Last week I attended a discussion and Q&A by a pre-eminent scientist and a theologian on the issue of climate change. One of the best things about the evening was that everyone there, of which there were around 100, seemed to accept that the science was settled and that it was critical that we act quickly to stop reaching irreversible tipping points. Permafrost melting, ice shelfs disappearing, the acidification of the oceans, extreme weather events, sea level rises - these are just some of the things happening right now. One of the strangest and most disturbing things about our current Australian federal election is that climate change is just not in the debates in any meaningful way. There are many reasons why this has ended up being the case. Over ten years worth of climate change policy being a political football and a bat to beat your opponent with hasn’t helped. Nor has the way meaningful discussion in the media has been hijacked by either well funded skeptics or ideologically driven pundits. I suspect too that in wealthy Australia, the land of sweeping plains, relative peace and world isolation, we are disconnected from those places and people where the effects of climate change are much more real and dire. I live on the southern east coast of Australia. It is utterly beautiful. A paradise of sea, river, forest and bush. It is also peaceful and resource rich. It is all too easy to feel safely cocooned in this earthly paradise. However, the interdependence of life means that my cocoon is an illusion. We are all connected to each other. We all depend on each other as does the whole created order. Our western culture is trapped in the prison of individualism and consumer addiction. Our hearts are atrophied and our minds captive to fears about not being enough and never having enough. With the cacophony of desires, terrors, self-conscious feed back loops, entertainment and distraction we are deaf and then dumb. We find it almost impossible to truly see and hear the other because we can cannot even hear ourselves think deeply and truly. As many other writers have said, we need to rediscover the art of listening. I would suggest that listening is not just a luxury for those who have the time and patience. It is a matter of survival. True listening comes from silence. The letters that make up silent and listen are the same. This is coincidental but it does help us remember that the two are closely related. To hear properly we must first be silent. Not just in our speech but in our inner attitude and being. We need to let go of the inner chatter of our heads that weighs and analyses everything and attend to what is being said. It is also how we can most fruitfully engage with the natural world. Walking through a forest simply attending to the shapes and colours, the movement of the breeze, the sound of the ocean and birds nearby is to walk knowing that you are on holy ground and all things are connected and as one. In any healthy relationship between two human beings listening is vital. Listening that gets the ego out of the way and makes space for the other is the way to strengthen and build capacity for those times when the connection is challenged - and it will be. Paradoxically it is by getting out of the way that we stay together. That we are one and dependent on each other seems sadly lacking in our political debates. In Britain, America and Australia we are having important elections. Great Britain has just voted to leave the EU. America is voting for not just the next president but candidates in both houses. In Australia we have the federal election next weekend. I have been tracking these events and what I mostly hear is a lot of noise and shouting at each other. I hear a lot of nationalism, fear-mongering, protectionism. I hear lies, bribery and xenophobia. I hear a lot of sound and fury - and then commentary on the sound and fury. I long to hear genuine dialogue. I long to sense genuine respect. I long for the art of listening to be part of all debates and engagement. Yet I know that listening must begin with me. My own sound and fury must be given up so I can attend to the echoes of God’s love in the world and in other people. I must become silent in that way that goes to the place of unknowing, beyond my old tired ways of reacting and responding, so I can discern the next right and loving action. This is a daily, moment by moment practice. I think the earth is waiting for our silence and our listening. Peace Rebecca ________________________________________ The conclusion is always the same: love is the most powerful and still the most unknown energy of the world. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
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Writing a million words living in the head where are my toes? heart soul We are creatures of flesh and blood, with pulsing bodies that feel and move, desire and hurt. There is no life other than this one we experience with this body, our extraordinary bodies. I personally am not interested in a spirituality that does not embrace and operate in the body. There is no such a thing as spirituality without the body. The body is our greatest gift despite how it may let us down and not be as we want or even need. Our body is our teacher and expresses our intentions and will. There is no more important place we inhabit than our body. There is no shangri-la, no ethereal realm of enlightenment and light. There is no where but here and now. And so, the greatest spiritual truth is that ‘it’ is all in the practice - embodied, here and now practice. ‘It’ is life and all we want life to be. “It” is our desire for communion with God and others. “It” is the goal and the end of our striving. It is all in the practice. I can read a million words about prayer and other spiritual practices. I can read a thousand books about the wonder and beauty of music and art. I can have hundreds of glossy magazines about beautiful homes and beautiful nature. I can read a hundred books about good nutrition, exercise and healthy living. I can yearn for justice, goodness and wholeness and can read and write and ponder and think but unless I do I will know nothing but more words and clever ways to put them all together. It is all in the practice. The author of the Cloud of Unknowing said that the only way to know God was to love God. It is all in the practice. Jesus said, the wise person is the one who comes, listens and obeys (Luke 6.47) - that is, who does. It is all in the practice. Practice is something we will and to which we commit on an ongoing basis. As we practice we learn. As we practice we expand. As we practice we are doing that which we will and intend. There is no perfection or end. It is all in the practice. The person who goes to a voice coach but does not use their voice has missed the heart of music. That it is an embodied expression, a flesh and blood resonance within and without. The person who goes to a spiritual director but does not pray, in whatever ways their God calls them, has become like an empty vessel that sees and hears nothing. It is all in the practice. The poet writes ultimately not so there is poem. The poem comes into being because the poet can do nothing but practice their craft. The poem comes from the embodied practice of the one who does. The poetry is in the act of writing. The poem is just the traces of the practice. I am no poet but I can almost guarantee that the greatest joy a poet may feel will not come from reading their poem days or years later but from the creative act itself. It is all in the practice. The practice is the beginning, the middle and the end. When it comes to prayer - and the whole of life can be a prayer - this is all doubly so. Prayer is ultimately about our communion with God, our communication with Divine Love, our community with all that God creates and re-creates. True prayer is not the mindless repetition of words and rituals or a shopping list of needs and wants. True prayer is ‘absolute, unmixed attention’. Prayer is attentive presence and loving beholding of that which God loves - and that is all. Prayer is surrender of the self-focussed mind and re-centring in the present moment. Prayer is openness and trust and single minded focus on the beloved. In this type of prayer there is no goal, no outcome, no end. There is just the moment. It is all in the practice. This is the only, sustainable, authentic way to deal with the variations, vicissitudes and disappointments of public worship. So many of us get caught up in what we do or don’t like when it comes to worship and different expressions of church. The way to worship in honesty, in Spirit and in Truth, is to let go, surrender all self and other critical projections and be one with the moment, with the words, with the sounds. And if, God forbid, but likely won’t, there is something too awful to align with, then pick just one word that calls and attend to that over and over again. There is no perfect worship. There is only this moment and time, these people and this place. It is all in the practice. Anthony of Sourohz, monk and bishop of the Orthodox church, writes that prayer is essentially standing face to face with God, consciously striving to remain collected and absolutely still and attentive in Gods’ presence, which means standing with an undivided mind, an undivided heart and and an undivided will *. He goes on to say this is not easy. It is not but he and countless others believe it is possible. With committed, ongoing practice. With focus and will and humility and the grace of God. It is possible when we let go of outcomes and expectation and simply be in and do the practice. Apparently this is how St John Climacus trained dozens of monks in prayer - a time limit, then merciless attention, and that is all. It is all in the practice. And the ‘it’ is in the end, beyond all understanding yet is as real as your heartbeat and as beautiful as your dearest beloved. practice praktɪs/ noun 1.the actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method, as opposed to theories relating to it. Peace & love Rebecca * Living Prayer by Metropolitan Anthony, A Libra Book 1966 p57 and p60 |
Rebecca Newland:
Exploring balance, silence and contemplative living Archives
November 2016
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