Our actual last meeting was a Eucharist. We craft the liturgy specifically for the circle gathered on that occasion, so I think I won't share it here.
But here are a few bits and pieces from our afternoon sharing today, and our closing Eucharist.
We had a poem that I can't put here for copyright reasons, but linked to it was this music, Délibes Flower Duet.
And this prayer by Grace Garner
God of the wild wind and the unconquered sun,
We lift our voices to you in prayer and praise.
Blessed be your holy name in all the earth!
May your righteousness roll down like rain
And wash all the dirt away, leaving us fresh and clean,
Sparkling with your glory.
God of the good earth and the solid rock,
We plant our feet in faith and stand sure in your love.
You are the touchstone upon which we rely,
Certain of your justice and your faith which endures.
Standing on this holy ground, just as we are,
We receive your grace once again.
Through Jesus Christ, our Saviour and our friend, Amen.
This short thinkabout was part of our Eucharist.
Here's the text of it:
[I apologise for the sudden Great Awakening Light that illumines halfway through the video (!)
It was an accident — but oddly, happens at the precise moment I was talking about leaving a light on in the porch. I contemplated re-recording, but my opportunities of uninterrupted quietness are very few, so I just left it. I hope you can work with it as it is.]
In the opening greeting of his first letter to Timothy, Paul describes himself as “an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Saviour and of Jesus Christ our hope.”
There’s also a passage in Hebrews 6 (v.19-20 NIV), that speaks about entering the Holy of Holies — the presence of God:
“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest for ever, in the order of Melchizedek.”
From these texts the concept of “certain hope” entered Christian thinking.
It seems counter-intuitive — surely the whole thing about hope is that it isn’t certain, because it hasn’t happened yet. There’s an outcome we hope for, but it might not happen.
Certain hope, the basis for absolute trust, is how we express the rock-solid reliability of Jesus.
The Campfire Church, our small and informal faith community set up to offer encouragement during the Covid lockdown, has on the cover picture of its main page the words:
“Certain hope in uncertain times — a light left on in the porch — church on the way.”
Because Jesus is our living hope, offering us a hope that is certain, part of our calling as his followers is to be a sign of hope for other people, help them keep hope live.
We are called to be a light left on in the porch to show the way home — a sign of hope that there even is somewhere to come home to, and that they have not been forgotten.
I encourage you to take a few minutes, at some point, to watch the very funny and affectionate video of the abbot of Plum Village’s Upper Hamlet, Brother Phap Huu, talking about the great Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh — it’s in among our Afternoon Activities, and I’ll make an extra post linking you to it at the end of our time together, as well.
He spent a while as Thich Nhat Hanh’s personal assistant. He calls him “Thay”, which means “teacher”, and he said the quality he most admired in Thay was that — no matter what happened — he steadily radiated the sense that everything was going to be okay.
Thich Nhat Hanh was Vietnamese and first came to prominence because of his peace activism during the Vietnam War.
He wrote this poem, called “For Warmth”:
I hold my face in my two hands.
No, I am not crying.
I hold my face in my two hands
to keep the loneliness warm—
two hands protecting,
two hands nourishing,
two hands preventing
my soul from leaving me
in anger.
So the sense that everything would be okay, that he radiated, was not rooted in external circumstances, but was rooted in faithful spiritual practice and discipline. He held his light steady, and so he became a source of hope and comfort and reassurance to others, no matter what was going on around him. In times of turbulence and uncertainty, they could look at Thay and feel that everything was going to be okay.
You see the same quality in Julian of Norwich, whose words “all shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well” still find us and comfort us and lift us up. And Julian was an anchoress — the calling of an anchorite was to anchor the Light in and to the particular place where he or she lived.
It is, to my mind, one of the loveliest aspects of our calling as people of faith; to recall others to the certain hope that — no matter what happens around us or to us — everything is going to be okay.
It’s the light we leave on in the porch. The reminder of home.
At the end we had this blessing, and then this as our time together came to an end.
Hello Penn,
ReplyDeleteI’m wondering if you’re planning on posting any of this past Sunday’s Campfire Church readings, sermon, or prayers this week?
Blessings-Charleen
Hi Charleen — The Campfire Church was created when the UK went into (Covid) lockdown, to encourage and sustain people through those rather scary times. We met weekly until the churches opened for worship again., because we understood how to make online church interactive, rather than just watching videos as many congregations were doing.
ReplyDeleteWhen lockdown ended and the churches opened up again last autumn, we changed what we were doing. Our aim was never to rival local churches or poach members from them: we wanted to support the work of the church and fill gaps. So at that point we stopped gathering weekly. The people who came had got to know and love one another, though, and not everyone went back to the churches they'd once attended. Some were left with no affiliation to a local church. And of course people had got used to staying close to home and felt more vulnerable venturing forth, especially at night.
So we offered a midnight service on Christmas Eve, and we continue to gather whenever there is a fifth Sunday in the month, and we offered the online retreat that I partially shared here on my blog. We also began a physical gathering in our home here, on the second Sunday of each month, for local friends who came to The Campfire Church and wanted to gather still. There is so much illness still that we've had to cancel more times than we've met.
But all our gatherings from the whole couple of years we travelled through together are still up online at The Campfire Church on Facebook. It's a private group so it's necessary to be a Facebook member and then apply to join it, but all the material is available there.
Other than that, my books have all my thoughts and outlook on life, and are very accessible to read (I mean they aren't too scholarly or academic to enjoy).
I'm sorry not to be more helpful. xx
Thank you so much for your quick response. Your explanation was helpful, I was confused about what all was happening on Sunday morning. I look forward to your blog posts and yes, have read many of your books and recommend them to others.
ReplyDeleteA dear friend of mine, someone who is also a kindred of the quiet way, just recommended a book to me that you may find interesting. The title is, The Inner Work of Age, Shifting From Role to Soul, by Connie Zweig.
Blessings,
Charleen
Oh, thank you, Charleen — that does sound interesting! x
ReplyDelete