Well we kicked off the first new session on the Living the Questions version of the once a month Exploration Group.  On this evening we looked at the whole issue of faith being based on uncertainty, and the fact that we are growing and changing.  The first session began with listening and responding to a DVD of interviews with a number of different speaker and theologians before breaking down into dialogue groups.

If you missed this group, then please do come to the next one, on TUESDAY 28TH FEBRUARY 7.15 for 7.30pm.  The next area of exploration will be ‘Taking the Bible Seriously’ again in St Mary Aldermary Church.

There were a number of topic issues in this session.  If you would like to raise anything in the comments section, please do.

Rightly people have started to ask me the question, what is new monasticism in our current UK context? To begin to answer this, I am going to start putting up blog postings coming out of the discussions I am involved with at the national CofE Advisory Council for Religious Communities and Diocesan Bishops that I was co-opted onto last year. We have been working hard on a proposal to assist the Church to discern, recognise and nurture New Monastic Communities as authentic ‘Acknowledged Religious Communities’. In this document, there is a section on features of new monasticism that I will be using in this blog for our reflection, to which people are more than welcome to respond in the comment section.

So we start with the focus on ‘belief as faithful action’, (you may want to listen to the current podcast entitled followers of Jesus ….. as it does relate to this subject to).

For Monks, Nuns and Friars – there has been the commitment to take very seriously, the stories of Jesus Christ in the Gospels. In these texts, Jesus gives a number of directions and commandments about faith in action. For Jesus it seems – faith is very much about doing – not just thinking. What we do says as much about who we really are. So Jesus’ commandment to Love God, love ourselves and love others – is the central teaching for a faith that leads to action. Also there is the calling to love your enemies, love your neighbour, and a strong call to non-violence. These callings then are very important to new monastics. As illustrated by St Pauls writing in Galatians 5:19-24 there is a strong commitment to the fruit of the Spirit around love, patience, humility in the place of anger, fear and pride.  So how we do community, how we live out and treat each other not just in ecclesial communities, but also how we relate to people has a huge focus in this model of church.

So for new monastics, life then is about belief as faithful action or what is called orthopraxis (right acting or doing). This is why New Monastics have a Rhythm of Life – of the balance of activity of worship, mission and community. So the Moot Community for example has aspirations, spiritual practices and postures which are about how we live as much as they are about what we believe. This is because new monastics believe strongly in what St Francis kept talking about – experience that leads to understanding. So why is this so important? Well as the cynical but truthful video below demonstrates (sorry for the expletives) is that the world is sick of people who call themselves Christians but do not act like they are followers of Jesus Christ. Rightly – the world is not happy with forms and expressions of Christianity that are oppressive or violent in orientation. So for New Monastics – it is about getting back to the basics. The calling to live with the God of love as the orientation of your life, and the struggle to live with gentleness, kindness and humility in a world dominated by power and the ego, and our increasingly post-christendom context.

I think the video below demonstrates this. It is uncomfortable to listen to, because something of what is being said is absolutely true. And for non-Americans – lets not be smug. These same issues are alive and well in the UK Church and beyond. My hope is that New Monasticism in all its smallness and fragility, can play its part in contributing to a more loving expression of church that seeks to follow Christ rather than act like it is God. In this way we hope that New Monastic Christians can be whole, balancing head, heart and wellbeing or rather Orthodoxy, Orthopraxis and Orthopathy and follow Christ so that we can grow into our potentials as human becomings, where discipleship then becomes a whole of life pursuit about living and doing that brings life to ourselves, to others and to the ecosphere. In my next blog, I will try to unpack what the three levels of aspirations, spiritual practices and postures represent. See the vid below! Any questions – do use the comments section.

In this podcast recorded at the Moot Eucharist in Epiphany 2012, Ian Mobsby explores the issue of following rather than just observing the teaching of Jesus Christ as recorded in the gospels.  Jesus is pretty clear about expecting his disciples and followers to change the way they act.  This podcast seeks to explore this drawing on three scriptural passages – Revelation 19:6-10, John 2:1-11 and Galatians 5:19-24.

Do listen to the video below, and I apologise for the swearing and expletives in the video, but the points it raises requires engagement.  The podcast recording in free from any sensitive language.

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On Tuesday 31st January 7.15 for 7.30pm we begin a new group at Moot/St Mary Aldermary building on the work that was done in the Exploration Group last year. Living with the Questions is an opportunity for those who have had experience of Church but not really had the opportunity to question, critique and explore some of the foundational thinking that makes up contemporary expressions of Christianity, drawing on 2000 years of struggle and thought.  Below is a little video that explains what the authors are trying to do – BUT PLEASE HEAR – the intro is quite American in style, so don’t be put off!!

The course has a number of teachers involved in it, Rob Bell from the Iona Community, Brian McLaren, Marcus Borg and many others. The course has 3 main elements with 7 sessions with in these. These elements are the journey, reconciliation and transformation. For more information on the elements and what it is about click here. From those that have tried out this course, I hear that it is a real relief to not leave your brain at the door, and it is for those who are wanting to dig deep and find a more affirming, generous and considered faith.

It would help us to know numbers, so if you are planning to come, please do let us know by clicking here.  Click the link also if you have any further questions….

At Christmas time this year, I had the good fortune to be able to catch up with family on boxing day. As part of this I went with My Uncle Geoff, Geoff Plant which some of you mooters know, to see his art studio and some of recent paintings.  His Art Studio is based on an estate previously where Eric Gill lived, who was an artist, sculpture and design person, who was responsible for some of the art and Lady Chapel at St Matthews Westminster, the first home of the Moot Community.

Whilst we were there, my Uncle expressed his frustration with some of his art.  He knew he could draw people, but wanted to get beyond the construction and technical bits of art, to be able to express the essence by getting beyond his own limitations.  It struck me that this is the same process as meditation and prayer, about getting beyond the self by using some form of method of prayer and meditation, to be able to reach beyond yourself to be able to encounter the essence which is God.

When I did my MA, one of the courses I completed was on art, literature and a theology of the imagination.  This basically traced the theme of creativity and imagination as the sphere for encountering the Holy Spirit, as the medium when the human and the divine encounter in the I-Thou relationship – whether this was intentional or not.  I have always seen prayer and meditation as an expression of this, as it requires you to get beyond your thinking and your feeling to be able to see beyond the self.   I have never thought that art and the process of making art, as a similar process.

So my Uncle and I could appreciate my comment that art then, seeking the essence outside of our self-preoccupation and self-deceptions, is like prayer and meditation, seeking to reach beyond, to seek the essence.    Prayer is hard work, just as art is hard work, but both are an essential expression of the spiritual path of seeking to reach out to the essence beyond, seeking the divine.

A Moot friend Mike Angell gave me the heads up on this article. I really like the focus here on all of us mooters being spiritual questers, where we are questing with existential questions, where these questions relate to spiritual and religious experience rather than the answer. Click here for the article.

The main thing I like about questing, is that it is a form of spirituality where you are going deeper with who you are.  One frustration I have with some friends is that they see spirituality as a form of  ’reinventing yourself’ – a consumptive identity – that you just take down from the shelf – one day materialistic the next anti-materialistic, one day prayerful and the next no such thing as prayer, or wanting community but then shunning or keeping away from participation.

What this article echoes for me – is that the spiritual path is one where we don’t reinvent ourselves, rather we go deeper with actually who we are, we seek the essence of what life is, facing ourselves God by living with the questions.  This path has for me three loci – hearing God as an inner voice from within through prayer, meditation and reflection, hearing God through participation in community through the wisdom and pain of friends and fellow travellers, and hearing God through poetry, art and spiritual writing and scripture.

So for me being an authentic quester, is not about reinventing yourself through consumptive-surface-self-definitions as for me this gets very close to self-deception, but rather the need to face your pains, get involved in community and quest through the questions through getting your hands dirty and getting involved in life and not being a spectator who shuns away from participation.

I hope that I will be this type of contemplative CHristian – committed to contemplative-action, where both Christians and Spiritual Questers are hopefully journeying towards the love of God.

Christmas and Easter are the high points of the Christian liturgical calendar, which emphasise the two great truths and theology of the faith.  The incarnation emphasises God’s love and grace through what is called incarnational theology, (literally God coming in human form) and Easter as the call to repentance and belief in the life, death and resurrection of God which emphasises redemptive theology.

The idea of God coming as a baby is extremely difficult for us in the 21st century – it is not logical, it cannot be factual and it most definitely is not rational.  This is because Christianity cannot ultimately be learned as some form of propositional fact – it needs to be experienced to be true.  Only when we draw on what is called trans-rationality, experience of God, are we able to encounter paradox, through experience of encountering God.  Then the gift of GOd coming into the world is awe inspiring, because it has to be the ultimate expression of love.

You only have to see just how vulnerable newly born children are, to see what a risk God made in coming in human form. It is ultimately a mystery that emphasises God’s love for us.  Emmanuel literally means -the God with us.  It is this ‘with us’ that moves me every time I go to midnight mass at a local church in the dark, to the light and hope of the divine story of the coming of the Lord, of the Trinity and the beginning of the Kingdom of God on earth.

And so we come to Christmas and the coming of God. This podcast is a short reflection by Ian Mobsby at the beginning of Christmas at the close of 2011.

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This time of year is tough on single people. Believe me I know. Advent and Christmas are whether we like it or not times that are hard for those not in a relationship or from a relationship that has failed recently. Christmas is a reminder of what you hoped would change – the hope of a fulfilling relationship that is just not there. So it is a very hard time, and if this is how you are feeling, with a great concern about seeing relatives that ask inappropriate personal questions about your singleness that just leave you feeling pained and unhappy – I get it and I am absolutely on your side.

I am not going to offer anything contrite or patronising.  I just want to say that this is one of those desert places where we face our fragility and profound humanity where there is a little comfort where things feel very raw.   Just don’t give up hoping and dreaming of what might be, and remember that love is not just human, but there is a place for the ‘Divine-Me’ ‘love-in’ through prayer and meditation.

Sometimes we need experiences that take us away from comfort, and being single in my experience is one of those times.  What keeps me going? Well the 12 step Serenity prayer becomes a bedrock for me – so that I don’t beat myself up for not being in a fulfilling long term relationship, where it may surprise people, but I would love to have children and a stable domestic life.  Just has not ever come close.  So praying the serenity prayer and a refusal to stop hoping and waiting is my only way to cope…  What is the serenity prayer?  See below:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
as it is, not as I would have it:  Trusting that God will make all things right if I surrender to God’s Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with God Forever in the next.
Reinhold Niebhur

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,  and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge God, and God will direct your paths.
Proverbs 3, 5-6.

So all you single people out there.  Remember you are beautiful and unique people and that God loves you so much, that God came in all humility as a fragile undefended baby as the incarnation of hope.

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