Shovin yer Grannie Aff a Bus

Shoving yer Grannie aff a bus 1 : reading of this post

Going back a few months, I was planning an assembly to give in school on the theme of “Compassion for Old People”. I found it a bit tricky at the time – how could I find anything to say that was not blatantly obvious, and maybe even dull? So, humour is always good, especially when working with teenagers. I thought that as the students enter I would play a nursery rhyme that is one of the first songs that small children in Scotland might learn:

Shoving yer Grannie aff a bus 2 : reading of this post

And after introducing the theme, I would comment on how much we love our Grannies in Scotland and provide a short video clip as evidence to that effect:

Shoving yer Grannie aff a bus 3 : reading of this post

I knew it would not be appropriate for me to show them this other clip, even though I really did want to, on account of it being a bit too fiery:

Shoving yer Grannie aff a bus 4 : reading of this post

I did not do that assembly in the end, it was rescheduled for another week with a different theme. Given that this blog is about Spirituality and about “Finding God in All Things”, you might be wondering at this point:

Where is this coming from?

and also,

Where is it leading to?

Both good discernment questions.

I have been noticing recently, conversations with vulnerable people: people who are “poor” speakers by wordly standards, and we are not very patient with poor speakers in our world.

One little old lady, who is a Gran (but not my Granny), who has had a minor stroke and stutters now, and also finds it difficult to remember the words she wants to use. She gets frustrated. There may also be dementia there, because the conversation gets recycled several times on a loop. She knows her memory is fading: it scares her, even though she puts on a brave face.

One young man who is autistic, who functions in his own specialist realm on a high level that is unfathomable to most people and yet finds simple social conversation anything but simple. It is difficult and painful and has to be consciously worked at.

Some years ago I went on a student retreat with others from the Chaplaincy, and there was a PhD student there from Zimbabwe. We spent the first session talking about ourselves, introducing ourselves so that the others could get a sense of who we were. I remember feeling impatient to begin with when this student spoke, he seemed to be telling a rambling story and I wanted him to hurry up and get to the point. And then I had a light bulb moment: his story was the point. Here was a person who knew how to just be, how to live in the moment and to appreciate all that was around him; it is who he was, considered and present, not rushing to get it all done and trying to have a mic drop moment. I was at once full of admiration and awe, as I acknowledged my own vice of impatience and aggressive drive.

There is something in the nature of the world that demands aggressive drive to be successful at life. We see it in films, television, work: everywhere. Just look around at what is honoured and respected in the world and there you will see it, and it has always been there. The world is pushy, and if we are not pushing, we are failing.

Why am I pondering an aborted assembly plan here and now? Why Scottish nursery rhymes and why Grannies? Many of the daily readings recently have been from Isaiah, as was the guided prayer I posted the other week. We have been studying Matthew Chapters 6 and 7 in Bible Study, and of course, in the UK there has been a general election for a new government. Some of the rhetoric in the election campaign has been around what kind of society we want to live in. Do we want to live in one where the desires of the wealthy to hoard their money in offshore tax havens dictate government policy and where lies and bullying of those who speak out are the means to achieve that?

St. Ignatius summarises what I am thinking of in the meditation of the Two Standards in the Spiritual Exercises:

The first step then, will be riches, the second honour, the third pride. From these three steps the evil one leads to all other vices.

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, trans Louis J. Puhl S.J.

And of course in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus says:

‘No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

Matthew 6:24
Matthew 7:20

Even Wonder Woman in the trailer for the new film sums it up:

Nothing good is born from lies.

Shoving yer Grannie aff a bus 5 : reading of this post

Or do we want to live in a society where government policy is based around the preferential option for the poor, where the wealthy contribute their fair share to the country and public services are maintained effectively for the benefit of everyone? Do we continue on this road where the treatment of the sick is in decline, where education and the mental health of our young people is deteriorating, where homelessness is on the increase, where people are working ungodly hours and are still unable to put food on the table without resorting to hand outs from the food banks and racial violence and violence against religious minorities is increasing? Do we all do what we need to do to fix it?

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:21
Isaiah 41:17
Shoving yer Grannie aff a bus 6 : reading of this post

I am thinking about how we treat the vulnerable in society. In Jesus’ day, that was the widow and the orphan: those with no male kin to claim them and no status. Who are they in our own situation? The ones we are repelled by? The ones it takes too much effort to engage with? Do we even notice those feelings within ourselves? And when we do, how do we respond?

Isaiah 40:1
Shoving yer Grannie aff a bus 7 : reading of this post

Sometimes I walk past the homeless person on the street, and I can hardly bare to look them in the eye; sometimes I give a small amount of money, and sometimes I give a generous amount that leaves me a little short, and I wish them well. All of it makes me uncomfortable and angry. I am angry that there are homeless people on our streets: I am not angry with homeless people for being there, I am angry with a society that has created the conditions conducive to homelessness, and that it is on the increase. It is a case of there but for the grace of God go I, because how many of us are just one unfortunate, catastrophic event away from such a situation? There was a young homeless man my daughter knew from school. He gave her his only five pounds late one night because she did not have enough money to get a taxi home and he was concerned to make sure she was safe. A few months later she heard that he had died alone in his tent, and had lain there for four days before being discovered.

In everything do to others as you would have them do to you;

Matthew 7:12

After the results of the election, I have to say that I am ashamed to be British. I am incredulous at what the UK has voted for. It is certainly not the preferential option for the poor. I am reminded of the meditations of the first week of the Spiritual Exercises, where we are asked to contemplate the sins of the world, and our own sin. The grace we ask for in the first week is:

…shame and confusion, because I see how many have been lost on account of a single mortal sin, and how many times I have deserved eternal damnation, because of the many grievous sins that I have committed.

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius trans. Louis J. Puhl S.J.

I have to acknowledge that were I to place myself in the Exercises right now, it would be here, in this place of shame and confusion. I notice the movements in me where I am not responding, even internally, in a way that is more for the glory of God: I notice my anger and where it might move me to personalise it and lash out at others and I notice the pull of despair, which has the potential to shift me from this place of spiritual consolation of shame and confusion, the grace of the first week, into spiritual desolation, where it would be all too easy to feel that God has not answered the poor and needy, and lose some faith and trust in God.

If we are using pushing your elderly relatives off of a bus as a metaphor for how we look after the vulnerable in society, then Scotland knows that it is not the done thing: it is so obvious that it does not need explaining. A three year old child could sing it to you. After the general election I will say that I am proud to be Scottish.

Light in the Darkness

Light in the darkness
Light in the Darkness 1: Reading of this post.

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.

Isaiah 9:2

There has been a convergence in my thoughts recently in the contrast between light and darkness as metaphors for spiritual life. I posted a guided prayer with the image above, inspired from Isaiah, and Matthew’s gospel, which we are studying in our bible study group at church, which made reference to it. Also, in writing about my mandalas, I mentioned that they were in response to one particular imaginative contemplation that I had had on a retreat and that I was still trying to process that one prayer experience. Carl Jung says of mandalas:

In such cases it is easy to see how the severe pattern imposed by a circular image of this kind compensates the disorder of the psychic state– namely through the construction of a central point to which everything is related, or by a concentric arrangement of the disordered multiplicity and of contradictory and irreconcilable elements. This is evidently an attempt at self-healing on the part of Nature, which does not spring from conscious reflection but from an instinctive impulse.

Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

In other words, according to The Mandala Book, Jung felt that mandalas represented an unconscious attempt to heal psychic disturbances. In the contemplation to which I am referring, I spent some time simply touching Jesus’ face, as if I were a blind person, and what I could see was only light: more and less light, luminosity of differing intensity, rather than a skin and bones face. I do not have the words or images to describe completely the effect it has had on me, only that I have never been the same since then and that creating mandalas is a compulsion in response to it, which surfaces regularly, even ten years on from the prayer experience itself. I would describe it as a profound disturbance that is deeper than anything I am conscious of, still.

In the Spiritual Exercises, on the way the evil one acts, when using the analogy of the false lover who whispers and urges us to secrecy, Ignatius says:

But if one manifests them to a confessor, or to some other spiritual person who understands his deceits and malicious designs, the evil one is very much vexed. For he knows that he cannot succeed in his evil undertaking, once his evident deceits have been revealed.

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, trans Louis J. Puhl S.J.

My own spiritual director uses the image of shining God’s light on things that might want to remain in the dark when helping me to discern consolation from desolation, and the direction of my path. I have found it to be very helpful and it is an image I use myself. It is as if, with God’s help and guidance, you could pick up the lantern in the featured image, and move it around the dark areas in your soul, one by one, so that with Him, you could face all of your deepest fears and shame, and He would heal you.

However, it does not feel as simple and lovely as all that. I am reminded of my prayer that no-one can see the face of God and live.

We shall surely die, for we have seen God.

Judges 13:22

And that St. Paul says:

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.

1 Corinthians 13:12

I am also moved by “The Light” from The Proclaimers:

Light in the Darkness 2: Reading of this post.

I’ve been stumbling in the dark for years, and the light just made me blind.

The Proclaimers; The Light

I am only left to concede that there is trauma associated with stepping into God’s light, to look at Him face to face is blinding and causes a death within us. We can no longer see anything good in our inordinate desires and the way we lived before is no longer possible. It can be easier, and more comfortable to cling to the darkness of our shame than to look at it in the full glare of God’s light. We are unable to bear the pain of it alone. I would put my experience of touching His face in this category. It is as if there are moments when He does not hold back so much as previously in His desire to show us Himself. In my prayer on my journey with Julian of Norwich this week, one of the phrases that stood out for me is:

God wishes to be seen, He wishes to be sought…

40 Day Journey with Julian of Norwich, Day 1

It is almost as if His enthusiasm gets the better of Him, and the usual tender and gentle respect with which He regards our protective boundaries dissipates as He gathers us up and brings us into His heart, simply because He cannot resist us. It is God who takes the initiative. And it splits us wide open. Perhaps it is what the mystics mean when they describe union with God, and it is as searingly painful, as it is blissful and transformational.

Rather than make this happen, we should simply let it happen.

The Way of Paradox, Cyprian Smith

and in a way, is it not what we desire?

…we can pine for God, reach out to Him, yearn for Him who lies hidden in an impenetrable cloud of mystery.

The Way of Paradox, Cyprian Smith

When I look at the image featured in this post, and from my prayer with it, I notice that the light is neither glaring nor harsh. The image is mostly darkness, but the warmth of the light draws us gently out of the darkness, it invites us not to remain there. There are many places in that image where we may dwell: I least wanted to be in the bottom left hand corner, furthest away from the light: I most wanted to be protected, inside the shade, but not in the full glare of the light source. I was invited to dwell outside of the shade, in the bright spot to the bottom left of the image of the cross that is projected onto the wall. There is both pain and death in standing in this place.

The third week of The Spiritual Exercises invites us to enter into the Passion and death of Jesus: the desire we ask for is:

…sorrow, compassion and shame because the Lord is going to His suffering for my sins.

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, trans. Louis J. Puhl S.J.

In my own personal experience of The Exercises, I knew that I wanted to stay, to remain with Him through it all: I could not bear to be one of those who ran away, no matter how painful it was to stay and to watch Him suffer, and to be powerless in the face of His suffering. To experience this sorrow is spiritual consolation, and is to receive the grace asked for at this point in The Exercises.

Light in the Darkness 3: Reading of this post.

So it seems to me that in terms of our spiritual journey, we exist in a darkness that is both comfortable and uncomfortable. The darkness itself is not infinite, and does not have power over the light. It is diminished by the smallest presence of light. Even as we are attracted to it, we can choose to turn our back on the light and face into the darkness, and there are times of spiritual desolation when we do. We can also face the light and choose to be drawn by its warmth and move closer to it. Such invitation and movement is spiritual consolation. Just as the light is comforting, it is also painful when we are unused to its intensity, and may even blind us. In time, our eyes adjust to our new reality.

Lectio Divina: Isaiah 11:1-10

Year A: Second Sunday of Advent

Here, as stated before, it is my intention to draw from the forthcoming Sunday liturgy and to offer a guided prayer on one of the pieces of scripture in the same way that we have been doing in Exploring Personal Prayer. I do not intend to offer any reflections on the scripture. My suggestion is that you follow the Ignatian structure: preparation for prayer by reading the scripture, going to your prayer place and doing the prayer itself, and then moving away to another place and doing a review of the prayer. Keeping some sort of prayer journal is good practice. Note any moments of consolation in the prayer, where you felt drawn more deeply into God, and moments of desolation, where prayer was disturbed, where you were distracted and pulled further away from God: feelings of attraction and repulsion should be noted. These points may provide areas for repetition of the prayer. Also, if you have a spiritual director or prayer partner, someone who can listen with an ear to where God is in this, it may be worth sharing your prayer with them. I am following the processes outline in the prayer cards above. You may print these onto A6 or A4 card to have in your prayer space to help you become accustomed to this way of praying, remembering it is more of a flow than a rigid structure.

The Peaceful Kingdom

11 A shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse,
    and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
    the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the spirit of counsel and might,
    the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
    or decide by what his ears hear;
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
    and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
    and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist,
    and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

The wolf shall live with the lamb,
    the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
    and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze,
    their young shall lie down together;
    and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
    and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
    on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
    as the waters cover the sea.

Return of the Remnant of Israel and Judah

10 On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.

Lectio Divina Isaiah 11:1-10, guided prayer

Background music is the album: Keith Halligan – Lifestyle Meditation, Global Journey