Author: Martin

The Christian revelation in Jesus is that God is a community. A community of perfect love.

The Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – can be likened to a water wheel with three buckets, that perpetually spins and in doing so constantly fills and empties itself with love. An unending giving and receiving of perfect love. This perfect community is eternal relationship, completely self-sufficient – otherwise it would not be God, for God needs nothing outside of Himself (we of course have no precise pronoun to describe God! He – She – It – They, all fall far short of God’s reality). If you think about it, if God’s nature is love, then God could never be just a single ‘person’, devoid of any relationships: God would not be self-sufficient! God must be a community.

The point of these statements is simply that God never needed anything outside of Himself. Not angels, spirits, planets, or… people. Surely that begs the question: why Creation? Indeed, why humanity?

Why do we, and all of our beautiful world and the entire universe, exist? For the simple and humbling fact is that God never needed us to exist. The only possible answer then is that God freely chose to inaugurate and maintain Creation. But that still begs the question: why? After all, Creation – life – entails not just joy but also suffering. And if God is truly love, then He cannot be untouched by Creation’s sufferings, from the death of the smallest worm to the betrayals and evil of mankind.

The only answer must be framed by God’s nature: love. Creation is therefore the overflowing of God’s love. It’s as if the buckets on the water wheel were more than brim full: a superabundance of love. And God decided – a conscious act of His will – to create a multitude of other buckets to join in the eternal circle of love. We, and all of Creation, are born of love. We begin in and through love, we are maintained in and through love, and we will find our eternal destiny in and through love. The divine circle has room for all of us – it is utterly inclusive!

And this love that God has shared with us is not stingy. It is not limited or even just sufficient. It is absolutely superabundant, overflowing, unending. This knowledge, this “good news”, really is too much for us to take in. We cannot ever contain this with our minds, but we can perhaps experience it to some degree with our hearts. Do you know how much you are loved by God? ‘Know’ is perhaps a poor word here – have you ever experienced anything of His great love for you? If religion has any purpose it surely is to bring us to personal and collective experiences of His love for us. Sadly religion can often descend into mind games and tribalisms. There is so much divine love that we don’t need to find our true worth in competition, achievement, self-justification or merit.

So total is His love for us, that it is eternal – never-ending. When God thought of us, you, me, and all of Creation, He took a radical decision, a permanent commitment. He will never revoke His decision – to do so would be a failure of love, a failure of God. And God never fails in what He does.

You, me, and all of Creation are held in an unending embrace of love. Death will not break that embrace. Nothing can separate us from His love. Truly, all will be well.

Eternity will be an inexhaustible and ever-new journey into that great Love.

Martin

Silence is a fundamental and crucial aspect of discovering the living God. Equally, silence is a fundamental and crucial aspect of discovering one’s self. But to practice silence is… very hard. If you are like me, someone who tends to “live in their head”, with a mind that is always churning and churning, thoughts after thoughts, then any attempt to quieten down and rest in silence is… near impossible!

When we speak of silence we are really speaking about contemplation or meditation. This is something which – certainly in the Catholic tradition – we have been very bad at doing. In my lifetime, and certainly when I was young, Catholics were expected to do certain religious acts such as going to mass on a Sunday, but the focus was always on the action, and not a lot of emphasis was put on a deep relationship with God. For so many people it was a case of “going through the motions” – a numbers game in fact. As long as the churches were packed, and the money was put in the plate, then all was well with the Church! Perhaps not surprising then that, as societal mores have loosened and authority figures have lost their power, that many folk have just stopped going to church: there never was any real spirit behind what they were doing. If there is a positive nowadays it is surely that folk who go to church go because they really want to.

There is today a wonderful teaching helping us to rediscover the value and importance of silence and of a deepened spiritual relationship with God. Teachers such as Thomas Keating and Richard Rohr are stressing the critical importance of both action and contemplation. One without the other is a poor way to try and follow Jesus. Both matter, and perhaps because we’ve always tended to stress action, we now desperately need to stress and practice contemplation.

One technique as a way into silence is what is called Centering Prayer. This consists in being quiet and still for a period of twenty minutes or so, ideally twice a day. The point is to try and be present to God in the silence, not saying anything and trying not to focus on thoughts which will inevitably cross your mind. We cannot really stop thoughts coming into our mind but we can try to just let them go past and persist in focusing on – silence. We can use techniques such as a ‘sacred word’ to assist us to return to focus. As I say, this is not easy, especially for someone like me.

What is the benefit of trying to remain in this silence? Perhaps best to google “centering prayer” and follow some of the many links to find out more.

For me, I know that silence is the key to a deeper experience of the God of love. Without silence, my faith is largely an intellectual affair, expressed in such things as blogs! As such, I tend to be “all talk”, and hours and days can go by without any real contact with the living God, and His will is not something that really touches my daily life. I want more than that! I want to know His love for me. I want to live with a spring in my step because I know I am loved and I know that “all will be well”, both for myself and for those I love.

Silence is the key – it is the way into the inner life of the Trinity. It is the practical way to accept God’s grace as power in daily life. But it is so very hard!

In my day job as an IT manager, we often speak of “best endeavours” when we try to progress projects and keep the organisation functioning. I think this can apply to any meaningful practice of religion. We sincerely make the effort, our best endeavours, and even when we fail, if we persevere, God will bless and make use of our poor attempts.

So when I sit down in the quiet of my room and try to quieten my mind and rest in the silence, I struggle, but God delights in my paltry efforts and will transform my spiritual poverty. I just need to believe in silence and persevere.

Martin

“The Father spoke one Word, which was His Son, and this Word He speaks always in eternal silence,
and in silence must it be heard by the soul.” – St. John of the Cross

In my poem The Corral of Kin, I tried to express what is a fundamental aspect of Jesus’ teaching – namely that our love must be like God’s love for us: utterly inclusive with no barriers or limits, even for our enemies. Love is only really authentic when it excludes nothing from its embrace. Any limits on our love effectively debases our love.

A corral is of course an enclosure, usually for keeping livestock in one confined place so they don’t roam and get lost or stolen. It was also used in the pioneer days of the American West when the wagon trains formed a defensive circle to ward off attack by Indians. Inside the corral and protected by the wagons the settlers could best repulse attacks. Inside the corral the folk could feel reasonably safe and secure.

I’m using this image of the corral to try and express how many of us effectively corral our love. We love those ‘inside’ but not those ‘outside’. As Jesus himself put it: “If you only love those who love you… “ (Matthew 5: 46). It is of course relatively easy to love people who love us – often, though not always, our close family and friends, but this can also apply to our clubs, ethnic groups and nationalities. While all love is essentially good and positive, the real danger with only loving those we like or are close to is that our attitudes to others, such as strangers and enemies, are at best indifferent and perhaps can verge on dislike, prejudice and even hate. These non-loving feelings can be very subtle because most of us would not want to admit that we don’t care.

One way of defining love: when we love someone we sincerely want the very best for them. We are involved in their lives and we care what happens to them. In terms of those we don’t love – and love is always pro-active – if we’re honest, we really don’t care what happens to them.

If for example a war is going on in a far away place, and there is terrible suffering being inflicted, and we even see graphic images on our TVs and media, we perhaps don’t lose any sleep over it – precisely because it is far away and we don’t know these folk and likely will never encounter them. We maybe don’t hate them as such but we are untouched by their suffering and largely indifferent to their outcomes. We’re even secretly glad that the violence and suffering is far far away.

What does it mean then to say that we must love all people – no ifs, no buts – everyone, past, present and still to come, friend or foe? We will never meet most of the people who are alive today but we are nonetheless called to love them all. I think it means that we do in fact care about them and are prepared to put ourselves out if the occasion arises when it is appropriate. But the acid test of our love is surely that we refuse to hate, even when people are causing us direct harm. We are not called to always like them, but we absolutely must want the very best for them and work towards that goal come what may. This is not easy and is the ‘cost of discipleship’ if we want to follow Jesus and are honest about calling ourselves Christians.

Why is it that there is never a legitimate reason for not loving someone or some group, tribe or nation? Simply because God never stops loving. God is love – total, constant and unconditional love. As I have said before: there is nothing you can do that will stop God loving you! Even if by some horrible chance you were to end up in hell itself, God would still love you. That’s what God does, that’s what God is. And we are called to embrace this unconditional love, to join in what Richard Rohr calls the ‘circle dance of the Trinity’, giving and receiving love in a dynamic and perpetual flow.

Life is all about relationships, and relationships are all about love. Inclusive, pro-active love that has no limits, no exclusions, no corrals. Period.

In His love, Martin

This may seem like a strange title for someone who follows Jesus Christ, but we need to be honest about the realities of life and belief. It’s been well said that the opposite of faith is not doubt but rather certainty. Those who claim certainty or actively seek it in this life are at best misguided and at worst they can become rigid in their world view and – horror – rigid in their notion of God.

I know someone who is a very devout Catholic and a daily mass go-er, but their faith has largely morphed into an extreme traditionalist practice. As such they are deeply suspicious of Pope Francis as he seeks to reform the Church, and they prefer to listen to Pope Emeritus Benedict. On this point we must be clear: there is only one earthly leader of the Catholic Church, and while we are in somewhat new territory with a pope who has resigned, his presence and role is now only honorary. To reject Francis in favour of Benedict is to identify with a reactionary world view and that is quite simply contrary to the Gospel where the Holy Spirit is constantly asking us to widen our views and stances and to be prepared to respond positively to the ‘sign of the times’. It is a good indication that we are truly listening to the Holy Spirit when we are open to new possibilities and prepared to enter uncharted territories. Sad to say that the Church has often been guilty of the opposite!

In regard to my traditionalist friend, there is little point trying to argue with someone who claims a rigid certainty. We need to understand what underlies this ‘unnatural’ human stance. I would suggest rigidity and reactionary beliefs are the result of someone desperately needing certainty – and certainty is never ours to grasp. To hold a rigid stance, whether in religion, politics or what-have-you, is to deny the dynamic of life, and to cling to the pool side while others are plunging into and splashing about in the joys and sorrows and unpredictabilities of life. Certainty is also closely allied to pride: the rigid person knows the right position, rules and choices, and doesn’t tolerate any dissent. Faith in contrast is predicated on humility (as I previously wrote about).

I suppose the constant challenge for us, especially for those of us who believe in the God of Jesus, is to be passionate about our faith but always to humbly admit our lack of understanding – that in this life we all see through a ‘glass darkly’ and struggle to focus on the ‘real’. As such, our doubts are actually good indicators of our faith, and that our faith is something alive and active. In all things we need to work hard to discern what is God’s will and to be open to different voices, constantly checking that the fruits of the ‘new’ are positive and affirming in a human sense.

To give some examples of what I mean: someone who says the Holy Mass can only properly be celebrated in a certain way and ritual – they are in fact in love with forms and are missing the whole point of what Mass is – our radical union and reunion with Jesus and one another. They might as well be an unbeliever who delights in sacred music and ‘bells and smells’. And someone who categorically states that women can never ever be priests is actually setting themselves up against the Holy Spirit – we can never say never!

Life is never black and white, but always subtle shades of grey. Many atheists know this better than many religious folk! Sadly, religion can frequently encourage arrogance. Many religious folk give the impression that God dances to their tune, when in fact it can only be the other way round.

To say there are no certainties in this life is not to deny the revelation of Jesus. I’m fond of saying:

nothing in this life is free except the one priceless thing – God’s unconditional love for us.

And while I hold firmly to that belief in His great love, I have to admit that I cannot claim to know how that love expresses itself in every time and situation.

To summarise, a strong faith is always characterised by humility, whereas a rigid belief usually indicates arrogance and self-righteousness, and both of these attitudes are entirely contrary to the Gospel of Jesus.

We need to constantly discern, discern, discern! And that is not weakness.

Martin

The core sin of humankind could be said to be pride. In the Biblical story of Adam and Eve, the serpent (Satan) tempts the couple with becoming “like unto God”, that is, usurping their nature as creatures to somehow become on a par with their Creator. This impossible ambition nonetheless appealed to their pride, their ego. So it can be said from biblical testimony that sin entered the world because of human pride, and every other sin and evil that besets us is fundamentally derived from this first and causal sin of pride.

What then is the antidote to pride? We need to do the opposite of what Adam and Eve did. That is essentially to admit and reassert our nature as creatures, utterly dependent on the One who created us. In other words, to ‘eat a slice of humble pie’ and recognise our littleness in comparison to God’s majesty. We need to value and strive to embrace humility.

Even for those who do not accept that God exists, this antidote of humility can still be construed as accepting humanity’s place in the world, that is, we are not the overlords of nature although that is largely how we have behaved and consequently we now fear the damage of climate change and species destruction. And from an astronomical perspective, humanity is perched on a small and relatively insignificant planet on the fringes of just one galaxy among innumerable other galaxies. Astronomer Carl Sagan put this much better than me in his famous address on the ‘pale blue dot’.

A Pale Blue Dot | The Planetary Society

Humanity is clever, resourceful and powerful, and has dominated its world, even to the point of setting foot on the moon – and has ambitions to go further and even colonise other planets. But that very ability that sets us apart from other animals also means we are prone to pride and overreaching. Who among us would deny that? Surely all the wars and bloodshed in human history testify to man’s capacity for prideful folly? Even for non believers we can assert that humankind should adopt an essential humility in regard to our place in the world, and in our dealings with one another.

Humility is therefore fundamentally an attitude of realism: recognising our relative littleness in the great scheme of things. But being realistic does not come easily to us!

From a religious perspective, humility is simply recognising that we are human and God is God. In this we acknowledge that all we have and are is gift of God, even to the very breath we take. Moreover, we have to admit that we cannot ever ‘capture’ the mystery of God – as St Augustine stated: “If you think you understand it (God), then it is not God.”

Unfortunately it has to be admitted that religion is often guilty of the very opposite of humility and it can easily feed our innate pride and selfishness. Many religious folk claim to have the ‘whole truth’, but their view of God is actually constructed from their own political, social and religious prejudices. It is then very difficult to talk to people who claim to have divine truth and who consequently are closed to any alternative viewpoints. Jesus Himself criticised the Pharisees for this very arrogance.

As the often quoted passage from Micah states:

“This is what God asks of you: only this, to act justly, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6: 8)

Not a bad motto for daily life.

The native Americans had a similar wisdom – always to walk in a sacred manner.

We should value and strive after humility. This is the core attitude for recognising and accepting the Kingdom in this world. It is not weakness and lack of knowledge to accept that we are ‘little’ compared to God, that we can scarcely begin to understand His ways, and that we should admit to a ‘holy hesitancy’ in our dealings with one another. How often do we stop and try and discern God’s will before we act?

Let me finish with another short verse from scripture:

“The prayer of the humble pierces the clouds.” (Sirach 35: 21 – 23)

in His love,

Martin