Tonnau Duw ('God's waves') Fr Tim Ardouin

I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed

Somehow I know. Deep inside. Something stirs me. Something has always been stirring inside me, leading me, calling me on, though I don’t know where.

I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me…

You called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb you named me. You called and named us all with the name of your Son. How could I do anything else but go where you lead me.

And John testified, “I saw the Spirit…

Like a dove she comes from the sky.

And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God

I can see who he is. The way he just gazes into my soul and makes everything inside me full of light. It’s painful. I’ve been trying to hide all that.

The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. They said to him, “Rabbi” “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” 

Come and see.

I am staying right here,

with you. I will never leave you alone.

Come and see. If you dare.

Dewch.

Come.

And see…

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++ Desmond Tutu – “Dear Child of God, all of us are meant to be contemplatives. Frequently we assume that this is reserved for some rare monastic life, lived by special people who alone have been called by God. But the truth of the matter is that each one of us is meant to have that space inside where we can hear God’s voice. God is available to all of us. God says, ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ 

THINKING about the readings we hear in church, reflecting on them, imagining them, sensing them, can help us deepen our daily prayer time. This week’s Gospel reading is about Jesus’ own baptism. It is not remote from us; it is close as breath.

In the ‘farewell discourse’, as John recalls Jesus’ teaching at the Last Supper, Jesus promises his disciples that he will not leave them alone, that he will send them his Paraclete. He reassures them that, ‘On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.’ Paraclete is difficult to translate directly into English but it has the sense of some being or thing brought alongside someone (the form is passive), to comfort, console, vindicate, defend, support, instruct them. Paraclete is usually understood by Christians to stand for Holy Spirit. So it is the Spirit which descends from heaven and alights on Jesus at his baptism.

This same Spirit then drives Jesus into the desert to be tested and continues to empower him throughout his subsequent ministry. As Jesus dies on the cross, Luke reports that he calls out to the Father, ‘with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” ’ Then, ‘When he had said this, he breathed his last.’ Of course there might be distinction between Jesus’ earthly spirit and the Holy Spirit here but it is certainly the Holy Spirit which he breathes into his disciples at the end of John’s Gospel and which Luke describes as being like wind and fire at Pentecost in his Book of Acts.

Christian Baptism is about the sacramental indwelling in us by the Holy Spirit, binding us in relationship to Christ and through him to the Father. In both Ancient Hebrew and Ancient Greek, the word for spirit also means breath. The Spirit binding the Father and the Son, and us with the Son and through him to the Father then is…

…breath, holy breath.

Our relationship with God is like breathing. It is  immediate, urgent and near. God is not some far away concept of divine perfection. God is the very breath we breathe.

Breathing is not something we normally notice, unless something is wrong with our lungs. We don’t normally comment that someone is breathing well or beautifully! But it is essential to life. If we breathe mindfully we can reconnect with life. We can notice the presence of God in us.

Breathe now.

Inhale and know that you are breathing in. Exhale and know that you are breathing out. As you find a gentle rhythm, exhale your preoccupations and inhale God’s peace.

Imagine you are walking up a mountain with Jesus, in the cool of the evening, as he makes his way to pray. Watch him as he positions himself and as he enters into communion with the Father. Listen. Rest in the prayers of Jesus.

Breathe.

Now find your space on the mountain top alone. Gaze at the evening sea. Wait for the One who sent you.

painting by Jesus Mafa, Senegal

Be still. Know God.

http://www.jesusmafa.com/?lang=en

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On the road
Where to, who knows?
But on the road
Anyway
Road of light
Star-like light
Journey of wonder
Whole-life wonder
Searching, seeking
Not knowing but led
A kind of seeing before seeing
Hearing before hearing
Healing before healing
A finding of God
In ordinary places
In the dust
In the sand

In a stable,
A mystic travelling band
Coming close.
In the childgod truth,
They lay down their gifts
Where humility sifts
Through the soul,
She sifts,
Through the soul she shifts,
Epiphany
Epiphany
Epiphany

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Jesus. You opened the eyes of the blind to your holy radiance, already before them, you healed the stress-crippled bodies of the world-crushed ones, unblocked the ears of those who could not hear God’s beautiful dream. Lord of Life, you raised the spiritually dead and breathed in them the Breath of Truth. Word become flesh, you wrote the Gospel of love deep as deep in hearts you opened to receive.

Son of Light, take the scales that cover my eyes,
the cataracts of fear, complacent confidence and fake wisdom that stop me seeing
your presence so near,

in all things,

each moment.

Breath of Life, help me stop and open,

like nature’s lung

and breathe your sweet spirit in.

Teach me to see through the fog of my mind,
to trust what I can’t yet realise,
to hear the whisper,
to perceive the movement of God,
to sense the advent of God’s new day.
Help me to see grace and mercy where it peeks out from under the blanket of what the ‘powerful’ ones dictate we see,

to behold your glory in the weak, the broken, the ordinary,
our hope through the morning mist.
Help me God to see, with child eyes, the drawing near
of the Enlightening One.

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The cry of John, the prophet in the desert, is not a warm, mince-pie-mullified-wined-Christmasfairied-evensong sort of a cry, it is the cry-of-ages, passion-filled, of the man of God who stands on the River Jordan, border between exile-wilderness and the promised land, bridge between the Old testament and the New, the old religion and the coming of God to baptise you and me with his own Spirit and to raise us from our worldly numbness to live like God lives, to see, to gaze in awe and wonder upon his beautiful universe.

It is a voice that cries, I am not the centre of the universe. I do not control everything in it. Actually, I can’t control anything. But I don’t have to. There is One coming, in whom I may rest. One who can and will lift up the lowly, release the captives, open the eyes of the blind, heal the sick, cast out the demons, turn this upside down world back up the right way – A shoot sprouting from the stump of Jesse – from his roots a bud blossoming -The Spirit of the Lord resting upon him: a Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a Spirit of counsel and of strength… “He shall judge the poor with justice, and decide aright for the land’s afflicted”.

But you gotta look hard sometimes, ask God for the grace to see. This world is upside down. This world is full of sadness, badness and selfish ways. Helicopters do crash in Glasgow. Typhoons wipe out communities and earthquakes swallow them up. Governments order young men and women to kill and be killed and make little sense when it comes to saying why.

Make a way in the desert and you will see that he comes, the One whose sandals none of us are worthy to untie. Advent is about turning around, away from our control-centred yearnings and glimpsing God’s intimate love for every hair on our head. The God who takes joy in small things does defend us poor ones from the wrongs of life. But he does not eradicate trouble. Instead, he loves us within it.

With all the badness and sadness in our world, how can this be true? Wait. Like Advent, wait. Wipe the sand from your eyes. Open yourself up and let the light in. Nelson Mandela waited 27 years in prison for the freedom of his people. He was 70 before he could even vote. His children said he was still teaching us from his hospital bed. Certainly he taught the world’s media, camped like vultures ready to pounce with the news. Mandela kept them waiting for him to die! Sometimes it is in the waiting, isn’t it? Wait… wait and…see. As Julian of Norwich said:

All shall be well,
and all shall be well,
and every manner of thing shall be well.

Prepare ye the Way of the Lord. Make straight his paths in the desert…

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Gospel – coming of Son of Man to us

Isaiah – come let us go up the mt to the Lord

Romans –lay aside works of darkness – put on armour of light

Spiritual meeting us + God – he comes – we go up to meet him

From the mountain we can look down at the sea of our thoughts – see the darkness and fear in us and the good and light – our thoughts are like drops of water in the sea of life. We don’t need to be scared or run or try to suppress our raging thoughts – just acknowledge them and let them go. Simply see the thoughts as they rise, gently acknowledge them as they stay a while and let them go as they fade naturally. No struggle or clinging. This is the way of Christian non-violence to ourselves. Go up the mountain to the Lord. Ask, ‘Come Holy Spirit, that I might know you and know myself.’ Wait for the drops of thought to manifest. Not anxiously. Patiently. Your thoughts are just mental formations, drops in the ocean of life. Let them rise. When fear or darkness is there, breathe in, ‘Breathing in I know the mental formation of fear is in me.’ ‘Breathing out, I look deeply at my fear.’ Breathing in, I am not afraid to look deeply at my fear.’ ‘Breathing out, I let go this mental formation. I give it to the ocean, to you, Holy Spirit.’ This is how we can prepare the ground for the coming to us of the Son of Man. He will come on the clouds or like a thief in the night. He will come right now. He is already here. This is meditative prayer. Practice. Watering the seeds of faith. Working the ground in which the seeds of God’s kingdom grow.

Tuesday evenings in Advent, 7 pm at St David’s, you are welcome to come up the mountain of the Lord, practice, pray like this, contemplate the following Sunday’s Scripture readings, prepare ye the way in the desert…’Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near’.

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One day, when you are plunged into darkness of self-doubt, when something is wrong, or something bad has happened, if you have been relying on images and notions of God, then it is possible to just lose faith. Because images or notions of God are not sufficient. It is necessary to have authentic experience of God. When we begin our faith journey, images and notions work ok and help us to pray a little. And maybe then we get a little relief from the hardship of life, from the meaninglessness of just joining the material system. But we have to practice in prayer and meditation to get beyond this and really experience the presence of God. If we don’t, then the images and symbols simply won’t work anymore. Thomas Murton –‘The most crucial aspect of this experience is precisely to doubt God himself’. If we stick to old images of God and never touch the reality of God, then one day we will find our faith is no faith at all. Images may sustain us in the beginning but when we go deeper, God comes to us without any image. No notions or ideas can any longer represent what we experience. Merton – ‘Here we are advancing beyond the stage where God made himself accessible to our minds in simple and primitive images.’

It is necessary to practice. To stop. Come into this moment and experience God. It is the most beautiful feeling. To just breathe in and experience God. But we must practice. Church must be a holy space in our lives. We must prepare to come here. Examine ourselves yes but even more important is to practice presence. Being present. If my body is here, standing, and you can see it, then you might say I am alive. But if my body is here and my mind is caught up in problems or aspirations, past or future, then I am not here, only my body is. Am I then really alive? I am not present. I am not noticing I am alive here, now. I am not really alive. So practice. With the breaths, ‘Come Holy spirit’… prayer walking…sitting or standing, eating, drinking… come into the moment, notice, know you are walking, sitting, eating, and thank God for it. You will feel God then. It is beautiful… authentic… real… and no images will do, or be needed, anymore… God bless you

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Zac is a frightened and despised little man. But something compels him to climb a tree, above the crowd to catch a glimpse of Jesus. He could not expect that Jesus would stop beneath the tree, look up into his face and say, ‘Zac, hurry and come down; I want to stay at your house today’! But that’s what happens (Luke 19.1-10).

All of us are prone to living in fear. Fear of being found out. Found wanting, in professional life, social standing, family life… Greatest fear for humankind is invariably about death. We are the animals who know we’re gonna die. No matter how much we strive to shore up our lives, the fact remains that one day we are going to have to let it all go. Our possessions. Our beautiful wife, our children, the homes we’ve made…So we push these fears and the truths they contain away, and we hide, in fond memories of golden past or dreams of the future we think we are saving ourselves, our cherished people or things for. We might hide even in religion, going through the rituals, Sunday after Sunday, perhaps in the week too. But that is useless if it’s just religion. Even if we ignore our fear, we can’t wipe it out. It will rise up somehow. Unconscious mind spills into consciousness and we run. And even when things might seem to be going well, we are never fully happy. We can’t be. Because we are afraid. We are afraid of losing the good time and of what lurks around the next turn in the road.

It is no coincidence that Jesus so often says in our gospels, ‘Don’t be afraid’. But he doesn’t mean hide from your fear. Rather, don’t be ruled by fear. To not be ruled is not to sweep the bad stuff under a mat. It is to look deeply at the fear and to know it for what it is.

Much fear has been generated by the media in the last decade or so about Muslims. It is a pretty straight forward result for many western people therefore to be frightened of what is really a distorted caricature of a deep and peaceful religion.

Syria – Christians being persecuted along with other ethnic minorities – one Christian leader speaks of his/their fear – “The fear is not from my neighbour the Muslim, it is from (foreign extremists) who change relationships between Christians and Muslims. If we are all working for the people of Maaloula to return, it means that we are all, despite the blood, victims and tragedies, able to love and encourage hope in people’s hearts and foster reconciliation and dialogue among all citizens. That would be a victory for the sacred values of faith, for Christians and Muslims.” (Gk Orth Patriarch in Damascus Gregory III Laham)

Gregory has looked deeply at his fear and learned what it is and what it isn’t about. He is still afraid. But in looking deeply, he is able to respond in a way that is life-giving, not life-sapping. Looking into the fear has brought hope.

Jesus looks at you here and now, as you sit in front of  your computer, or with your ‘smart’ phone . He is saying to you, “…hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today”. Let him help you look into your house. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Right now. If it helps, try this.

Focus on your breath. In and out. See yourself here. Breathe. In and out. Watch as Jesus stops and looks into your face. Hear his voice. Breathe in – ‘I have arrived. I am home. In the here. In the now.’ Breathe out – ‘I am solid. I am free. In God I dwell.’

Do not be afraid. Tangnefedd. Peace be with you.

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I am no saint. I am a sinner. But none the more special for that. My prayers come out like gobbledygook, though I sometimes kid myself they are more out there than just the groanings of a human soul, blithering around in the desert of my hopeless mind. These prayers, they are always more for me than for you. And yet you listen.

I am just like a Pharisee. I am pompous and judgemental. I even think sometimes I am glad I am not like him or like her. Sometimes I think I know what is right or what is wrong, for me, or for you, or for the church, for my sister and my brother, child or parent, for the world, for the whale that cries in the sea. I think I can tell even what is needed for each soul to really be free. And I beat on my chest and roar into the wind, Rhyddid! Rhyddid! Rhyddid!*

And then I feel my shame. I am but dust, blowing in the wind, with no direction or plan, loved one moment, despised the next, no way of knowing which the world will make of me today. And I dare not lift my eyes, as I walk through desolate valley, with only my thirst and my hunger to offer in libation for my sins.

I am ragged. I am broken. Stripped. Opening…

Opening my eyes, I can see… springs of living water in the sand. Pools of soul-quenching crystal left by the early rain. There is bread here too. Manna from the table of heaven. And here. Right here in the cracks in the rock of my heart, the most blazing light is breaking through, and a mountain of love is rising between the tectonic plates of what I think I know. And I can hear it. I can hear the voice of ages. The sound of the stars. And it says, “My child, my child, don’t cry. You are me and I am you, and I will lift you up. I will lift you up. I will lift you up.”

*Rhyddid – Welsh ‘freedom’

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