Creating Godde in my own image

I’m coming out of the closet: I have decided to create God in my own image. Really, I have.

I’m going to call Her Godde. Godde is a white middle class woman. Or, in your case, Godde might be an African-Caribbean young woman, or a disabled elderly Latina.

Someone else’s God might be a 3-month old Asian boy with a congenital heart defect or even a white, middle-aged, middle-class man.

I’m absolutely, utterly serious. Here’s the deal.

Christian theology has long asserted that God has no gender and that God is neither male nor female. Yet, if we’re being honest, Western Christianity traditionally pictures God as a powerful white male who is not elderly but old enough to have power and influence and still be physically virile. The CEO of Exxon, perhaps.

Jesus, despite his ethnicity and cultural context, we have pictured as a younger version of the CEO-God. Of course, Jesus was certainly male. And we’ve also been happy to envisage him as white and powerful, a sort of up-and-coming CEO to God’s Chairman of the Board image.

So, if Jesus is divine and male then God must also be male. And Jesus called God his Father, so that must be the way that Jesus wanted all his followers forever after to refer to the first person of the Trinity, right?

Hmm.

British Methodism – I speak only for the tradition in which I was ordained rather than trying to speak for other traditions – affirms that every person is made in the image of God and that we each bear that image within us.

Bearing the Imago Dei does not mean that any one of us bears God’s complete image. Scripture tells us that God created both male and female in God’s image. Thus, woman is not a complete image of God. And man is not a complete image of God. But together we complement each other and bear something that is closer to the image of God than one gender or the other on its own.

Many conservative Christians are not only happy – but indeed eager – to point out this complementarity of gender when it suits their purposes.

So, tell me why tradition, and much of conservatism, insists that we must think of God as male and that we must conceive of the male human being as being a complete image of God and the female as representing no aspect of God whatsoever?

But here is why I am really creating Godde in my own image: because I realised that I have spent over 50 years not being able to get in touch with the Imago Dei in which I was created because “everyone knows” that God is a man.

Did I think that God is a man? No, I did not think that. Did I believe that God is a man? I didn’t believe that in my head, but I sure believed it in my heart and in my gut. God could not be part of me because God is not a woman. Even if I have “received the Holy Spirit” and the Spirit is in me, the Spirit is a man (not in Greek or Hebrew, but certainly in popular Western thought).

Of course, God is not black either. Or disabled. Or gay. Or transgendered. If you’re any of those things, you have to think that the Imago Dei inside you is a straight white male. A foreign invader. Not really part of you. You bear no image of the divinity. But if you are ready to confess to God your sin of being female, black, gay, disabled, or whatever, then God will be happy to put his “normal” corrective image within your field of vision, even though you will never be able to change the way you are.

So, I have decided to create Godde in my own image. And I hope that you too will create God/Godde in your own image in the same way. I’m not going to pretend any more that God is a powerful, white middle class male CEO. And if you don’t believe that either, maybe together we can begin to change the world one person at a time.

God is a Woman and She is Growing Older

This is a stunning sermon and well worth a read: God is a Woman and She is Growing Older by Rabbi Margaret Wenig.

(Hat tip to Rachel Barenblat at Velveteen Rabbi)

Faith Sharing

I am currently reading The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything by James Martin, SJ.

In the book, he talks about a practice in the Jesuit community that is called "faith sharing". I immediately recognized this process as the one we used when I belonged to the Ignatian lay community called the Charistian Life Community.

Many Methodists talk about reinstating the original Methodist classes and many people wonder what they might do in such a "class" when they gather to hold their fellow members accountable in love. My own experience of "faith sharing" (I didn't know of this term until I read the book) was that it was the most profound experience of fellowship and growth in faith and prayer that I have ever had. And Fr. Martin can explain it better than I can, so I offer his words here:

Every Sunday night in the novitiate our community gathered for "faith sharing," which meant speaking to one another about our spiritual lives: where we had experienced God in our daily lives and what our prayer was like.

There were two rules. First, everything was confidential. Second, no comments were allowed after someone spoke, unless it was a question asked to clarify something.

The first rule made sense. The second seemed ridiculous. Early on, when people expressed their struggles, I wanted to say, "Why not try this?" If someone talked about being lonely, I wanted to say, "Knock on my door." I couldn't understand why the novice director wanted us to be silent.

Gradually I realized: it was so we could listen....

Gradually I grew to love faith sharing. When my fellow novices, as well as Gerry and his assistant, David, shared about how they had experienced God in the previous week, I was fascinated. What a wonder to see how complicated these men were and how much they were all trying to grow in holiness, trying to be better men, better Jesuits.

I've wanted to write about my experience in CLC for a long time. But it's hard to write about because it's so simple. I personally found the rule of "no talking except to clarify" to be rule that made the entire process work and I think that many people find it a bit silly. But here is what I found:

* When no one can tell another that they disagree with his or her experience of God or that the speaker has got their doctrine wrong then people begin to be totally honest with each other.

* When no one interrupts others, the speakers don't get desperate to talk more in order to be heard and the listeners actually listen instead of worrying about what to say.

* The Spirit of God does move to challenge people and hold them accountable without any human in the group needing to don the mantle of Spiritual Rule-maker.

* When people are really honest about what is genuinely going on in their faith-life, the group members grow to love and appreciate each other and to understand their challenges.

In my experience in CLC, neither accountability nor faith-sharing required a human police(wo)man to make sure everyone was on track. God managed just fine without human intervention.

I'm not an historian of exactly how Wesley did things, but my hunch is that this format would work well for many accountability groups in our time. But the urge to make exceptions to the second rule really does need to be resisted at all cost.

Thoughts on Prayer

OK, here is a subject-area where Angels fear to tread and I'm offering a few preliminary thoughts here on prayer for discussion. By no means do I think that I am an "expert" on prayer or that I have "right answers" about prayer.

My three thoughts for this morning are:

1) Pray as you can, not as you can't
2) Prayer, just do it
3) Prayer is not a vending machine, it's an exercise

Pray as you can, not as you can't.
Anyone who has attended Guy Chester Centre in the past will recognize this saying as taught by the beloved Sister Anne Marie Farrell. In fact, it's a saying that many regular practitioners of traditional Christian prayer disciplines will tell you.

Prayer is not an easy thing and there is no point in making it harder by getting a whole load of "shoulds" into your head about how prayer "should" be done. Some people are familiar with more contemplative prayer and they think that this sort of prayer just doesn't work for them because they hate silence and can't sit still for ten minutes. Others are more familiar with spoken verbal prayer and may think "Well, Fred the Local Preacher in my congregation is fantastic at praying out loud, but I get my tongue all tied up; I can't pray and won't ever be able to."

Each individual is going to have approaches to prayer that at different from others. There are a number of good books which give suggestions on various ways to pray to help you try out a few of them. Richard Foster's book called Prayer; Finding the Heart's True Home stands out as one of these. Some people find it easier to pray while walking, some find it easier with music, some with silence. Some pray out loud in their own room, some pray out loud with others, some pray silently with others.

There is no "Right Way" to pray and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I also find I pray differently in different situations. Sometimes I want to pray silently on my own. Sometimes I want to pray out loud with others. Neither way is better than the other.

2) Prayer, just do it
This is kind of a "bridge" point between points one and three.

Don't worry about your prayer technique. Just pray and try to pray regularly. Try various ways of praying until you begin to understand which ways work for you and which way you pray in different circumstances. For example, if I'm really in a crisis situation, I ideally want to be praying with others. That's not always possible, but I now know that this is my preferred way of praying in such a circumstance.

Also, like exercise, praying regularly is helpful but every little bit helps. Personally, I have found saying the Daily Office (there are many versions of this in books as well as on line) to be incredibly helpful in "just doing it". The Daily Office is especially helpful when you are distracted, sad or depressed. Rote prayer, in my view, is far from the vain praying that many more passionate Protestants claim it is. It's a way of showing up to be with God even if you don't feel like it.

Regular prayer, like regular exercise, is helpful and it all "accumulates". Which brings me to my third point:

3) Prayer is not a vending machine, it's an exercise
A lot of people have a lot of things to say about whether or not prayer "works". It seems to me that no matter what side of this argument you take, both sides seem to think of prayer as a vending machine. To be a bit absurd for the sake of making a point: "My friend's heart is failing and a transplant can't be found, so we're praying for a miracle cure for her heart and when it doesn't come we decide that our prayers to God have failed or not been heard."

Now, don't get me wrong, I do believe in miracles. I have personally seen someone delivered from an illness that was diagnosed as fatal; this middle-age person's cure/healing was incomprehensible to doctors, was apparently complete and came a few days before the person was supposed to die. However, I'm not actually expecting to see another miracle like that in my lifetime.

What I do think is that prayer can help us see the everyday miracles more clearly. Prayer helps us see key-hole appendectomies as miracles, new cancer treatments as miracles. But probably more importantly, prayer helps us recognize that the fact that we got up this morning is a miracle. That the fact I have a warm house and a roof over my head is a miracle. Prayer helps us see that the good Samaritan who just happened to have a can of petrol on that isolated road is a miracle and not a coincidence. And I don't think I'm down-playing the word "miracle" here.

Just like exercise helps make our physical muscles stronger, so too does prayer help make our spiritual muscles stronger.

What do you think?

Paths as Yet Untrodden

Someone gave me a hand-made card this morning with the prayer below hand-written in it. I'm not sure that the person who gave me the card knows I was brought up Lutheran and I'm pleased by the coincidence. Her citation is the 1978 Lutheran Book of Worship. It's a beautiful prayer that reminds me a bit of 'The Covenant Prayer'.

Lord God,
You have called your servants
to ventures of which we cannot see the ending,
by paths as yet untrodden,
through perils unknown.

Give us faith
to go out with good courage,
not knowing where we go,
but only that your hand is leading us
and your love supporting us;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

What I Did on my Silent, Ignatian Retreat

In speaking to people 'In Real Life' recently, I've realised that there is some curiosity as to what goes on during a silent retreat. and even some puzzlement as to why anyone should want to do such a thing.

So I thought I would post here a bit about 'What I did on my silent retreat'.

There are many different places around the country that give silent retreats but I went to Loyola Hall Jesuit Spirituality Centre in Rainhill near Liverpool.

I arrived at about 4:00 pm on Monday and was greeted by three staff members and then shown to my room. I was told that Mass would be celebrated at 6:00 pm if I wanted to attend and that dinner would be at 6:45 pm. (None of the activities are compulsory) At dinner, I met the people in my group and, as we were still allowed to talk at this stage, we were able to chat and get to know each other.

At 8:00 pm we met with the two women who would be our 'Prayer Companions' and we were each assigned to a Prayer Companion as well as given a few housekeeping notices as to what would happen when. A few bible passages were suggested for us to choose to meditate upon and the silence began.

The basic pattern of my week was:

1) Meditate on a bible story. I tend to use either Ignatian prayer or Lectio Divina mainly because these ways of 'praying the bible' work well for me.
2) Listen to God in prayer in order to hear and discern where he is leading me.
3) Share the above with my Prayer Companion and agree on the next bible passage, if any.

4) Spend the day in prayer and quiet and attend the daily Mass (service of Holy Communion)

So, did I spend 16 hours a day on my knees praying? No. Although I did spend several hours praying in either 1-hour or 30-minute chunks. Loyola House has quite a number of different rooms and chapels specifically designed for prayer and there are also extensive grounds for walking. I also walked around Rainhall as well as the Loyola grounds. A lot of my listening to God takes place whilst walking. Did I mention that one is not supposed to read during a silent retreat, either? The silence is actually a way of tuning in to your own mind as well as to what God might have to say.

Silent prayer is not supposed to be about contemplating your navel, either. Ignatian prayer is supposed to have what is termed 'an apostolic mission': i.e. the pray-er is meant to discern what God wants them to do as a Christian disciple.  

One last thing. I expect that this way of praying is not for everyone nor is a silent retreat for everyone. God made us all differently and we don't all have to pray in one manner any more than we all have to worship in one manner. One of the most important tenets of prayer is 'Pray as you can, not as you can't'.

Day of Prayer for Zimbabwe

I have just received this from a Zimbabwean friend:

ON SUNDAY 27TH April, 2008.

A desperate cry from the hearts of Zimbabwe screams across the world.

It calls upon all Christians of every denomination in every nation to focus their prayers, in churches, halls, homes or elsewhere, on Sunday 27th April, 2008 on the critical situation in Zimbabwe, a nation in dire distress and teetering on the brink of human disaster.

Let the cry for help touch your heart and mind. Let it move you to do what you can immediately to ensure this DAY OF PRAYER takes place in your country and neighbourhood.

Please pass on this message right now to all the churches and Christian organisations known to you and to the media as well as to everyone anxious to rescue Zimbabwe from violence, the concealing and juggling of election results, deceit, oppression and corruption, and to bring about righteousness, joy, peace, compassion, honesty, justice, democracy and freedom from fear and want.

May a continual strong stream of prayer and supplication flow up to the Lord on behalf of all the people on this DAY OF PRAYER, exhorting His divine intervention throughout the nation.

"It is by making the truth publicly known that we recommend ourselves to the honest judgment of mankind in the sight of God." ( 2 Corinthians 4:2)

SOME ADVICE TO ZIMBABWEANS
"Who so putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe." (Proverbs 29:25)
"Stand fast, and do not let yourselves be caught again in the yoke of slavery." (Galatians 5:1)
"Make no mistake, you cannot cheat God." (Galatians 6:7)
"Do not be overcome by evil but overcame evil with good" (Romans 12:21)

Bob Stumbles. Chancellor, Anglican Diocese of Harare. 19.04.2008.

Thinking Faith

The British Provence of The Society of Jesus (Jesuits) has launched a new website entitled Thinking Faith.

Those who know me in person know that I originally studied theology at a Jesuit university in the States during the 1970s. I'm indebted to my university experience for showing me that it is possible to be both a Christian and a thinking person.

I'm particularly indebted to Jesuits at my university for introducing me to Ignatian prayer. I belong to the Christian Life Community which is a community dedicated to praying and sharing prayer in an Ignatian format.

The Society of Jesus is dedicated to 'thinking' as well as to prayer, hence a 'Thinking Faith' website is well within their tradition (although I think they might need someone who knows just a little bit more about formatting web-space). Historically, Jesuits have been committed to prayer, to social justice and to education.

Faith

I wanted to share the following thought on 'faith', written by Ally Barrett in Reflections for Daily Prayer:

Faith asks a great deal of us. It asks us to stand alongside the weak, even though we could make allies among the powerful. It lets us make fools of ourselves in obedience to God, trusting that one day our actions will bear fruit. It persuades us to take risks and to betray previously deeply held alliances. And it asks us to do all this for the sake of something intangible, but much more real. So, how hard it is for us to trust God enough to let him do unexpected things in our lives. How hard it is to let our obedient faith overcome our fear, our instinct for self-preservation, our independence and even our desire for a quiet life.

Reflections for Daily Prayer follows the scripture readings assigned for morning prayer in The Common Worship Lectionary. This is only the second in the series, but I think it's well worth checking out if you're looking for some short, thoughtful daily meditations that avoid being twee ('twee' = 'cutsy and sentimental' for North American readers).

Prayers for Christian Unity

I love our week of Prayers for Christian Unity. A service is held in five churches in the town over the week and each service has a visiting preacher, so no one preaches in his or her own church. Four of these services are lunch-time services and we all share a simple meal afterwards.

Today, I preached at the town-centre Anglican church. I was totally chuffed that two members of the Anglican parish in my neighbourhood turned up to the service saying 'We came here to show our support for you.' Lovely. Ecumenism at the ground level.

Here is my sermon.

Oh, and on the subject of singing hymns that everyone knows, when we came to sing the last hymn, someone raised his hand and said 'Would you like organ accompaniment with that?' I joked that it never occurred to me to think that there would be an organist in the congregation.

Sermons

Catching up on sermon blogging again. One sermon for The Baptism of Jesus and one non-lectionary sermon on the subject of persistent prayer.

The Baptism of Jesus

Persistent Prayer

Kenya: Urgent Prayer Call

Olive Morgan has posted an Urgent Prayer Call for Kenya.

Continue to pray for the entire nation.

Thoughts on Extempore (Extemporaneous) Worship

I hope fellow Methoblogger, Richard Hall, of Connexions won't be embarrassed if I say that he presided at a very fine extempore (that's 'extemporaneous' if you're American) service of communion at the Methodist Bloggers' Meet.

Richard commented at the time that he used to like written liturgy but that he's grown into an appreciation of Methodism's tradition of extempore praying.

I joked during the 24 hours that all of us were together at the bloggers' meet about how I miss my Lutheran liturgical background. This experience of liturgy was fuelled by participating in post Vatican II Roman Catholic liturgy where I saw the fixed form and shape of the written liturgy expressed in a very 'local' way that was meaningful to the congregation. I guess I learned then that written liturgy can be done 'freely' and 'meaningfuly' and that added a whole new dimension to something that I already loved.

Although I have oodles less experience in Methodism and as a minister than Richard, I too am beginning to appreciate the extempore tradition. And, in my opinion, anyone who had participated in the 'bloggers' communion' on Saturday could not have failed to apprecaiate the riches of this tradition.

What's my sometimes gripe with the extempore tradition? I've often seen it done badly. Badly in a way that suggests that someone in back in 1850 didn't quite understand the shape of worship and they started some bad practice and this bad practice has been passed down for four or five generations. Prayers that didn't know whether they were confessions or intercessions or thanksgivings which sometimes resulted in lots of confession and prayers of intercession for ill people in the congregation and not much else. Prayers that don't reflect the entirety of salvation history but which are very locally focussed (totally inappropriate for a 'great prayer of thanksgiving' before communion, for example).

What we had yesterday wasn't anything like that and I've seen other good examples of extempore worship in my time as well as the bad examples. Extempore worship can be wonderful when the worship leader(s) understand the shape and function of different aspects of the liturgy. I'll get to Richard's stage with a lot more practice; there are a few elements of the liturgy I could do extempore now - probably most of the prayers outside of the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving - but I reckon that extempore liturgy takes a lot of experience as well as knowledge. I'm definitely not confident enough to do an extempore sermon yet! (I heard a story the other day of a very experienced minister who forgot the entire service at home and had to do the whole thing extempore. Yikes!)

The Methodist Church - Suppressing the Holy Spirit???

Over at The Methodist Preacher, the author asks the question on this post:

I wonder if "spirituality" is being promoted as a counterpoint to the work of the Pentecostal groups in drawing our attention to this person of the Trinity, often ignored or even suppressed by the mainstream denominations?

The blog site suggests that the Methodist Church section on spirituality contains

Lots of semi-pagan or "new age" ideas about prayer, but absolutely nothing about the person, character and activity of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity.

I'm posting the question here because I think that someone in a position to answer this question might see it: Is the Methodist Church intending to promote semi-pagan Spirituality? Is the Methodist Church ignoring or suppressing the Holy Spirit?

(For the record, I don't personally believe that Methodism is doing these things.)

Methodists and Conversion

We've been having a fascinating conversation over on: What is a Methodist Evangelical?. Please feel free to continue there if you have any further thoughts!
I wanted to pick up on Peter Kirk's comment on 'conversionism'. Peter wrote:

To me, the central issue which distinguishes evangelicals from other Christians, at least in the Church of England, is conversionism, the belief that what the mass of people need is not moral exhortation or participation in worship but to be born again. How far are Methodist evangelicals, and Methodists as a whole, in agreement with this?

Perhaps those who have been Methodists longer than I have been can answer that question for 'Methodism in general'. I think it's right to say that 'conversion' is central to Methodist thinking: 'All need to be saved,' according to the 'Four Alls'.

I'd like to do some personal thinking around the idea that 'people do not need moral exhortation or participation in worship, but to be born again.'

My own sense is that we need all of these things and that conversion alone is not sufficient. I think I'd also add that we need prayer as well; this might come under the cover of worship, but I want to make clear that public worship on a Sunday probably isn't 'enough', at least not if we are ever going to need to call on our faith in times of crisis.

First of all, on 'conversion'. I think that we all need to be 'converted' because we all need to repent. As most Christians know, 'repent' means to turn around. We all have a tendency to want to go our own way apart from God, be it actively sinning or simply just ignoring God, so we all need to 'turn around'. But this 'turning around' isn't just a one-time thing.

If 'conversionism' is a one-time big event, then I don't think it's sufficient. Necessary, but not sufficient. I worry if people think that all they have to be able to do is to name the time and the date of their conversion and then, as far as God is concerned, they are set up for heaven. I also would not want to exclude people who have managed to turn around, repent and convert without ever being able to name the time and the date. I do think that this can happen for people who have been brought up in a Christian family or another Christian environment.

I believe - and I think that this is very Methodist - that 'conversion' is an on-going thing. As someone said to me recently, it's not that we have been saved, it is that we are being saved. This 'on-going salvation' is, I think, another way of expressing the Methodist idea of Christian Perfection or Holiness. Once having 'given one's life to Christ', we are still in need of on-going growth, discipleship and perfection.

I think that the Christian community is extremely important in our on-going discipleship and I think that worship and prayer are important in this continued growth. I'd argue that this is also 'Methodist' - at least, it's Wesleyan. Wesley exhorted his followers to receive communion as often as possible and also recommended 'constant communion'. Certainly, the early classes and bands were nothing if they were not opportunities for moral exhortation and prayer.

That brings me to 'prayer' and I can't really point to anything particularly Methodist as I talk about prayer, although Methodists certainly have nothing against praying! I believe, mainly from personal experience, that putting effort into practicing a prayer life is vitally important. A retired Methodist minister remarked recently that, in his experience, the attitude of many elderly people toward God depended on whether or not they had a prayer life. I'm not talking about 'faith' as 'doctrines' but 'faith' as in whether or not people feel that they can turn to God in times of crisis. This rings true to me and would probably be another long post. Suffice it to say that I think that there is value in 'practicing' prayer even if we can't feel God at all or don't feel like praying.

To sum up, I personally believe that conversion is necessary but not sufficient. For me, to neglect or de-emphasise worship and growth in holiness is to be constantly 'drinking milk' rather than 'eating meat'.

Thankfulness 2

I don't have any profound thoughts, just an experience to share with the 'ether'.

I've been privileged to find a Spiritual Director, something that has been a great help to me since I started in formal full-time ministry in September 2006. I remember that at our first session, we talked about thankfulness to God. After years of studying, I was feeling incredibly thankful for the privilege of being a full-time minister.

The theme of thankfulness came full circle at my last 'session' with my Spiritual Director when I said that God had put in on my heart to ask for the grace of thankfulness and to try to cultivate thankfulness. So this is something that I have been praying about.

Now I don't know how prayer 'works' and I don't know how this sort of prayer 'works'. Some may say that this kind of prayer - praying for a thankful heart- is simply a matter of mind over matter, or visualisation; they might say that praying for thankfulness is an indication of already being thankful. I don't know. I don't quite see it that way.

All I know is that, at the moment, God has opened my eyes to all sorts of things to be thankful for. This is not a 'knowledge thing'. It's a 'heart thing'. And I know that we can't always base our faith and our trust in God on feelings. But right now, I'm thankful to God for a sudden wave of thankfulness.

Listening to Others

I commend the following post on the subject of listening to others: Prayer at Panim

I make no further comment as Rachel is well able to speak for herself, this is not my tradition and for me to make further comment would would feel like treading thoughtlessly on holy ground.

Sermon - Prayer and the Nearness of God

This past Sunday's sermon for Advent 3 has been posted on my Sermon blog. Here is a link: Prayer and the Nearness of God.

St Ignatius and Me

One Christian teacher, thinker and saint who keeps "popping up" (coincidence? I don't think so) in my life is Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits.

I first "met" Ignatius when I went to university to study International Affairs in 1975. I had chosen that university specifically for their International Affairs degree but because it was a Jesuit university, we were required to study two modules of theology in our first year and two in our second year (university studies are a four-year affair in in the US, for those who don't know)

It's hard to find the words for what that first theology module was like. Ignatius would have said - I think - that I found my "vocation". I fell madly, passionately in love with theology (and if I'm being brutally honest, at that time I was more in love with theology than with God). After my first year at university, I changed my major (changed my course of study) and began to study Theology rather than International Affairs.

It was through the Christian community at university - particularly the Jesuit community - that I learned about Ignatius of Loyola. I learned about his way of meditating from scripture: how to "put" myself inside a biblical story and ask God to speak to me through it. This was not about getting "the correct interpretation of the passage" - as it has been in my inerrantist denomination - Ignatian scriptural meditation was simply about allowing God's word to speak to me, many times in very surprising ways that had nothing to do with "the right interpretation" of the text.

I left university and, as many young people do, I became a sporadic church-goer for a variety of reasons. For a very long time I also considered that I was not a Christian. But I continued to practice the Ignatian way of prayer that I learned in university. With the benefit of hindsight, I think that I can safely say that this prayer-practice may well have saved my faith. So I poodled along for a very long time until one day - after about 2 years of trying to gently nudge me - God made it dramatically clear that he wanted me to commit every fibre of my being to his service.

I responsed to that call, "pushed doors" - as they say - until one day I found myself accepted into the preliminary stages (Foundation Training) for the Methodist ministry (The Methodist Church of Great Britain). Once again, I encountered Ignatius. As prospective Methodist ministers, we were being trained in the Ignatian way of prayer and taken through sections of The Spiritual Exercises!

In theology college, I found myself choosing Ignatius as the subject for my module on Contemporary Spirituality and this past July, I attended a short retreat at Loyola Hall near Liverpool. There I met three other Methodist Ministers on retreat and one of them encouraged me to find a Spiritual Director, so I now find myself with a Jesuit Spiritual Director.

So, St. Ignatius now seems like a permanent feature in my life. I have no idea why this is the case, but I'm certain God is at work; I shall just keep pushing these Ignatian doors to see what happens.

P. S. I didn't set out to write a post like this, but I think there must be a reason for having done it, so I'll take a breath, trust in God and post the story in faith that it touches someone for some reason. God willing, the next post will be on the subject I originally intended to write about.

Prayer for Peace

I cry out this prayer for peace from the Education for Justice website. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

God of life, help us to choose life, not death.
God of life, help us to respect, not destroy.
God of life, help us treasure, not control.
God of life, help us see our value not in things, but in your gifts.

God of life, beat our swords into plowshares,
Beat our spears into pruning hooks,
Replace our shopping sprees with celebrations of community
Replace our busyness with contemplation
Change our things into gifts.
Change our violence into your peace.

God of life, help us to choose life, not death.