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Come Alive

November 21st, 2010



I would like to develop my thoughts about coming into full conscious living. In the opening of his book Awareness (1990), Anthony de Mello says, “Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don’t know it, are asleep. They’re born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence.” Today I’m aware of similar calls, from eminent writers such as the late Thomas Berry, Eckhart Tolle, Richard Rohr, Christopher Bache, Anne Baring and Ken Wilber. Diverse voices all calling for an ‘awakening’ of human consciousness.

Some 2000 years ago Jesus said something similar, “It’s urgent that you get this right: The time has arrived—I mean right now!—when dead men and women will hear the voice of the Son of God and, hearing, will come alive.“ John 5:25 (MSG). This is the heart of his message. I believe the coming alive-ness he speaks about is a) an awakening to the fullness of the kingdom of God – i.e. enjoying the rule and reign of a totally empathic, unconditionally loving, graciously merciful God. And b) awakening to a God who since the formation of creation desires a covenant relationship with humankind.

Jesus came to show us the reality of this amazing kingdom, and to demonstrate covenant love. ‘Seeing’ this, is to come alive. Once seen I believe we cannot remain passive – such love demands a response.

Yet I find a paradox in Jesus’ kingdom message – he talks about things in riddles and parables so some might ‘see’ and others not (Matt13:13-16)! Also what he says seems to be the very antithesis of everything humans have ever known, right up to modern day democracy in the West. I wonder why this is. Could it be because we humans, although created ‘very good’ and with all the potential for glorious living, nevertheless live unconsciously under the dominance of another kingdom, whose aims manifest as naked self-interest, greed, unsustainable free-market, economic growth, world domination, and a claim that there is no God, (to name but a few)? Is it because of this unconsciousness that many of us slip into conformity to its noisy, mad pace, the hectic striving to meet deadlines, to fulfil orders, and chase profit, to answer endless emails and tweets, etc? This kind of madness, to which I and many of us have now become addicted, creates an ever spinning tread-wheel which is very hard to jump from, and I believe often maintains this state of numbness, a kind of ‘sleep-walking’ existence.

I want to wake up – to ‘come alive’ as Jesus says. But this ‘Jesus-kingdom’ is hard to realise. I notice Jesus tells us we have to seek it, and seek it above all else (Matt 6:33). He also challenges us with other paradoxes, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’ (John 3:3) and ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’ (Matt 18:3).

To engage with this kingdom and this covenant love not only requires me to be fully awake, it also demands I develop a whole new skill-set. I believe slowing down, becoming still, allowing myself to merge with the silence for at least 20 minutes every day, helps me stay awake, reminds me of God’s glorious kingdom, and touches me with a covenant love the likes of which leaves me speechless!!

Quote: Irenaeus “The Glory of God is a human being who is fully alive!”

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The Big Silence

October 22nd, 2010

The BBC have finally started the series on Silence. Click here for the links and view again. It is a three part programme.

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The ‘arch’ has gone!

October 8th, 2010

I want to mark a beautiful event. Yesterday (7 October 2010) Desmond Tutu retired from public life. It was his 79th birthday, and he is now embarking on a world cruise with his wife – how precious and well deserved. But can such a voice for justice really retire? Time will tell, but with this post I encourage you to remember in your silent prayer this lovely man and the great joy he brings to this world. To go with your meditations here are a few quotes of his which resonate with me:

“Be nice to the whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity”!

“My humanity is bound up in yours for we can only be human together.”

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor”.

“When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said “Let us pray.” We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.”

“There’s nothing more radical, nothing more revolutionary, nothing more subversive against injustice and oppression than the Bible. If you want to keep people subjugated, the last thing you place in their hands is a Bible.”

“We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low”!

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A discipline

September 19th, 2010



I have refined my contemplative prayer discipline over a number of years, and continue to do so. Like physical exercise, it’s good to have some variation but there is always a common goal. My simple goal is to come to a place of rest and surrender to the Silence for a period of 20+ minutes, twice a day.

I use a method that has gone under various names over the years, but which I am now happy to call Centering Prayer. It’s become a rich blend of various notable writers such as the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing (14th C), St John of the Cross (16th C), Madame Guyon (17th C), and more recently William Meninger and Thomas Keating, who each describe a simple approach to the prayer of silence. I find it gets to the point quickly and easily and provides a useful method for handling the thoughts that arise in this prayer of silence, whilst enabling the intimacy I desire with the One I love the most.

Sometimes I start by reading a passage of scripture, slowly and thoughtfully, allowing a word or phrase to come to the fore upon which I can meditate (some will recognise this as the beginning of lectio divina). At other times I start with praise, thanksgiving and supplication, i.e. verbal prayers (kataphatic). Sometimes I will just sit down in peacefulness and begin.

I become still and gradually let my attention slip away from my thoughts by using a chosen word. I simply notice the thoughts, and let them go in favour of resting into God, his love, his presence, the silence – for this is my desire and intention. It’s at this point that sometimes I sense an uproar of protest, distraction and other noise kicking off inside my head. It can feel like sitting on the sidelines at a cocktail party! And guess what, its easy to engage in conversation! However there is no need to wrestle with this or become annoyed. With each thought or wave of ‘stuff’, I acknowledge what is there, and just release it – returning to my chosen word, letting go, settling more and more into the Silence.

This chosen word has already been invested with my intention to yield to God’s presence. It sums up my desire to not resist the thoughts, to ‘let go’, to ‘surrender’ to the Holy Spirit, to ‘go with’ the Spirit deeply into a place beyond thoughts and feelings – this is the place of silence. I find to have a ‘word’ or symbol* which does all that is amazingly creative and simple. The ‘word’ is only spoken when thoughts distract, and I ‘let go’. Twenty minutes later I slowly come back to the room I am sitting in, and take the new clarity, or lightness into my day or evening.

If people are interested in this kind of method, do get in touch. It may be possible to put you in touch with others practising this prayer of consent, or we may be able to start something locally in Hampshire.

For resources and more immediate help check out the resources page.

[*NB as a symbol I sometimes imagine I am lying on my back staring into the blue sky. The clouds are the thoughts or feelings and I just let them pass in front of me, not paying any attention. I’m sure you understand]

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From unconsciousness to…full conscious living (part 3)

September 17th, 2010

Many have discovered and recognise the Truth that is Jesus. I believe he is our knight, to continue the analogy of Sleeping Beauty! He offers us his kiss which awakens us and brings us into full conscious living by the Holy Spirit. The Kingdom of God ceases to be a myth. We suddenly ‘see’ what Jesus was talking about!

But living consciously doesn’t come easy. Take the drive to work. I have often arrived and thought ‘how did I do that?’ I don’t remember or hadn’t noticed a single thing – because I was too deep in thought or too busy listening to the noise in my head! So I try and drive to work consciously. Maybe you could try this too, as a simple exercise. Try to stop thinking en route – simply be with whatever you notice. Likewise, I work as an osteopath and notice how hard people find making changes to their posture to avoid pain.

I believe we need a discipline or method to help us. In osteopathy I use the Alexander Technique with my clients (NB: FM Alexander wrote a powerful book called Constructive Conscious Control in 1923). In my life generally, the discipline I prefer is contemplative prayer. This is my realisation of the Apostle Paul’s comments to the Athenians, ‘In Him we live and move and have our being.’ (cf Acts 17:28). To live the contemplative life is to live in the conscious reality that I am ‘hid with Christ in God’ (cf Col 3:3), and that God isn’t just ‘out there’ (as much of our dualist thinking would suggest), but he is very much deep inside too.

I want to suggest that unless we find a form of prayer (i.e. a relationship with God), that invades the unconscious (a way to be present to the moment), people don’t really change. We carry on living a form of Christianity that doesn’t break into our materialistic habits, our addictions, our unconsciousness, and fails to evoke active compassion and concern for justice or the poor. Living a contemplative life is not just a new way to do life, but rather an entirely different way of seeing the moment. The power in this ‘seeing’ is that we start becoming our prayers, not just saying them. I guess this is nothing short of living in the Spirit (Rom 8).

(Next I will describe my personal discipline of contemplative prayer…)

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From unconsciousness to…(part 2)

September 13th, 2010

In my last post I focused on the micro – the individual. But how does this unconscious thinking work on a macro-scale? In the West, in recent times (I’m talking the last 300 years), humans have developed a whole way of seeing our world through this form of Cartesian consciousness – where the mind dominates and rules, where we compare and contrast.

I realise in saying this that I too could be seeing through this lens even as I write. It can be really helpful…but. We have developed dualistic thinking to the max(imum). We conveniently split things into good or bad, right or wrong; we habitually make unconscious value judgments that this is better than that, all of which can lead to dangerous conclusions. For example, that physical is more important than spiritual, or visa versa; that mind and body are separate (and of course mind is more important); that earning more and more money is more important than living simply within our means; were technological and industrial advance is more important than any effect this might have on the living planet we strip of its resources; where economic growth at all costs in the West is more important than the effects on third world countries; where my country and our way of doing things is better than yours,…etc. And often we Christians are just as guilty of this dualism. We judge and criticise those in our own church, and across denominations, and we love to compare and contrast preachers, teachers, and worship leaders, etc. In some deluded unconscious fashion, we split ourselves off from our own humanity with huge consequences for the global human family. Just think of the countless millions who have been sacrificed this last century and continue to be sacrificed ‘to the fanaticism of totalitarian ideologies’.

Writers like Thomas Berry have been saying this kind of thing for ages. In his book The Dream of the Earth (1988) he writes that our times have seen “possibly the most complete reversal of values that has taken place since the Neolithic period.” We could do with ‘waking up’. I believe we need a complete shift of consciousness. But first we need to recognise how unconsciously we are living. Q: do you ever notice the glasses you are wearing through which you see the world? Q: have you ever thought of taking them off for a few hours?

And it is not just the way we use our minds, or that we have become addicted to certain ways of thinking that should concern us. It is how easily we become unconsciously addicted to all kinds of behaviour, full stop. We sleep-walk into these addictions because of the pain inside, the emotional damage and physical experiences through our growing up and our need to compensate. We seriously need to wake up to the programmes for emotional happiness that we have constructed for ourselves. Q: but who will notice we are asleep (like Sleeping Beauty)? Q: who will notice the huge dense forest or thorny hedge that hides us from the truth? Q: who will rescue us?

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More BBC…

September 11th, 2010

I have just been listening to an interesting radio four programme that speaks of the advantages of ‘the retreat’ and well worth a ‘listen again’. It’s the second article in Sandi Toksvig’s programme, Excess Baggage and is approximately 9min 30secs in. Here is the link click here, and then click on the ‘Listen Now’ button).

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From unconsciousness to…(part 1)

September 5th, 2010

It’s been nearly four weeks since my last post. Upon returning from a short holiday in North Wales during this time, I found myself unable to write. Obviously I experienced some very beautiful landscapes – some very high and majestic, which can take your breath away. Maybe they took my words away too!

Metaphysically, it feels like I have been taken up to a very high place (not to be tempted I hope). The view is astonishing. I’m speechless. Like being in a fantasy tale exploring some rocky terrain, I have discovered a crack in the rock. Squeezing through I have fallen into a whole new world, the surprise being this is far from fantasy – it is very, very real.

I think what I am trying to describe is the phenomena of having ones thinking and awareness radically changed. We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are. Many of us are even told what to see. When this is pointed out it can be quite shocking, and we experience a necessary shift of consciousness, after which things can never be the same – a bit like Neo taking the red pill (The Matrix)! I have experienced this phenomena a number of times on this journey of following Jesus. After all I believe him to be the true reality, the sum total of all truth. He keeps revealing things along the path – if and when we are ready and open to see. What I am currently seeing and experiencing afresh is how important it is to control the power of our mind and observe how, what and when we are thinking – rather than be dominated by the mind and our thinking.

However, on a micro-scale many of us just cannot stop thinking. It dominates our personal world, and causes us to career along in habitual unconsciousness. If I said try and spend a few hours not thinking, most of us would have apoplexy! But if we could I believe most of us would find ourselves waking up in a very special moment – the NOW! But how would we experience it? Most of us have forgotten how to use the tools of ‘now-ness’ (developed in childhood); of sensing in a different way, of being open to the present with more than just our five senses. What about our intuitive, aesthetic and spiritual sensibilities?

So many of us have become compulsive thinkers – addicted to the insanity and noise inside our heads without realising it. And some people call this growing up or maturing! Many of us have been hoodwinked into thinking that we are our thinking (I think therefore I am) – that whole Cartesian dualistic way of thinking; is there no other way to see the world, to see reality? Maybe this is why we in the West have lost touch with nature, and with Spirit; we have ceased to value as highly the aesthetic and spiritual dimension to life, to spend time musing and reflecting, or just enjoying silence. Q: Do you find your thinking gets in the way of such ordinary things?

What I hope to show in the next few blogs is how a contemplative life, the silence of prayer balanced with passionate activity and service, can bring about a radical change of consciousness. How with a regular discipline we can see and experience our world in a different way (Part 2 will follow shortly).

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Bright Star

August 12th, 2010



Did you see Jane Campion’s beautiful film Bright Star last year about the romance between poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne? It is now out on DVD and well worth a watch. I particularly enjoyed a short exchange between the couple as they were getting to know each other. Fanny decides to take lessons in poetry from the young poet, and a wonderful exchange ensues:

‘I still don’t know how to work out a poem’, she muses.

Keats responds, ‘A poem needs understanding through the senses. The point of diving in a lake, is not immediately to swim to the shore, but to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not work the lake out, it is an experience beyond thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept mystery.

Excitedly Fanny replies, ‘I love mystery…’

I’m sure many contemplatives love poetry for this very reason. The mind desires, very often, to work everything out – it has to know. But can we know this awesome God with our minds alone? Isaiah wrote “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (55:8) I suggest we can know God more fully through silence. This requires gaining control of the mind and our senses, in fact all our faculties, and bringing them in submission to our will, so we can surrender ourselves to the silence. Q: how do we develop a submissive mind?

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Grace in the silence

August 9th, 2010



Are we reigning in life? Sometimes when I ask myself this question I definitely get the feeling inside that I am not! When I analyse it, very often that’s all it is – a feeling, a thought – usually negative. I have learnt that mostly the issue boils down to what we ‘see’, or don’t see (Luke 11:34).

The apostle Paul is very clear that reigning in life has nothing to do with thoughts or feelings, doing more, struggling to do better, or lots of effort. In fact it is the total opposite. His view is, ‘…how much more those who receive the abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ’. The secret to reigning in life is all about receiving – strangely counter-intuitive to the many of us struggling with a legacy of the Western Christian work ethic.

Relating this to dam building (and the interior life), I suggest we must beware of ‘seeing’ it as a lot of hard work, or in fact more of anything (and that includes thinking I must pray harder for longer, or getting guilt-ridden if I’ve missed my prayer time, etc). It’s all about grace. Think smarter, if at all, and look out for the counter-intuitive. Q: what stops us receiving?

As far as reservoir maintenance is concerned it may be as simple as unblocking the source of the inflow. That well spring of love is alway flowing, but sometimes it just gets clogged up with bike wheels, car tyres, and old discarded rubbish. Q: What are the blockages we need to remove from our lives in order for this interior life to blossom?

Let this inner life flow. It started with us being motivated, lovingly drawn, wooed like a lover after this most amazing Love we had very encountered in our lives (see Song of Songs). No effort, let go, let it be, let it flow.

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