sharpen up he says

I asked my husband to read the blog to see what he thought!  He thought it needed sharpening up so here goes.
I need to sharpen up in order to sharpen up the blog and this is where to start.
It is the time of year when the sun rises and sets earliest and latest and where am I when it does this.  In bed in the morning and usually watching the news in the evening.  I am determined to get up especially now I have woken up to the idea of an angelic realm.  Clearly they are about with the sun up and not to join my meditation to the finest and quietest part of the day is a poor effort, after all, I am retired and my children are grown up and the grandchildren only visit from time to time plus the new puppy will be pleased to see me when I pass through the kitchen on the way to the garden house.
Watch this sharp little space!

cistern leaks, where are the angels?

Yesterday, I wrote about reading about angels.  You would hardly believe it but when I walked into Church, the congregation were singing Ye Holy Angels Bright! and the reading was about angels.  The whole idea of angels makes for great cheerfulness and a feeling of not being alone.

However, when the cistern sprang a leak in the downstairs loo, with gushing water being staunched by every towel in the house, it was the white van with the emergency plumber who appeared as the most immediate angel in the vicinity.

The second reading was about demons, and about the many demons which Christ sends into the swine who then rush headlong into the sea and drown.  The idea of demons gives a sense of a continuous battleground in the world of nature and the world of mind.  It makes sense of cultivating the angels and that benevolent world through reading, praying and meditating.

My morning meditator has increased her meditation to a 20 minute one and our early morning meditation is a wonderful way of creating a better state of mind.

better iamblichus than Ian Rankin

Sunday slower-found me reading Valery Rees' History of Angels, Chaper 2 called Filling the Space between Heaven and Earth which was a change in direction from reading gripping Ian Rankin detective novels.  It struck me that words fill that space and what you read makes a difference to the realm you live in.  Out of the murky world of criminals and corruption to the world of Angels was like coming up for air, like the smog lifting in Singapore and I was struck by a quote in the book which Rees uses.  It is from Iamblichus (c 250-325).

'For the human race is feeble and puny, it sees but a little ahead, and is endowed with a congenital futility.  But there is one remedy for its inherent straying, confusion and unstable changing, and this is, if it participate so far as possible in some portion of the divine light.'

You can't get much clearer than that.  So, off to Church to thank God for the Church Fete! but more than that, I will be down on my knees thanking God for the possibility of freedom from my feeble and puny state.

the two becoming one

Visiting meditation daily is getting to know the reality of who you are and of who everyone and everything else is.  You set yourself the goal of making that reality the single reality so when you have to leave the different persons that are the expression of that reality, you can do it without grief to yourself or others.  The key is getting the meditation into the pattern of your life, aiming to make it the most important thing, not just an add-on to enhance your life.  The second person, the running around, driving, thinking, being all sorts of things from childhood to old age then becomes absorbed in contemplating your spiritual being.  It is a high calling.

I have two husbands! and he has two wives

That headline should get you interested! A woman who meditates and seems to be serious has TWO husbands!
And he has two wives, how can this be?
I only realised that I have two husbands, I have always thought I had just the one who was sometimes in one mood and sometimes in another.  But this week I watched this one carefully and observed that he has a spiritual being and one for the world and they aren't really related.  The one who mows the lawn and walks the dog and gets annoyed with other motorists doesn't really have much to do with the one who meditates and studies to know who he is.  And if I am honest, I expect that I have two beings as well.  You may say but of course it is like that and why didn't I realise this earlier but I think I have always tried to make one of the beings conform to the other and that can cause friction.  For instance, driving along getting annoyed with the driver in front who of course is in the wrong provokes my 'wife one' person to ask why someone who is meditative and wise is duped by an innocent driver.  And I expect he wonders why my worldly persona ever feels anxious or is caught in a busy world when the meditator is peaceful.
I hope that one day the two will become one but I believe that you can't force this to happen without producing a false extra person.
Meditation is our best hope!
Perhaps there are three, there is also the one who sleeps! This one walks the dogs!

Sister Wendy Beckett comes to visit!

Sister Wendy painted by Mary Cook

Today, an artist friend brought down her portrait of Sister Wendy Beckett.  As she told us about Sister Wendy and about painting her, it was as if we were all with her.  The undeniable influence of a person who spends a life devoted to God transmitted itself to all of us and the portrait touched all of us.  If you look at the portrait carefully, there are many things showing; one is the phenomenal aspect of brush and paint, of shading and colour, then there is a recognisable form of a nun and in this case, of a nun who is quite well known.  

Sister Wendy said in answer to a question about why she, who had sought the solitary life in order to be alone with God,would agree to talk about art and to talk about it on television, is that people today don't want to hear about God, but that “if you don’t know about God, art … can set you free, that art is a kind of disguised God”, and she hoped in her small way she might have helped some people “find God in beauty”.  

The conclusion drawn from this description and of the effect of the very real presence that the portrait conveyed, is that behind every form there is that which is expressing itself and if the gaze shifts from the purely physical to consider what else might be there, a true and lively image may be found.  This ability to discern a spiritual dimension and to convey it to others just must be a product of a spiritual life.

age no bar

We are staying in a house with 40 people, at least half of them are over 80 years old!  They put us to shame, and I saw two who I know to be over 90 joining in with washing up and that after a full day.  Their secret (of course you know what I am going to say), is meditation.  Alongside that is an attitude of active interest in knowing what enlightenment might be and great kindness to each other.  I am in awe of their approach to the daily round of life.  We ended the evening with all 40 of us singing some old favourites, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Amazing Grace and I gave my Love a Cherry and finished with the reading from Corinthians on the nature of charity.  It was just right.