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Too often I have felt uncomfortable or unsure of what I was saying when professing the Creed. It makes me feel like my faith is being reduced to a series of bullet points that are irrelevant to whom I am and how I choose to live.Not that I want to be heretical or question the veracity of what is stated, but it does not mirror what I see as being my faith. Professing the Creed does not make me feel like I am a Christian. I don’t really relate. Rather, I feel labelled and it segregates me from others I profoundly love and who profoundly love me.

When I talk to others about my faith, about what I believe to be true, and about what kind of person I want to be, it is the Beatitudes that come to my mind. When I see others suffer, whether from poverty, because of abuse, or just because they do not get back what they have freely given to others, and yet see them carry on, moved by a higher spirit, a faith, a hope of what is to come; this is what I relate those narratives to:

³Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

⁴Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted

⁵Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth

⁶Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness,

for they will be filled

⁷Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy

⁸Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God

⁹Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God

¹⁰Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

¹¹Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹²Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

[Matthew 5:3-12]

These word have moved me very profoundly over the past weeks and I can only invite you to also meditate on them. I would particularly encourage you to listen to how they also inspired contemporary Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (Arvo Pärt – The Beatitudes). Please, do not just listen to it once but allow his musical interpretation to accompany you daily and help you further grasp the Beatitudes.

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So what were you doing when the deluge hit London yesterday?

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Moot Meditation from Michael Radcliffe on Vimeo.

Every Wednesday, moot runs a meditation group in St. Mary Woolnoth, a church in the City of London.

Pete Johnson, who leads the group, talks here about what happens at the meeting, and the value of meditation in this short video.

The group meets every Wednesday at 6.30pm in St. Mary Woolnoth, opposite Bank tube station.

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‘Conceived as pictures of light, the photographs that make up Sundial trace the effect of the sun’s movement as natural light falls and moves across the interior spaces of the artist’s home over the course of the day, on different days throughout the year. These photographs were primarily taken at dusk, when the last play of light begins to erase itself and the illuminated world is put to rest, when objects are caught in beams of light and cast their quickly fading shadows on walls, ceilings and floors. The resulting images are still, silent and slow…’

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Some Mooters will remember that a while ago, I was on placement with St Lukes Church in North London, where I worked with Dave Tomlinson and others, to get their vision going for ‘breathing space’, for the church space to be used to promote Christian Spirituality.

Both Moot at Breathing Space are trying to address the issue of promoting Christian Spirituality to a post-Christian culture that is interested in spirituality rather than religion. I am really pleased to hear that things are progressing at Breathing Space.

As part of their events, Rob Pepper is running a monthly spirituality and art session as a form of meditation – at the cost of £5. So if you are in North London and around on the 16th April at 7.30pm to 9.30pm, look them up. Mooters please note this clashes with our preparations for the Mind Body & Spirit Festival where we need all hands on deck. I am posting this more for those who read this blog not connected to Moot. For more info on the Drawing Space event click the picture below

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I had the good fortune to catch this on tv last night, and thought it was a great thought to start 2008 with:

“By this stage of the holiday season, I imagine you might be looking with dismay at your overflowing rubbish bin, or the mountain of debris piling up outside your back door. Food, drink, presents – they all come with more and more packaging. Even the most eco-conscious of us is likely to have a bit of a bad conscience after Christmas.

Despite constant talk about recycling and thinking “green” – we’re still a society that produces fantastic quantities of waste. From the big issues around toxic industrial and nuclear waste to the domestic questions of managing day-to-day waste and the build-up of stuff around us that can’t be recycled, it’s not something we can ignore. Look at the number of plastic bags flapping around by the roadside, in town and country alike – and you see what I mean.

What I wonder is – how much this influences attitudes in other parts of our lives?

In a society where we think of so many things as disposable; where we expect to be constantly discarding last year’s gadget and replacing it with this year’s model – do we end up tempted to think of people and relationships as disposable? Are we so fixated on keeping up with change that we lose any sense of our need for stability?

One of the buzzwords of recent years has been ‘sustainability’ – and, like all buzzwords, it tends to be used annoyingly all over the place, often for things it doesn’t really fit. But what the word points to is the sense of obligation that most of us share at some deep level – the obligation to hand on to our children and grandchildren a legacy that helps them live and flourish. Building to last is something we all understand.

And if we live in a context where we construct everything from computers to buildings to relationships on the assumption that they’ll need to be replaced before long – what have we lost?

Christians, like Jews and many other religious people too, talk a lot about God as ‘faithful’. God is involved in ‘building to last’, in creating a sustainable world and sustainable relationships with us human beings. He doesn’t give up on the material of human lives. He doesn’t throw it all away and start again. And he asks us to approach one another and our physical world with the same commitment. The life of Jesus, the life in which God identifies completely with our flesh and blood is the supreme sign of that commitment.

God doesn’t do waste.

He doesn’t regard anyone as a ‘waste of space’, as not worth his time – from the very beginnings of life to its end, whether they are successful, articulate, productive or not. And so a life that communicates a bit of what God is like, is a life that doesn’t give up – that doesn’t settle down with a culture of waste and disposability – whether with people, or with things.

Perhaps a good resolution for the New Year would be to keep asking what world we want to pass on to the next generation – indeed, to ask whether we have a real and vivid sense of that next generation.

A lot of the time, we just don’t let ourselves think about the future with realism. A culture of vast material waste and emotional short-termism is a culture that is a lot more fragile than it knows. How much investment are we going to put in towards a safer and more balanced future?

A big question. But too big to avoid.

And if we feel a bit paralysed by just how big it is – well, we can at least start by a visit this week to the nearest recycling bins.

God bless you all in this New Year; may you have patience for the long view – confident that God takes the long view of you and isn’t going to give up.

Happy New Year.”

technorati tags:new year, archbishop of canterbury, archbishop, moot community, moot, canterbury

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