Prodigal Kiwi(s) Blog

Cynthia Bourgeault: Centering Prayer

The best book I’ve read on centering prayer Anglican Priest Cynthia Bourgeault’s 2004 Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening. The best DVD introduction is Thomas Keating’s Centering Prayer: A Training Course for Opening to the Presence of God.

I had the privilege of hearing Cynthia Bourgeault live in Auckland several years ago (can’t remember exactly when) and what a treat it was. Most recently I listened to her again, this time in a conversation released as part of the UK’s Nomad Podcast series (episode released 20^th June 2019), which I’ve been listening to since its inception.

In a promo for the podcast conversation the Nomad team write:

“…Cynthia Bourgeault is a mystic, priest, and author, who is committed to teaching and spreading the recovery of Christian contemplative practices. So she’s the perfect guide for nomad’s ongoing exploration of contemplative practices.

She’s been a long-time advocate of the meditative practice of Centering Prayer, and so that’s what we quizzed her on. The conversation is soaked in deep wisdom and insight. You won’t be disappointed…”

You’ll find the podcast here.

Feelings and Discernment

One of the gifts I’ve received in my life has been the gift of a growing awareness of Ignatian spirituality. I’m grateful to Rev. Pamela Warnes who started me on that journey. My first Ignatian retreat was given by visiting US-Jesuit Fr. George Drury SJ (2003).

I’m grateful for the British Jesuit journal, The Way (and its archives), and for the many authors whose books I’ve read, and/or have added to my library: Gerard W. Hughes SJ; Philip Endean; Karl Rahner SJ, Timothy Gallagher, David Lonsdale SJ, George E. Ganss SJ, David L. Fleming SJ, Paul Coutinho SJ, John English SJ, William A. Barry SJ, Michael Ivens SJ, Mark E. Thibodeaux SJ, Monty Williams SJ etc.

Consequently I therefore enjoyed this blog post by Fr. John O’Connor. Here’s an excerpt:

“…ATTRACTION & RESISTANCE

In every moment, any human is motivated by attraction, or by resistance. Those who are beginners in life’s journey simply go with attraction and act against whatever they consider to be distasteful.

The prisoner of this behaviour lives compulsively by the motto: if it feels good, do it, if it feels bad, avoid it.

FEELINGS

We ignore our feelings at our peril. However the feelings we have are simply a starting point for discernment. Feelings are the raw material with which we discern movement towards or away from God.

At this conscious level it may be that God is calling me to do what feels difficult, even painful, at least on the surface of my heart. It may be instead that the evil spirit is shrewdly enticing me to evil by attracting me to something that feels good…”

You can read his full post here. For more, by way of an accessible book for a general readership, I’d recommend Margaret (“Mags”) Blackie’s Rooted in love: Integrating Ignatian spirituality into daily life (My edition, 2013).

Pushing the Horizon Outwards

NZ Catholic Priest John O’Connor, the man who first, many many years ago, introduced me to the cartoons of Michael Leunig, offers a reflection on stress, and a practice called “Horizon Shifting”.

“…Stress is not caused by doing too much. Instead, stress is the consequence and the symptom of a loss of perspective. When we think everything depends on us, and today’s activities are of the make or break kind, then I will feel stress…”

You can read the full reflection here.

Martin Laird OSA: Silence Upon an Ocean of Light

Sheila Pritchard offers a few thoughts on Martin Laird’s wonderful trilogy of books about the contemplative life: Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation (OUP, 2006); A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation (OUP, 2011), and most recently, An Ocean of Light: Contemplation, Transformation, and Liberation (OUP, 2019).

I’ve purchased each book as they’ve been published, but I must confess I’m still only halfway through Into the Silent Land, not because its not a wonderful book, but because of where I’m at, and what’s most alive or needful for me at particular times in my life. In other words, I have a strong tendency to read where I “itch”. I try and read my longing, desire and hope, which is why having a richly diverse reference library, has always been important to me.

That said, I want to strongly commend each of Laird’s books to you. They’re destined to be classics; books you’ll return to, and read again and again, in whole or in part.

Martin Laird is an Augustinian priest (hence the acronym OSA following his name) and Associate Professor of early Christian studies at Villanova University. 

You’ll find a great (online) 8 min, 29 sec section of a PBS programme (from Mt. Desert Island off the coast of Maine) featuring Laird here (circa, 2011). “…Love brings us into union with God, not knowledge…”

Most recently, you can listen to this 2-part conversation with Laird with the team from the podcast Encountering Silence, which I highly recommend – both these two episodes, but also the podcast more generally. Part 1 of the Laird conversation (aired 14^th March 2019), Part 2 of the Laird conversation (aired 19^th March 2019), and the final part here.

 

Thomas Merton - A Course in Desert Spirituality

Due to be published May 2019 is the latest Jon M. Sweeney edited collection of Thomas Merton talks, A Course in Desert Spirituality

“…Thomas Merton's sessions with the young monks at the Abbey of Gethsemani showcase Merton's brilliant ability to survey the key figures and synthesize their writings, inspiring his listeners and readers with what it means for the spiritual life. Like its companion volume, A Course in Christian Mysticism, this book is a collection of fifteen lectures that get to the heart of Merton's belief that monastic wisdom and spirituality are applicable for everyone. This compact volume allows anyone to learn from one of the twentieth century's greatest Catholic spiritual teachers. The study materials at the back of the book, including additional primary source readings and thoughtful questions for reflection and discussion, make this an essential text for any student of Christian desert spirituality…”

Encountering Silence

Regular listening for me over the last six-months has been Encountering Silence which “explores the beauty and importance of silence from many angles, not just the religious/spiritual/mystical, but also reflecting on the psychology of silence, silence and the arts, silence and politics, silence and education… the list goes on. For a topic that we often don’t devote a lot of time and energy to, silence certainly has an important (if quiet!) role in all our lives.”

You’ll get to listen to the likes of Parker J. Palmer, Sr. Margaret Mary Funk, Paul Quenon OCSO, Judith Valente, Brother Elias Marechal OCSO, Richard Rohr OFM, Jim Forest, and a wide range of others.

You’ll find a list of episodes here. Highly recommended.

Rowan Williams: Christ the Heart of Creation.

Out on the 6^th September 2018 (UK) or 13^th November 2018 (US) is a new book from Rowan Williams: Christ the Heart of Creation.

“In this wide-ranging book, Rowan Williams argues that what we say about Jesus Christ is key to understanding what Christian belief says about creator and creation overall. Through detailed discussion of texts from the earliest centuries to the present day, we are shown some of the various and subtle ways in which Christians have discovered in their reflections on Christ the possibility of a deeply affirmative approach to creation, and a set of radical insights in ethics and politics as well.

Throughout his life, Rowan Williams has been deeply influenced by thinkers of the Eastern Christian tradition as well as Catholic and Anglican writers. This book draws on insights from Eastern Christianity, from the Western Middle Ages and from Reformed thinkers, from Calvin to Bonhoeffer – as well as considering theological insights sparked by philosophers like Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein. Christ the Heart of Creation concerns fundamental issues for Christian belief and Williams tackles them head-on: he writes with clarity and shows his gift for putting across what are inevitably complex ideas to a wide audience.”

You can pre-order the book via Amazon.co.uk, or Amazon.com. There’s not a lot of information out yet about the book, but I’m assuming it’s the published form of his 2016 Hulsean Lectures delivered under the title 'Christ and the Logic of Creation.' 

If you read Rowan Williams, you might have some interest in this 2012 essay: Christ and Contemplation: Doctrine and Spirituality in the Theology of Rowan Williams (PDF), published in the Anglican Theological Review, and written by Dustin Resch. I read it a few months back. You might also be interested in his 2002 Trinity College, University of Melbourne lecture titled: Living Sacramentally (PDF). I don’t recall having previously mentioned either of these papers on this blog.

James Innell Packer: a Brief Appreciation, and Interview.

I was doing some writing yesterday, and it including reflecting on the significant influence of James I. Packer on my theological formation. The years in question were the late eighties and very early nineties.

“…Anglican priest and theologian, James I Packer, and in particular his classic book Knowing God, had a profound effect on me. Later he would introduce me to the English Puritan’s through his book A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life. Reading the Puritan’s introduced me to Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a Welsh Protestant Minister and Medical Doctor, who for thirty years was the highly influential Minister of Westminster Chapel, in London, which I was to visit many years later to see and feel where he had preached. I was profoundly influenced by his Reformed Evangelical teaching, both his books, and his sermons, many of which I’d collected on audiotapes, to listen to as I drove out of town for work. I slowly started to collect the written works of those who influenced and shaped him, or who were positively endorsed by him. In particular, these works included those of many English Puritans, and American pastor / preacher Jonathan Edwards. Specialist publishers like, for example, Soli Deo Gloria Publications were re-printing, in fine hardcover editions, the classic works of the Puritans…”

Packer was later to introduce me to Regent College in Vancouver, and that introduction marked another important stage in my journey. I’d purchase audiotapes (and later CD’s and DVD’s) of lectures and talks given by the faculty of Regent College, and visiting lecturers. I discovered the writing and thinking of James Houston, Eugene H. Peterson, Gordon Fee, Bruce Waltke, R. Paul Stevens, in particular. Houston, Peterson, and Fee were to be particular influential and each contributed in significant ways to setting the trajectory of the next chapters in my story.

Anyway, I was visiting Regent’s website yesterday and came across this July 2018 written interview with Packer as he talks about the Puritan’s. Packer, born in Gloucester England on the 22^nd July 1926 has just marked his 92^nd birthday.  

Brother David Steindl-Rast - I am through you so I

Brother David Steindl-Rast OCSB most recent book is titled: I am through you so I (pub, Sept. 2017)

“Brother David Steindl-Rast OCSB, Hermit, Zen Christian, spiritual globetrotter: in time for his 90th birthday in July of 2016, "Brother David" tells his incomparably rich life story. Beginning with his childhood in Vienna, he describes his time in World War II and his years as a student after the war, his family's emigration to the US and his entry into the then newly founded Benedictine monastery in the state of New York. There, he soon began looking for what were then still untrodden spiritual paths with undiscovered entryways to non-Christian religions. He became particularly involved in the dialogue between Christianity and Buddhism, founding the "Center for Spiritual Studies" in 1968, together with Rabbis, Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims. His work encouraging dialogue among religions earned him the 1975 Martin Buber Award. 

Contemplation and periods of public life alternate with Brother David: he spends half the year living as a recluse in the hermitage near his Benedictine monastery. Mysticism is his mission-but not a mysticism devoid of connection to the world. His is a mysticism of the everyday, of life immediate in the now, of experiencing fully. He is convinced that God's spirit speaks in and to us all.” 

Coming in at 232 pages, each chapter covers a decade of Br. David's life and should be regarded as memoir. He reflectively writes each. Each chapter also includes a dialogue, an interview / conversation between Brother David and interviewer Johannes Kaup. These are an attempt to explore Brother David’s life and thinking as well as opening up new horizons and questions that build on his reminiscences. I’m looking forward to reading my copy. Steindl-Rast has been important to me, particularly with respect to the importance of gratitude.

Lyndall Brown offers a brief review of the book in Tui Motu Interislands, New Zealand’s monthly independent Catholic magazine. You can read it online here.

John Philip Newell – The Spirit, the Earth and the Soul

I’ve read and listened to John Phillip Newell a little over the years. I haven’t read his book The Rebirthing of God: Christianity’s Struggle for New Beginnings (pub. 2014), but the concept and framework out of which he writes fascinates me. I think of radical reorientation; new seeing; Ken Wilber’s principal of “include and transcend” (cf. his Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World. Pub 2006. Or, more accessible, The Integral Vision. Pub. 2007); deeper discernment; mysticism (thinking here of a remark by Karl Rahner SJ: “…“the Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will not exist at all.” (The Christian of the Future (1965). See also this very helpful Harvey D. Egan SJ essay, or Egan’s excellent book Karl Rahner: Mystic of Everyday Life). As I listened I thought too of philosopher Richard Kearney’s notion of “Anatheism” – returning to God after God. I thought too of the practice of midwifery and midwifery as a metaphor. So much was evoked as I listened.

“…Christianity in the West is collapsing. Poet, peacemaker and scholar John Philip Newell believes we can either deny it’s happening, try to shore up the foundations of the old thing, or we can radically reorientate our vision and ask what new thing is trying to be born. So we ask John Philip what this new thing is that is trying to emerge from deep within us and from deep within the collective soul of Christianity…”

You can listen to the Nomad conversation with Newell here. The conversation itself starts 5mins in. 

Excerpt from Rebirthing God:

One sign of rebirthing, not only within the Christian household but also in the lives of many in the Western world today who do not identify with any particular religious tradition, is a reconnecting with spiritual practice. In the last two decades there has been an enormous burst of interest in yoga and other practices from the East, based on ancient teachings and disciplines that combine physical rigor with spiritual awareness. Likewise, we have seen a resurgence of labyrinth building in our church and public parks, and a reclaiming of other simple contemplative tools that speak of the desire to recover practices from the past to promote the rebirthing of spiritual well-being today.

One of the stations of the Iona pilgrimage is the Hermit’s Cell. It sits at the heart of the island. No more than a circular ruin of stones, it is the remains of an ancient Celtic beehive hut. Legend has it that Columba and his brothers would retreat there in turn for periods of solitude and prayer as a balance to their life together in community. The Hermit’s Cell stands as a sign of the relationship between contemplation and action, silence and expression, solitude and relationship.

On pilgrimage to the Hermit’s Cell I was once asked how many monks used to live here – a question that reveals the disorientation among many moderns in approaching the ancient practices of solitude and stillness. An interesting feature of the Iona Hermit’s Cell is its location. It is hidden amid hills in the interior of the island, so people often get lost trying to find it. They become disoriented. Similarly, so much of our culture, including our religious inheritance, has felt lost when it comes to spiritual practice. But we are in the midst of a reawakening.

One of the things that we remember on pilgrimage as we approach the Hermit’s Cell in silence together is that reclaiming the relationship between stillness and action, or between solitude and relationship, is part of the desire to come back into relationship with the wisdom of nature’s rhythms. The earth knows its patterns of night followed by day, of winter barrenness succeeded by spring energy and summer fruiting, of long periods of infolding and dormancy followed by seasons of unfolding and the expression of seed-force.

We know that if we do not give ourselves over to the darkness and dreaming of nighttime, entering its intimate invitation to sleep and rest, we will be only half-awake to the demands and creativity of the day. Yet at other levels we forget the natural patterns that we are part of. Or we pretend that we can be deeply engaged and productive while pushing ourselves and others in ways that are antithetical to the essential rhythms of earth’s cycles and seasons…”

~ The Rebirthing of God: Christianity's Struggle for New Beginnings. Vermont: Skylight Paths Publishing, 2014.