towards a diversity of viewpoints -within limits, of course. It may be worth considering too the role that TM may have played in the turn to the East arising in the flower-power era which is still with us to some extent. Possibly being part of the same cultural wave that sees massive growth in attendances at Buddhist retreat centres in Britain.

Therapeutic Value Of Meditation

Though there are reasons to think that maybe meditation techniques do help healthwise (this blog has alerted to some research to show that it may, see also here, and here and also here) So it is important to recognise that these are indicative but as yet the methodological issues haven't been resolved, according to this study, to give a green light, rather it is more an amber light.

'This report's conclusions shouldn't be taken as a sign that meditation doesn't work,' Bond says. 'Many uncertainties surround the practice of meditation. For medical practitioners who are seeking to make evidence-based decisions regarding the therapeutic value of meditation, the report shows that the evidence is inconclusive regarding its effectiveness.' For the general public, adds Ospina, 'this research highlights that choosing to practice a particular meditation technique continues to rely solely on individual experiences and personal preferences, until more conclusive scientific evidence is produced.'

Of course this is research largely about medical and cognitive benefits; the spiritual benefits and pitfalls are another thing.
Therapeutic Value Of Meditation Unproven, Says Study: