News and Thoughts from Ray Simpson

Topic: FACEBOOK AGAIN

Sorry, you are quite right. I should have given you the names of our first CA&H Facebooks: Look up Community of Aidan & Hilda ('&' not 'and')or David Cole (wandingkeltos) Try it and contribute as you will.

Submitted: 20:43:41 on 22nd June 2009

Topic: WHITE HOUSE VISITORS

Fourteen years ago the boy Chris Mitton and his two sisters joined the seven founders of The Community of Aidan and Hilda in making vows on Farne Isle, upon which I now look as I arise each morning. So it was a delight that his Dad, Michael and Chris were the first overnight guests in my new house. Chris is now an intern at St.George's Church, Leeds, with a two year ministry to students.

Bishop Eric Pike and Tony Thoms, his co-leader of twenty four pilgrims from South Africa, talked over coffee in the garden about the work of the Community in Africa. Eric is an Explorer, and they felt that there's much interest in a place like Cape Town. So watch this space.

Before they left Biker Bill Balfour had arrived on his way from Norfolk to the Scottish highlands. Bill and his wife Jan ran our Open Door centre at Bowthorpe, where I was minister, and we used to partner each other at squash. We reviewed lots of past friendships.

That same night a new Explorer came to tell me amazing stories of God at work in her life and in the depths of human distress.

Then there is Facebook. Two members have started a Community Facebook - and there are implications. Oh yes! So this morning, Naomi took me in hand in the office and inducted me in to Facebook. I only do it because I am vowed to obedience - honest.

Then tonight two Birmingham trainee Jesuits arrived for evening prayer in the church, having walked from York, and we will meet up at The Open Gate tomorrow morning.

Whatever next?

Submitted: 20:34:22 on 22nd June 2009

Topic: ANCIENT VIKINGS AND TODAY'S NORWAY CHRISTIANS

Mecky Wohlenberg and seven clergy colleagues from the Church of Norway's Bamble Deanery have spent a good week with us on Holy Island. They were here on Monday, June 8th. This, says Mecky, is the date of the Viking invasion in 793 (but in the 8th century there was the Julian Calendar which at that time had become about 5 days too late according to the later Gregorian Calendar. That means that the exact date of the Viking invasion was around the 13th of June, according to our calendar), Holy Island was the first place in Britain to be ravaged by the Vikings. It was a 9/11 kind of event. It sent a shock wave around Europe.

Our pilgrims went to Sandham Bay, on the north shore, which is thought the most likely place the Vikings landed. There they held a prayer service and said sorry for what their forbears did. One honest clergy person later admitted that he also felt a little bit proud. 'You are entitled to feel proud that you built such brilliant boats', I suggested, 'but not, I hope, that you murdered people so well.'

I was gratified that each of them had read the Norsk edition of my book 'Keltische veimerker'. They warmed to the insight that the glory of God is seen through those who live their manhood and womanhood to the full, and that clergy are called to model this, not to be machines of ecclesiastical organisation.

Nor, for that matter, should they be machines of blog sites -so I better sign off.

Submitted: 20:39:37 on 12nd June 2009

Topic: FROM THE FOLK HIGH SCHOOL, STAVERN, NORWAY

Greetings from this lovely High School by the sea. I am with about 130 pastors and youth workers of Norway’s Free Lutheran Church. Their aim is to have deep roots in Scripture and be fellowships that are open to the world. I have led workshops on ‘Being the Church in a New Time’. In between there has been storytelling in an underground cave, a football match and personal contacts with many interesting people: the theologian who works on the Dead Sea Scrolls, the bridegroom who prepares for two days of wedding celebrations at Lindisfarne and Wedderburn Castle, late night conversation on conflict resolution. A constant phrase has been ‘We must get outside the box’.

Several people here are soul friends to those who follow our Way of Life and we shared insights about life coaching. Sven Aasmundveit, the Director of the Free Lutheran Study Centre in Oslo, has completed a book entitled (in Norwegian) ‘Athletes of Christ’; this will be a good resource. The Chairman of the Synod tells me that excellent relationships are growing, not only with the State Church, but also with the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches which are reviving in Norway after centuries of absence.

Now by Ryanair back to Glasgow, and to Holy Island by car. Who is on the plane? A group from Norway led by Mecky Wohlenberg!

Submitted: 15:03:44 on 5th June 2009

Topic: PICTISH MONASTERIES: HIGH STREET MONASTERIES

I spent two and a half days visting

sixth or seventh century Pictish monasteries.The Picts were the original Scots, before the Irish colonised and Christianised southern Scotland. Picts were evangelised by Celtic Britons such as Ninian, by Irish Christians from Iona, and by God-inspired wandering hermits.

I took an hour's boat trip to the Isle of May, far out in the Firth of Forth, where Saint Ethernan is first thought to have settled. Excavations in the nineties revealed evidence of thisl Then to Dull, near Abernethy, and its three remaining Celtic standing stones. I could not resist a return visit to Glen Lyon. There a little hamlet is still known as Eonan Hamlet. Eonan is another name for Admonan, an Iona Abbot, who is thought to have established a little monastery there.

My new book co-authored with Simon Reed is out. It is entitled High Street Monasteries:Fresh Expressions of committed Christianity. It explores the incoming tide of new monasticism, and how it can become the heart of our global village. It surveys five waves of new monasticism, unearths forgotten treasures-for-today from old monasticism, addresses hard questions for new monastics and explores the idea of ‘the universal monk’ in everyone. The final chapter looks at fresh expressions of church, and how villages of God can evolve. It gives examples of little experiments around the world and provides a conceptual plan of a village of God. It then explores how the parts can embrace a sustainable spirituality and link with the greater whole. It moves into lateral thinking and makes proposals for villages of God around cathedrals and in capital cities. Could a village of God in London embrace Holy Trinity Brompton, Brompton Oratory and the Russian Orthodox Cathedral? Simon Reed writes a brilliant appendix on ‘Followers of the Way: Biblical Foundations for Monastic Living.’ Over one hundred notes on sources are included.

We hope you will find helpful anything that is written about your own connection. Available from good bookshops or In UK: Kevin Mayhew www.kevinmayhew.com In North America: www.mayhewbrodt.com In Australasia: Willow Publishing Pty Ltd info@willowconnection.com.au.

Submitted: 18:20:33 on 31st May 2009

Topic: ALABAMA

Alabama pilgrims have jazzed up Holy Island this week. Their musicians filled The Crown and Anchor with Irish songs for two evenings, which many others joined in singing. This group was led by Bill King. He gave up being his Episcopal Bishop's senior staff member in order to minister to a small country parish and develop pilgrimage. He gave out copies of his little gem of a book.

In Chapter One Bill outlines four traditional types of pilgrimage, and then a fifth which is emerging for twenty first century Christians which he calls Re-Membering Pilgrimage. He writes ‘Many Christians have the Cross and the sacred books, and even the sacraments, but do not have a connection with holy ground from past ages. We simply do not know our family history and sacred home sites, and we no longer remember the stories of family members from ages past… Re-Membering Pilgrimage helps us rediscover our spiritual roots, which we must do to be spiritually whole and complete.’

In Chapter Two he recounts what he did on his 2004 visits to Jerusalem, Rome, Canterbury and Lindisfarne, where he visits The Open Gate and writes poems. He then asks the question: How do people who can’t keep going to such places make pilgrimage in their own back yard? He chooses twelve ‘secret places of prayer’ from his extensive sabbatical travels in his home state of Alabama. They include an Orthodox, Catholic and Baptist church each with some special drawing power. They also include a North American Indian sacred site, Dr. Martin Luther King’s former church where civil rights actions were birthed – and a grocer’s shop. Here, in 1965 a gunman was about to shoot Ruby Sales when Jonathan Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian, stood in front of her. He died and she lived. Now there is a monument to this young man who gave his life for another, and a little space in the market place where people may ponder the qualities of a hero.

Readers in continents outside Europe, as well as those in Europe who cannot travel far, may be inspired to discover their own ‘secret places of prayer’. I'd love to hear from you.

Submitted: 20:03:23 on 22nd May 2009

Topic: LONDON AND NORTHERN IRELAND

Uxbridge churches held a Week Exploring Prayer and Celtic Spirituality. Extra chairs had to be brought in for the Wednesday night meeting. In order to pay the high rent and mortgages many people work from early to late. Things like space, body/mind/spirit balance, fun, creativity and community can go out of the window. So it was delightful to meet people who wished to become aware of God's presence in work and creation and to celebrate God through all the senses. We explored how memorising Scripture, embracing simplicity, praying daily following the natural rhythm of the sun and the seasons, and working with a soul friend could help to overcome stress-inducing workaholism. Before flying from nearby Heathrow airport to Belfast I was able to enjoy half a day off at the delightful Kew Gardens.

It was a privilege to lead the annual week-end conference of the Celtic Spirituality Centre at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh, Northern Ireland. On this site Saint Patrick established his mission headquarters. The Centre is now sponsored by Catholic, Church of Ireland and Presbyterian trustees and contributes to the vital ongoing peacebuilding processs. Participants came from north and south of the border.The theme was 'The Sacred Weave of Life'.

On Saturday afternoon there was an art workshop and a guided tour of the Armagh Public Library, founded by a great archbishop as a Christian resource. We hope to promote links between our Celtic Christian Studies Library on Holy Island and this library. People come on sabbaticals to Holy Island. They could also do so at Armagh, by staying at the upmarket youth hostel nearby and joining in the daily prayer at either or both of the cathedrals. For more information write to Rev Grace Clunie at the cathedral, Armagh.

Submitted: 11:49:43 on 18th May 2009

Topic: FAITH COMMUNITIES AND THE GOOD SOCIETY

I met people from a church who provide practical services for needy people without financial reward. A trainee social worker spent a week with them.The following week all the trainee social workers reported on their placements. They were full of gloom, But this one told with amazement of improvements in all sorts of clients. 'They must have had especially strong characters' was his only explanation. The social work set-up cannot believe that faith is a key factor in improving social well-being, and often Local Authorities discriminate against faith communities. Yet the national Government encourages them to work with faith communities because its reseach shows that in UK as in USA the social outreach of faith communities is huge and cost-effective. Sooner or later people will realise that faith rooted in the command to love your neighbour is the most sustainable basis for a nation's social fabric.

Submitted: 09:23:44 on 11st May 2009

Topic: FAITH COMMUNITIES AND THE GOOD SOCIETY

Submitted: 09:23:38 on 11st May 2009

Topic: CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM PRAYER MATS

Since my last blog swine flue has declined in the world, I have met with Britain's Methodist Mission Enablers at Northampton, six of us have spent twenty fours hours in council at a member's house in the shadow of Arsenal Football Club's fantastic Emirates Stadium in London, and I have talked to Netherlands pilgrims about The Lindisfarne Gospels.

They were fascinated by the link, suggested by the Lindisfarne Gospels' expert Dr. Michelle Brown, between the 'carpet pages' in the Gospels and the oriental 'prayer mats' which probably inspired them, and which are still used by Muslims. Mollie Richards, of Norwich, has made a beautiful prayer mat for our Open Gate Chapel with Celtic designs, and is making a second one. The Netherlands pilgrims encourage many of us to make and use such prayer mats. They think this would also help to increase good bonds between Muslims and Christians.

Make those mats. Send one to us!

Submitted: 15:31:39 on 5th May 2009

Topic: ST. GEORGE, MERRIE ENGLAND AND EASTERTIDE

As Guardian of an international Community God has given me a deep love of different countries outside UK. Within UK, we who draw inspiration from Celtic sources often neglect England at the expense of the so-called ‘six Celtic nations’. Sometimes English people resent this, and there is indeed a rising interest in what constitutes the English spirit. Some call for April 23 – Shakespeare’s birthday and St. George’s Day – to become an English national holiday. I have at times been a bit embarrassed about this. However, during the move to my new house I came across an old hand-written page that someone had copied from the Visitors Book in Holy Island’s Marygate House for Easter 1987, entitled Gladsong. It includes the following:

“He shall awake these counties. He shall shake the shires with morning. He shall ring the bells of Easter stirring westwards to ears that are young to hear. He shall start up the story of enterprise with wild words fathered with feeling.

England, lift up your pecker, tell ‘em as it’s time to fetch the maypole out of mothballs and dance, dance for Him and Albion. England is to be the Queen of May – hawthorn put out more flags – oak, for this you grew your silver bough – ash, let your black buds burst with the new, the King has come for his Anglia, his own earth-angel that he loved of old.

Wake up the ones in the graveyard of sleep, wake them up – they’re going to miss eternity. The long lines of the hills are lifted up with pride for his processional, the rivers ripple clearly their applause, sycamores in full relief rejoice to see Him, geraniums cheer Him from way-side window boxes. Parish churches choke with a mother’s pride…”

This lifts the heart. Maybe it will inspire blog readers from other countries to write an Easter paean that reflects the distinctive glories of your land. If so, I’d love to receive them.

Submitted: 15:55:02 on 24th April 2009

Topic: SPRING HARVEST

Three Community of Aidan and Hilda members, David, Penny and Simon, led Reflective Worship at the Spring Harvest week at Butlins Holiday Centre, Minehead plus a seminar on How to Develop a Rule of Life. Three hundred came each evening to the first and two hundred to the second.

David writes 'These days have been such an encouragement to me, showing me that there is such hunger for what we, within the Community and Celtic Christianity more widely offer people in their walk with God.'

Submitted: 12:48:43 on 21st April 2009

Topic: EASTER AND RICHARD DAWKINS' 'THE GOD DELUSION'

Belatedly, this Easter I have read Richard Dawkins' 'The God Delusion'. He demeans both scholarship and science. He poses a question, but instead of answering it he changes the subject with derogatory but unsubstantiated comments. For example, he reminds readers that a traditional Deist argument for the existence of God is that everything has a cause, so there must, before anything existed have been an uncaused First Cause. Instead of investigating this argument he merely says that the uncaused First Cause does not have to be called God, Of course God does not have to be called God!

He writes an entire book about atheism without investigating the Resurrection of Christ. Some omission! Presumably he dismisses the cogent arguments for the resurrection as part of his skimpy, imperious dismissal of The New Testament as 'not reliable'. He makes the absurd statement that 'The only difference between the Gospels and Dan Brown's novel 'The Da Vinci Code' are that the gospels are ancient fiction while the Da Vinci Code is modern fiction.'

Do you know anyone who has laid down their life in defence of 'The Da Vinci Code' or met any of the dead characters who have come alive again? Do you know of any serious scholar in the world who doubts that Christianity is a historical religion, and that it started with people who knew Jesus, witnessed his death, claimed to have experienced his resurrection and who wrote the Gospel accounts in the same century that Jesus died?

Perhaps the next most famous atheist after Dawkins, Professor Anthony Flew, has become a Christian after fifty years as an atheist. He says he has converted not because of a religious experience, but because of science, which, unless there is some Supreme Intelligence, could not exist. He asked T N Wright, Bishop of Durham, to write an appendix to his book on the evidence of the Resurection. Flew says this is the most brilliant and convincing exposition of the reality of the resurrection he has read.

So I am bold to greet you as believers in Russia and in many lands greet one another: 'The Lord is risen'. And you reply 'He is risen indeed!'

Submitted: 17:19:05 on 11st April 2009

Topic: EASTER AND RICHARD DAWKINS' 'THE GOD DELUSION'

Submitted: 17:16:19 on 11st April 2009

Topic: THE TRUE SELF IN HOLY WEEK

Two days in Jesus' last week on earth: On one day Jesus experiences the fragrance of an act of generosity - a woman anoints his feet with precious oil. The day after, Jesus experiences the devastation of an act of betrayal - in return for money a close colleague betrays his whereabouts to those out to get him. In both situations Jesus' response is deeply intuitive. On the first day he soaks in the love. On the second day he does not block out his intuition in order to postpone pain.

Judas and Jesus model for us the two different levels of our being from which we may live. Judas lives from the Ego. His hopes of Jesus becoming the Top Man have toppled. He is disillusioned, angry, and assuages these feelings by devising his mercenary plan. Jesus lives from his True Self. Without blame or flight he gives Judas bread. He embraces the pain: 'Do what you are going to do quickly'. Then he says 'Now God is to be glorified in me.'

This is the glory of living and dying as True Self, as Gift. In Jesus' unique case he does this as part of the Trinity. In our case, we do this as those who are being drawn into the Divine through Christ.

Introduction to the Gospel reading at the morning Eucharist, St. Mary's, Holy Island.

Submitted: 20:46:57 on 7th April 2009

Topic: THE TRUE SELF IN HOLY WEEK

Judas and Jesus model for us the two different levels of our being from which we may live. Judas lives from the Ego. His hopes of Jesus becoming the Top Man have toppled. He is disillusioned, angry, and assuages these feelings by devising his mercenary plan. Jesus lives from his True Self. Without blame or flight he gives Judas bread. he embraces the pain: 'Do what you are going to do quickly'. Then he says 'Now God is to be glorified in me.'

Introduction to the Gospel reading at the morning Eucharist, St. Mary's, Holy Island.

Submitted: 20:45:21 on 7th April 2009

Topic: IS THIS THE END OF AIDENSFIELD AND HEARTBEAT?

'Heartbeat' is the long-running British TV series, with fourth best ratings around the world. It is set in the fictional village of Aidensfield, named after the seventh century missionary Bishop Aidan. The title 'Heartbeat' has a double meaning: The hero is a handsome young policeman who makes girls hearts beat quicker. He and his colleagues also plod around their beat (their area) in a solid, old fashioned way. The programme is to be axed.

Last week I visited the village where this is filmed. The village is Goathland, near Whitby, complete with the TV signs for Aidensfield Arms, and Scripps Funeral Services. In the Post Office I dutifully signed a petition asking the TV company to revoke their decision to cease filming after May this year, The reason is that the internet has taken much of the TV advertising income.

The village will lose money. The viewer will have to make do with repeats. But do not despair. There is another heartbeat that nothing can kill off. Aidan brought Christ's ways to the barbaric Anglo-Saxons because his heart beat with compassion. He tuned in to the heartbeat of God. That heart still beats for today's children. Aidan's field is any place where his spiritual children are at work. If you think this is twee, let me know. If you don't, keep plodding on. Tune in to THE Heartbeat.

Submitted: 15:14:00 on 5th April 2009

Topic: FOOTBALLER TURNS DOWN CELEBRITY TV

A footballer spent a week-end with us. A TV channel preparing one of those virtual reality series when different types of people are filmed day and night, inter-acting on an island or in a large house, had put him on a short list and asked him to a final interview. He told them he could not attend the interview because he would be visiting Holy Island. They offered him the place anyway, and pressed him to accept. The footballer is a Christian - he wanted viewers to see how a Christian is a real human being - not like some of the stereotypes that are promoted. He engaged in an inner struggle. He concluded that the TV people wanted to use (i.e. mis-use) him, and that God could find other ways of helping people like him to connect with the population. So he turned the TV offer down.

He told me this on the day that traditional Christian churches in the West name as Passion Sunday. The Gospel reading quotes Jesus as saying that unless a person allows their ego to 'die', like a seed that allows itself to be buried in the ground, it cannot sprout up later in the form of a spreading plant. I encouraged my friend to believe that many young people would discover something life-giving as an indirect result of his decision to 'die'.

Submitted: 09:15:22 on 30th March 2009

Topic: MOTHERS, LAMBS AND A BISHOP

Children from Holy Island School read poems they had written about their mothers for Holy Island's Mothering Sunday Service. On the whole they blessed them. The Bishop of Lindisfarne preached, received a blessing from the Vicar, and led everyone to the Lambing Sheds, to visit mothers of a woolly kind, each with their kids in their own pen. The Bishop then blessed the lambs and all creation. Lots of blessing.

Submitted: 18:11:09 on 23rd March 2009

Topic: NO MORE SOULLESS TOWNS

Today I read a report of the Queensferry Business Association, which seeks to transform this fragile Burgh, gateway to the iconic Forth Bridge, and the crossing point of St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland. It's Development Plan is called Queensferry Ambition. This is what I emailed its chairman, Douglas Flett:

I have just read your report in the evangelical alliance’s 2gether Scotland on the plans for transforming Queensferry. While appreciating the excellent aims, I felt a sinking in the pit of my stomach that foundation planning has no mention of spirituality. Soulless towns have built-in degradation. Every resident has body, mind and spirit, and if these needs are not addressed, surely the plan will fail?

For example, the centre of a town needs a sense of enclosure and some sacred space where people can contemplate or pray. Existing religious buildings need to be opened and joined up with other facilities. Throughout Europe, while church-going declines, pilgrimages increase steeply.

Ireland’s Heritage Council sent teams to learn from British heritage sites, and I read their reports. I think they concluded that, although they learned some valuable technical lessons from the British approaches, they hoped that Ireland, in contrast, would co-ordinate historical, ecological and spiritual approaches in their heritage work.

Why not commission a study on pilgrimage and spirituality issues? Why not offer a trail that re-ignites awareness of Margaret, Queen and Saint?

My friend Dr. Ian Bradley, of St. Andrew’s University, whose book on pilgrimage has just been published, might be of assistance.

Members of The Community of Aidan and Hilda in Scotland had a day of pilgrimage at Queensferry and Inchcolm. The Holy Island of Lindisfarne is now beginning to get people who walk and ferry southward along Scotland’s east coast.

Submitted: 10:54:42 on 20th March 2009

Topic: NO MORE SOULLESS TOWNS

Why not commission a study on pilgrimage and spirituality issues? Why not offer a trail that re-ignites awareness of Margaret, Queen and Saint?

My friend Dr. Ian Bradley, of St. Andrew’s University, whose book on pilgrimage has just been published, might be of assistance.

Submitted: 10:54:34 on 20th March 2009

Topic: THE SIMPSONS IN IRELAND

My brother Tony has supported the establishment of the Irish Republic's new Christian radio station, and his son Peter is a director. The station has now been on air 24/7 for more than a year.Tony has so far recorded 168 'seed thought' talks of up to 90 minutes on his mini-disc recorder. These are then fed in between music and other features.

People from many lands have come to Ireland in recent years.Tony's wife, Anita, has completed a literacy course for Chinese people who want to learn English, based on the Bible. She has been told that some Chinese authorities welcome moral values and concepts and her courses are also used in China. At present, though, she is teaching a young man from Somalia who as a boy was tortured by having his hands and feet burned, and who could not therefore read even in his own language. The official English-language-speaking classes rely on people being able to read in their own languange. The reading classes rely on them being able to understand what the teacher says in English. So he slipped through the net. Now, with Anita's help, he is making progress, and he is grateful to her and to the marvellous Irish doctors.

Submitted: 14:56:38 on 16th March 2009

Topic: RESOURCES FOR LEADERS

We had a great bunch of Christian leaders who came to retreat in order to advance. They learned about inspired leadership from Winston Churchill, Barack Obama, Richard Branson, the Bible, Geology and Depth Psychology!

My favourite quote was from John Wimber: 'Never trust a leader who walks without a limp'.

Of course, we got on to management, too, and church councils.... How about this quote from the former British Prime Minister Clement Attlee: 'It is essential for the Cabinet to move on, leaving in its wake a trail of clear, crisp decisions. That is what government is about. And the challenge to democracy is to get it done quickly.'

Graham introduced excellent books on leadership from our Resources Centre at The Open Gate. Yes, of course we had to mention 'The One Minute Manager', and we described how we spent one minute a day (sometimes!) observing each person and affirming something positive. But then we hit the Crisis of Rising Expectations. Oh dear! That led us on to Jesus' Creative Absences (now that makes for a good Bible study) - and making time to have fun. So we ended by having fun together.

Have fun.

Submitted: 21:55:38 on 15th March 2009

Topic: HOW SHABBY CAN YOU BE?

Frode is here. He is a pastor of a church of several hundred people near Kristiansand, Norway. Today he told me 'When you preached for us you were the shabbiest person in church.' 'I am sorry' I said. 'Oh, no', said Frode, 'it was the only way we could get the smell of someone who brings desert spirituality to us.'

What do you make of that?

Submitted: 15:50:06 on 9th March 2009

Topic: HOW SHABBY CAN YOU BE?

Frode is here. he is a pastor of a church of several hundred people near Kristiansand, Norway. Today he told me 'When you preached for us you were the shabbiest person in church.' 'I am sorry' I said. 'Oh, no', said Frode, 'it was the only way we could get the smell of someone who brings desert spirituality to us.'

What do you make of that?

Submitted: 15:49:16 on 9th March 2009

Topic: HOW SHABBY CAN YOU BE?

Frode is here. he is a pastor of a church of several hundred people near Kristiansand, Norway. Today he told me 'When you preached for us you were the shabbiest person in church.'

Submitted: 15:48:36 on 9th March 2009

Topic: HOW SHABBY CAN YOU BE?

Frode is here. he is a pastor of a church of several hundred people near Kristiansand, Norway. Today he told me

Submitted: 15:47:29 on 9th March 2009

Topic: WHAT'S BEHIND MY MOVE TO THE WHITE HOUSE?

On March 19 I move into the White House. I do not aspire to President Obama's abode - though let it be said that the USA made a conscious choice to build a more modest house than the palaces of its former colonial masters. No, I move into White House, Fenkle Street, Holy Island, Berwick-upon-Tweed TD15 2SR. This is two doors down from The Island Store, and has a garden view to the sea and castle. My present abode becomes The Community House, Office and Studies Centre.

Seeking to shed any grand pretensions to a Washington style of White House, I wondered whether Ishould change the house name, until I was reminded that early Celtic Christians built White Houses of a more modest kind. Around 400 AD Ninian established a White House at Candida Casa, which is why that place, in Galloway, Scotland, is now known as Whithorn. Although the little travelled Anglo-Saxon historian Bede did not know this, Ninian imported from Martin of Tours’ community in Gaul, not just masons, but both Christian brothers and the names of Martin’s houses. Candida Casa, White Hut, is simply a translation of Bright White Hut (Leuko-Teiac), the name of the bothy on Bishop Hilary’s farm near Liguge, where Martin first organised his family of Christians. According to Archibald Scott, in his classic work 'The Pictish Nation: its people and its church' (T.N. Foulis, 1918 – out of print but in our Lindisfarne Library) Ninian’s house was unlikely to have been as grand as later writers made out. It was more likely to have been like the later White Houses that were modelled from it, a modest house suited for prayer and sacraments at small gatherings. This view is supported by the references to this White House when Paulinus of York and Alcuin gave help to preserve it. These White Houses are found associated with Celtic Churches from Dornoch in the north of Pictland to Ty Gwyn ar Dav among Britons in Wales. It is believed that Ninian established places like these White Houses in these shires: Ayr, Glasgow, Forfar, Aberdeen, Invernesss, Sutherland right up to the Orkney Islands. Ninian divided much of Pictland into districts, or parishes, at the hub of which was often one of these White Houses. The names of many of the successors he appointed are known. These formed one family, or dispersed community, who looked to The White House in Galloway as their mother house.

Wouldn't it be great if my White House could be a fresh little expression of that tradition?

Submitted: 19:16:28 on 6th March 2009

Topic: ASH WEDNESDAY IN WALES

I have been working on a book of daily readings at St. Deiniols Library, North Wales. Britain's largest residential library was endowed to the nation by former Prime Minister William Gladstone, who included provisions such as bursaries for poverty stricken clerics like myself.

On Ash Wednesday five resident students decided to make a pilgrimage to Pennant Mellangeth, a shrine in honour of an early Celtic saint and animal protector which survived the Reformation. There we prayed, lit candles for peoples' healing, and I was asked to try out a meditation from my forthcoming book - direct from my lap-top. We joined in Midday Prayer and were invited to the centre next door for soup.

This remote place would be derelict if heritage organisations had had their way. It took the vision of Rev Evelyn Davies and others, who drew support from Prince Charles and the locals alike, to make this happen. That's what our countries need. Reviving daily prayer and hospitality on ambient sites - in populous and remote places alike,

Submitted: 21:33:28 on 28th February 2009

Topic: FINANCE, SEX AND DARWIN - IN 250 WORDS

It's my turn to write the Pause for Thought column in our local newspaper. Six months of thoughts have to be condensed in to 250 words. This is it:

My Vicar on Holy Island says ‘The world financial crisis is an opportunity to change to a sustainable way of life.’ My Tweedmouth gym has put up a notice. ‘Beat the credit crunch by sharing an allotment and growing your own food.’ Bring back allotments.

Paul Moore, the former head of regulatory risk at HBOS, who was schooled by Benedictine monks in Yorkshire, warned his bosses against lending, to consumers whose ability to repay was doubtful, far more than the bank had in solid assets. This reflected the Christian advice to avoid unnecessary debt. He was sacked. He says ‘The world needed this crisis to bring it to its senses because it was gripped by a kind of blindness. What we need is capitalism with a conscience.’ Bring back conscience.

A twelve-year-old fathers a child. The nation is shocked. Yet for years the teachings of great religions about the sanctity of marriage and sex have been banned as not politically correct. In their place the mechanics of sex have been taught ad nauseam. Bring back Christian sex.

We celebrate the bi-centenary of Charles Darwin. Atheists claim him as their own. In fact he always believed in a Creator. He did cease to believe in the God he thought Christians proclaimed. When he concluded that bees evolved ‘through instinct’, he thought it necessary to add ‘rather than by the design of God.’ He, along with many religious leaders of his time, failed to see that God could be in the process. Bring back belief in the God within.

Submitted: 15:22:31 on 14th February 2009

Topic: ALZHEIMERS, TERRY PRATCHETT AND MY FRIENDS

Terry Pratchett has Alzheimers. He has invited a film crew to chronicle his 'dark path'. He is determined not to be seen as a victim.

I have two priest friends with Alzheimers. One had such peace in the deeper levels of his soul that he his still peaceful and happy. He is fine, its just his memory that's gone. Another touched us greatly when he celebrated (yes, celebrated) Holy Communion recently. 'In this holy sacrament' he said, 'the infinitely loving God pours his mercy into our bodies, minds and souls. OK, our bodies are disintegrating - they won't last. OK the mind may be disintegrating - mine is - it won't last. But the most important thing is that He pours his life and love into our souls - and they last eternally. That is the only thing that really matters.'

Isn't that wonderful?

Submitted: 12:45:54 on 8th February 2009

Topic: 'YOU ARE A PROPHETIC COMMUNITY'

Senior churchman Godfrey Butland is the person to whom our Community gives account.While he was driving to the annual houseparty of those of us in first vows he asked God what he should say to us. He told us that he thinks God is pleased with what he sees. Godfrey also thought that this Community is a prophetic sign. It lives out now what everyone is meant to live, and what in the future will be mainstream.

Submitted: 13:53:49 on 1st February 2009

Topic: 'YOU ARE A PROPHETIC COMMUNITY'

Submitted: 13:51:32 on 1st February 2009

Topic: 'YOU ARE A PROPHETIC COMMUNITY'

Submitted: 13:49:59 on 1st February 2009

Topic: CHANNEL 4 TV'S MESSAGE FROM LINDISFARNE

The British TV Channel Four are broadcasting a series on The History of Christianity. Episode Four is entitled The Dark Ages and focusses on Britain, especially Lindisfarne. The presenter, the black British theologian Dr Robert Beckford described how warring kingdoms were united, and the English became a nation, through Christianity. At Jarrow, the site of the monk historian Bede, Beckford asked 'What does Bede's Englishness consist of?' His answer was to open the pages of The Lindisfarne Gospels on Holy Island with the scholar Dr. Michelle Brown. These Gospels, she suggested, were a manifesto of an Englishness that embraces the world and glories in cultural diversity. They contain Irish ogham and Germanic runes, Latin and Greek, swirls that would have reminded a girl of her mother's pearls, designs from prayer mats inspired by the Muslim east and used in England, all woven into the larger tapestry of the Eternal. They were a symbol of a new dynamic so powerful that kings who previously only maintained themselves by killing and pride, gave up power to become humble servants in a monastery. The early English church, said Beckford, was not small-minded but was the epitome of diversity.

The influence of this church, like that of the Irish, spread across Europe in the 8th century. Although the flame flickered over the centuries, Beckford claims that the Lindisfarne Message lay behind the abolition of the slave trade and the workers' rights movements. As someone who came from the slave culture of the Caribbean, and who saw the church through the narrow prism of that context, he says he is liberated to discover that there is a wider, deeper, more inclusive basis for the Christianity of the land he loves.

Submitted: 20:30:48 on 25th January 2009

Topic: MESSAGE TO PRESIDENT OBAMA

Dear President,

Our international movement for change prays for you.

We commit ourselves to healing our torn-apart world. We refuse to demonise. We love Muslims, Christians and Jews – children of Abraham, children of God, and challenge all to listen to God and to one another for what is best for God’s family.

We commit to live simply, that others may simply live, and to renounce the demon of Mammon. We urge all people to use the present economic grim reaping as a God-given opportunity to build a different, more sustainable basis for our common life.

We commit to cherish the earth, and pray that your plans to create many jobs that will save or increase renewable energy will go further, deeper and ever wider.

Our symbols are Flame and Struggle. May the flame of hope that you have kindled, spread across the globe.

We pledge ourselves wholeheartedly to the struggle that will be needed if these hopes are to be delivered.

Submitted: 20:07:18 on 25th January 2009

Topic: GAZA

Today I welcomed back Ian Mills, Warden of Marygate House, on Holy Island, from several weeks of his sabbatical leave which he used to serve Palestinian charity workers in the West Bank. Today, also, the Director of our St Cuthbert's Centre here sent me the following message from his United Reformed Church press officer:

Three major world religions regard Israel/Palestine as a 'holy land'. Jews, Christians and Muslims cannot understand their spiritual traditions without some appreciation of the long history that has unfolded in Palestine/Israel and the wider region.

The deeper theological perspectives of the three faiths include the wisdom that all people have their place in God's purposes, and that people of each faith have a fundamental responsibility to safeguard the common interest. Muslims, Christians and Jews are all people of a robust peace that is rooted in God's unconditional love for us all. This is where hope and future lie.

It is not right that the rich spirituality of our traditions is corrupted into hatred and violence, demeaned into a narrow stridency seeking political or military advantage for one interest - at the cost of the well-being of others or of the common good.

It is scandalous that the wise traditions of our historic faiths should be subverted by powerful secular interests to justify defending any one community at any price. Such manipulation can never be for the common good or the wider peace. Political and military power, disconnected from the lively spiritual God-centred peace at the heart of our three religions, offers no prospect of healing or justice for anyone.

Yet our three faiths are also the means by which these precious gifts may be offered to Palestine/Israel - and to the wider world. If Islam, Judaism and Christianity fail in this, our faiths will be roundly condemned and rightly consigned to the dustbin of history.

Stuart Dew Press Officer. United Reformed Church

Submitted: 15:44:56 on 13rd January 2009

Topic: HOW YOUR NATION CAN BE GREAT

Today I emailed this Thought for the Day to my mates in Australia:

In living to make others great I find my own greatness.

As I am so is my nation

Submitted: 18:10:32 on 9th January 2009

Topic: MORE LIGHT, LESS HEAT

MORE LIGHT, LESS HEAT Details: They call this the season of Epiphany. The best quote I have been sent is this by C.S. Lewis: I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

Submitted: 18:32:55 on 6th January 2009

Topic: THE THIRTEENTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS

'On the thirteenth day of Christmas I saw King Jesus go about the plain beyond my pane wearing the cap of snow...'

Thanks for sending me that line from Charles Causley's poem. Now write the next line - what's he doing outside your window?

Submitted: 18:18:40 on 6th January 2009

Topic: HOLY ISLAND NEW YEAR

January 1 is Men's Day. I had a drink on the house at The Crown and Anchor.l Since I was called upon to lead Evening Prayer in the church I then did something unheard of - I had a latte coffee at The Manor House Hotel. Its the spirit that matters.

January 2 is Women's Day. I stocked up in case of a knock on the door - Celtic hospitality and all that. Two women came to work. Karen, fresh from snow-bound Washington and without her luggage, and Judith. They have turned the Library into a maelstrom of good works - cataloguing, labelling, sorting etc. Concourse Books have extended their free trial period and offered us a half price subscription thereafter. Soon you will have internet access to this unique library.

Submitted: 11:23:24 on 2nd January 2009

Topic: NEW YEAR

Hi folks, my New Year Message is on the front of the first web page. Bulls-eye!

New's Year's Day is Men's Day on the island. I had a drink on the house at The Crown and Anchor. Since I was called upon to lead Evening Prayer in the church I then had something unheard of - a latte coffee at The Manor House Hotel. It's the spirit that counts.

January 2 is Women's Day. I have stcoked up in case there is a knock at the door... Celtic hospitality and all that.

Submitted: 10:19:05 on 1st January 2009

Topic: CHRISTMAS DAYS ON HOLY ISLAND

Clive's Nativity Figures are floodlit in the Gospels' Garden.

Our ad hoc choir sang Vivaldi's Gloria

My sister Sally arrived and slept on the library floor.

Had a staff party at The Open Gate - I brought the Chinese takeaway and Helen and Naomi brought their home made chocolate roulade.

Pauline Warner and friends, ensconced at 'Shalom', had us round for a Swedish Christmas evening

< A walk to the north shore and the anonymous hermit's homemade hut. Left a message in the 'history book' which is kept in a plastic container.

/Holy Island is the only sane place in Britain' someone said. Everywhere else is crazed with shopping addiction. Here there is the sea, the sand, the silence and the Presence.

We climbed Arthur's Seat at Edinburgh, had an eat-as-much-as-you-like four course Chinese meal for £5.49 pence, and enjoyed the 'Sunshine on Leith' musical at the Festival Theatre.

Joyce's funeral. The whole island turned out. She was just back from a Caribbean cruise, asked us to light all the Christmas candles, sing Away in a Manger, and wave to her as the hearse took her to the crematorium. Then we had refreshments at The Crown and Anchor. Joyce is a hard act to follow. On Millennium night she asked me when I would ask her to marry me. 'Maybe some time before the next millennium ' I replied.

Sally leaves and Judith arrives. Karen's plane was delayed a day by snow in USA. She joins Judith to give weeks of volunteer service - to finish cataloguing the Celtic Christian Studies Library that you, dear reader, can benefit from whenever you can make it. Please do make it.

Submitted: 20:46:16 on 30th December 2008

Topic: THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

'Glow sea and sky For the One who is drawing nigh' (a prayer we said). 'Wow! Look at that' - a visitor refers to the glowing sky and seascape.

Home-maker God, come at night to all who are sleeping rough; come to cardboard huts and the dampened squats; come to the young who have lost their way and to the old who have been forgotten' (a prayer we said). A man who spent the night in a caravan was offered breakfast at the Vicarage.

A late Christmas card from Paul Oliver included these words from his poem: 'He comes, friend to disinherited and forsaken, awakening a life prepared for us only in secret... And now his presence lightens the heart and gives voice to a world deafened to his gentle words of Love.'

Submitted: 09:28:41 on 24th December 2008

Topic: EQUINOX MYSTERY SOLVED?

Of course - how stupid of me. That light I saw was on the Equinox. Up here in the northern hemisphere that is the day of least light. Dave - that prayer you sent, asking us to use it at midday, gives us the clue. For the sake of everyone who blogs on I will copy your prayer below:

Warmth of all warmth, Comforter of all comfort, be within me this day, that i would share your warmth with others and be to the other that which you are to me.

Let not the darkness overcome us, but let the Light shine from within to illumine that which is darkness. As the darkness stretches it's long hand over this nation, let your Light shine from within your people, that we would be left not in darkness, but in the hope of the coming Light.

Great Light, be my guide and hold me fast in this darkness that I may be the fire on a hilltop in this dark time Burn now and ever more Amen

Submitted: 11:26:28 on 23rd December 2008

Topic: WHERE WILL GOD TURN UP NEXT?

Holy Island is dark and deserted in the depth of winter. Only five people turned up to the morning church service. We went up into the sanctuary - the area where all the important God things are - the altar, the Bible, the ikon, the candles, the flowers. While the vicar was praying, I looked down to the back of the church - to the area where none of the God things are, where the brooms are stored and the rubbish is kept. To my amazement it was flooded with bright light. Could some TV crew be preparing for a visit? No. Was it a some light specially fixed up for a children's nativity? No again. What could the explanation be?

Back in the sanctuary a Bible reading came to my ears. It was about God not being born in a big religious centre, but in some back water - a stable in some village. That unlikely place was flooded with light. Angels came. God turned up there. But most people missed it.

Where will God turn up next on planet earth, I thought? The light by our broom cupboard makes me think that God might turn up in a place where the down-turn is making folk feel forgotten - in a down-to-earth corner of the world. Look out. Let me know.

Thanks. Ray.

Submitted: 22:05:20 on 21st December 2008

Topic: TOP PEOPLE FALL: LITTLE PEOPLE GROW

The world recession daily sees rich and powerful people fall. What the headlines miss is that lowly people grow. This is the timeless truth that the Christian season of Advent symbolises. .

In the past, a far-seeing commentator named Zephaniah suggested that the obvious front runners, the Jewish Establishment, would be deported because they were no longer to be trusted. But two other groups of people could be trusted and would be used to build a better world. One group were beyond the margins of what they thought was 'the civilisaed world' - beyond some river in Ethiopia. The other group were the ordinary people of Israel who were too poor to be deported ( Zephaniah 3:1-2, 9-13).

The people who regarded themselves as the world’s front runners looked down on other peoples whose economies were in a mess but in fact they themselves had lost the plot. They could no longer be trusted. Yet a people far off beyond the boundaries of a river in Ethiopia could be trusted because in their poverty and simplicity they had sincere hearts. Then the chosen people would cease to strut; they would be removed and the ordinary, humble people who would be left behind would live honestly and inherit the possibilities.

(p>In the New Testament Advent reading that goes with this, Matthew 21:28-32, Jesus makes a similar point in relation to individuals. The person who outwardly was up to the job, who had ticked all the right boxes on the form, in fact failed to do the job. The person who said he would not do the job, in the event turned up trumps.

In Holy Island Church today this prayer was offered:Lord, bring into the light those parts of our lives that are closed, dysfunctional, non-co-operative and uncreative. Help us to embrace our vulnerability and be available to you. Take away false defences and self-righteous pigeonholing of others. We pray this also for those countries and leaders who think of themselves as the world’s good guys....

Submitted: 11:56:36 on 16th December 2008

Topic: STAR OVER LONDON

Sorry you missed me on Holy Island. I shared in a London church's annual festival of their patron, Saint Nicholas (Santa Claus to you, me and the marketeers). The people of this church - St. Nicholas Perivale -are the salt of the earth. The building links an industrial area with a housing area. There are a few white and brown faces in the church, but most are black. I pushed my way through an Oxford Street crammed with shoppers and bought a Christmas star from Selfridges. This I presented to the church with these words: 'We come from an exploding star. We are made of star dust. Each person is a star. Our job is to help each star shine'.

The Church of England Diocese of London has a campaign to 'Build the City'. I asked my Perivale friends if they could best build the city by being like Jerusalem or Bethlehem. I suggested God would guide them as clearly as a star to build an ever-growing family among the ordinary 'straw' of life - to be a Bethlehem kind of place in London. Pray for them.

Submitted: 17:03:45 on 9th December 2008

Topic: CHANGE@ GOV.COM

Change@gov.com is the name of a campaign by over one million organisations world-wide. They claim the coming change is unstoppable. The only question is whether we will co-operate with it or resist it. They say that if we co-operate, something will come to birth even more wonderful than a baby being born, but if we resist it, we will be left stranded, with nothing but our own regrets to keep us company.

The gov.com refers to God. The campaigning organisations call themselves churches. The campaign period is known as Advent.

You want more information? For heaven's sake, don't ask me. Go to higher authority.

Submitted: 17:13:48 on 2nd December 2008

Topic: THE SHACK

Yes, thanks for telling me about it, I too have now read this bestseller.

What did I enjoy most? I liked the bit when God (you know Who) emerged with plates of pancakes and fried potatoes (though I am sorry William Paul Young’s God is not Green), dressed in a long-flowing African-looking dress, complete with a vibrant, multi-coloured headband, singing along to Bruce Cockburn’s song ‘Oh love that fires the sun keep me burning’ and glowingly exclaims ‘I love that child’s songs! I am especially fond of Bruce, you know’, and when asked if Bruce was her favourite, she replied ‘I have no favourites, I am just especially fond of him’.

I’ll sign off now, but before I do so I want you to know this: I’m especially fond of you.

Yours fondly

Sunshine Ray.

PS On my blogs the Divinity spells English the British way – papa’s especially fond of this spelling.

Submitted: 15:26:55 on 25th November 2008

Topic: HILDA AND OUR TIMES

A retreat in order to advance drew us to Saint Hilda's Whitby, on Britain's eastern coast, where the ancient abbey and the modern priory keep watch. On Saint Hilda's Day we joined sisters of the Order of the Holy Paraclete for an open air service in the abbey ruins, courtesy of English Heritage, and our Carol, of The Open Gate, read from Bede's account of Hilda. We were then invited to the sisters' main priory for their annual celebration, followed by a lunch. I had the honour of preaching. This is the start of the sermon, based on the writings of the prophet Isaiah chapter 61: 10 to 62:5:

Hilda’s great community up there for women and men, students and workers, was in effect a village. A village of God. Today’s Old Testament reading describes the birthright and the legacy and the divine possibility of such a place – in this case, not a village but a city of God. The prophet speaks to this place. He tells it that despite failures and set-backs, destructions and even ruins, because they have put God first they will be seen as a place where God can be seen, where people in authority shall see the divine glory: ‘The nations shall see your vindication.’

I believe the time is approaching in our world of climate, energy and financial melt-down when people of influence will see that their authority is imploding, but places like Hilda’s Whitby stand for an authority that nothing can destroy.

God transforms first a person, then a place through that person; then it becomes a platform that begins to transform the world. As it was with Jerusalem: so with Whitby.

The Divine Spirit comes upon the prophet, who says: ‘My whole being shall exult in God.’ That’s Hilda, too. Nothing half-hearted, namby-pamby or dualistic about her. Body and mind. God in the soil and God in the Scriptures. God in the chants and God in the chores. My whole being. God in the academic novices who would become bishops: God in the unread cowherd whose tongue was tied.

Submitted: 16:38:46 on 20th November 2008

Topic: BANFF CHURCHES TOGETHER GO FORWARD - WHAT ABOUT OTHERS?

Banff is a well built town of 4,000 people on the rural north-east coast of Scotland. The representatives of its five churches on its ‘Churches Together’ studied my book 'Church of the Isles: the emerging church in Britain and Ireland – a prophetic strategy for renewal', drew up an audit of each of their churches, and invited me to spend a week-end with them when they could offer their vision to the town and begin to draw up achievable priorities.

The five churches, in order of their number of worshippers, are: The Parish Church of the Church of Scotland, Our Lady of Carmel Roman Catholic Church, Riverside Christian Church (independent charismatic), the Methodist Church and the Scottish Episcopal Church. This initiative was the inspiration of Rev John Woodside, the deacon in charge of Our Lady of Carmel. On the Friday evening three delegates from each church shared a meal together. On Saturday morning each church presented an outline of its activities, history and aims. A spirit of encouraging one another was evident. In the light of the book’s check lists on how to turn a church into a spiritual home, and of the ingredients that might make up a ‘Village of God’, I asked questions and made suggestions. On Saturday afternoon I did a prayer visualisation walk the length and breadth of Banff, encompassing the harbour, football ground, gardens, shops, pubs, tourist centre, Duff House and the five churches.

Riverside Church hosted a 7.0 pm public meeting at their modern Harvest Centre, advertised as ‘A Vision for Banff’. This was open to non-church-goers and the audience included a county councillor and a couple from Banff Community Council. I suggested that the election of President Obama was evidence that a dream can come true. A dream for a town should embrace excellence both in its material provisions and in the spirit that inspires its citizens. A town’s resources for renewing this spirit were as important as its consumer provisions. Addressing the churches, I outlined changes in society which were marginalising churches – these resources of the spirit. This called for churches to re-connect imaginatively and compassionately to all parts of their society. I spoke of Villages of God and gave examples of what was possible.

After this meeting the Churches Together delegates met again. Three achievable areas to explore were identified: 1) Instead of Churches Together activities being ‘one more thing’ on top of already overcrowded agendas, certain existing church activities could be done more effectively together. For example, A Churches Together web site, twice yearly newsletter to every home, information sheet for tourist and residents centres, men’s breakfasts, use of the redundant high street church which the council was to turn into a modern centre, making Banff a Fair Trade Town, as are Aberdeen and Oban. 2) The spiritual renewal of church members. A common experience was that church workers were spending more time on organisation than on renewal of the inner life, yet unchurched people often wanted spirituality more than organisation. Churches needed to develop soul friends, listeners and disciplers who could mentor a new generation in Christian spirituality, meditation and prayer. First steps towards this could be quiet days, retreats, courses or circulation of devotional material delegates from each church found helpful. 3) Contributing to fun or adventure pastimes among the public such as the town’s annual festival (Busking? Children’s crèche? Free home-made cakes?) and the Grampian Coastal Trail. This trail could begin and end with St Columba, who visited Aberdeen (the start) and Inverness (the end) of the trail. It goes through St. Catherine’s Head, St. Cyrus, Kirkton, St. Fergus, St. Combs and near Deer Abbey. Ancient Christian sites and today’s churches could be linked with it. At the least a leaflet with some suggestions for sites and prayer could be available in the tourist centres. If you’d like a CD of the evening talk and responses, send £3 to ‘Riverside CC’ , Castle Street, Banff, Scotland AB45 1DH

Submitted: 15:53:29 on 12nd November 2008

Topic: OBAMA AND INSPIRED LEADERSHIP

The Booker Prize-winning novelist Ben Okri thinks that the USA election was about a call. He writes in the London Times 'nations become what they are because of certain crossroad choices they have made. The American elections are about the secret symbolic destination of our age'. He thinks the Obama story is one of the most audacious and inspiring stories of our age. He writes 'We like people who set out on impossible journeys. They reawaken in us a sense of human greatness, which we appear to have forgotten in these dismal times.... We are searching for a new America, a new paradigm for our times, a new phoenix out of the moral and financial crisis of our age. This is a time for new directions, a new revival..'

All this is true. But Obama can't do this on his own. We need many ordinary people who set out on the journey towards greatness. Those who Voyage with our Way of Life can be harbingers. Many, many more are needed.

Submitted: 17:05:48 on 5th November 2008

Topic: THE BALLOON BURSTS - GLOBAL CREDIT CRUNCH

Thanks for your questions about the money crisis. These are my thoughts.

'I don't know much about world finance', said my brother's wife, Anita, ' but I know that if you continue inflating a balloon it will burst.' Now the balloon has burst, but financial experts bleat 'We didn't see it coming'. I did. For two years I have felt in my stomach that things could not go on like they were, and I have said so.

Our international community recommend a way of life. Its values include simplicity, balance and stewardship. In the Companion Book to our way of life ('A Pilgrim Way: new celtic monasticism for everyday people' published by Kevin Mayhew) we advise people to avoid unnecessary debt, not to borrow more than we can repay and to invest ethically. Aggressive banks have borrowed thirty times the amount they have in assets. Before you use a bank, find out if its assets are greater or less than its borrowings. Only invest in responsible and ethical banks. I have transferred my meagre savings to a Co-operative Bank ethical fund.

Submitted: 20:39:52 on 28th October 2008

Topic: THE STONE OF DESTINY

I saw The Stone of Destiny at a cinema in my beloved Edinburgh yesterday. It brought tears to my eyes. It stirs the blood to see young men re-possess a sacred symbol of their nationhood which they perceive another nation (in this case England) to have stolen from them.

However, we struggle for an even higher goal - the healing of the lands - and for truth. The legend of The Stone of Destiny carries healing truth. It was the pillow of stone on which Jacob of the Bible lay his head, before he saw heaven opened. It was used by young King Joash at a coronation. It was taken with the Jewish refugees into exile. It came into the hand of a good, local Egyptian king named Gathelus, whose wife, Scota, desired to travel far. Eventually, via the Danube, these pilgrims came to Ireland with the precious stone. The Irish colonised part of northern Britain. They brought the Stone to Scone for a time. It was brought to Dunadd for the first Christian coronation of a British monarch, King Aidan, by Saint Columba. The future English King Oswald was brought up there in a faithful covenant between the parties of the two peoples. Saint Aidan was there, and the great Arthur, later eulogised in fables, who united Scots, Welsh and English in alliances of honour. Who knows if Oswald, too, was anointed upon that stone? The Kings of Scotland were crowned sitting upon it. When King James of Scotland became also King of England, and again when there was a Union between Scotland and England, this became a symbol of shared blessing, and was lodged beneath the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey, to be used at the coronations of the joint monarchs of the Scots and the English. Following the re-possession/ theft of the stone, it was surrendered to UK authorities. Prime Minister John Major ordered that its home should again be in Scotland, but it should be taken to the Abbey for each coronation.

My proposal is this: That each person who touches this Stone should wrestle with God as Jacob wrestled, until the barrier between heaven and earth is broken through, and the barriers between every people on earth are broken through, and the Stone becomes the Sacred Place of God's Presence, where every human being on earth receives their due and honours another people. The Lost Tribes are re-United under one God. So help us God.

Submitted: 16:23:32 on 21st October 2008

Topic: PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN AT GLASTONBURY

Pagans are meeting Jesus in their dreams. If Jesus is not prejudiced against non-Christians, why should Christians be?

Christians and others gathered at Chalice Well, Glastonbury. Margaret led a prayer walk through its garden, and explained that the red well water and the white well water are taken by Christians as a symbol of the blood and water that flowed from Christ's side. Pauline led a Eucharist of Divine Wisdom. Another retreatant read the Bible aloud for the first time in his life. This followed a dream in which Divine hands opened his heart. David and I visited the goddess temple. This is the only space in that town where anyone can sit on a cushion, in the ambience of music, incense, and beautiful images. Why can't churches provide such spaces, and allow women to be touhed by the Divine Feminine and be affirmed in the beauty of their origins in God? Emerging villages of God must provide such spaces.

I stayed on for the funeral of Pamela, which she had planned most gloriously not long before. God bless her!

playing,

Submitted: 18:26:56 on 13rd October 2008

Topic: ANGELS DOWN UNDER

G'day Mate

Yep, I know that the angel season in the old country is all about Michael and his task force protecting helpless souls against the encroaching dark of the northern hemisphere, but I don't agree with you that angels have no place Down Under.

Yep, I know that you know that folk think about the following: Michael and his angel force (September 29); the kids' guardian angels (first week of October); firing, blazing seraphim (the next week) ; the miracle of Le Mont St Michel in France (19 October - read about it in my 'Saints of the Isles' if you've forgotten); Raphel the healing angel and his six companions (October 30) and, yep, I know I could have said her instead of his.

But I want you to know this. I also know that they are the angels of LIGHT and that Down Under the light is flooding in - and why don't you celebrate this with all YOUR bloomin' angels?

I also want you to know this. Just now a woman from Brisbane told me how back home she knelt on the soil and heard the earth weeping. Afterwards she found that the Aboriginal people had gathered at that spot for a great weeping after suffering terrible mistreatment. She heard the sounds of the earth. Each of those dead souls had their angels. They still have them. Listen to the angels. Do you hear me?

Submitted: 16:51:47 on 2nd October 2008

Topic: A FIT, A FAINT OR A FATALITY?

The bed plunged and the wall spun endlessly. It was 5.0am. I was in a single room - the co-leader of a retreat for 91 people - and on Iona, an island with no resident doctor.

Mercy, however, was resident. The Iona Community drove me across the ferry to the medical centre on Mull at their expense. That is their policy. The doctor put me on their new, state-of-the-art machine, which revealed I had not had a fit or a faint... 'so we are talking pathology.'

Mercy also accompanied me on my return. A young German lady ditched her train journey and helped me drive to Edinburgh. A member of the Community took me in overnight. Next day I got to Berwick Infirmary. They told me I could choose one of two hospitals. I thought of Saint Cuthbert and the view of his hills, and chose Borders Hospital at Melrose. Another Community member drove me there. Through a noisy night of endless tests they eliminated brain tumour and heart problem as the culprits. The culprit was the third, inner sanctuary of the ear. Medication for that followed, and a visit to the 'Falls Unit' in October awaits me. Mercy, however, has never left me.'

Submitted: 07:19:07 on 28th September 2008

Topic: LINDISFARNE PROPERTY

Lindisfarne has 130 residents who have to care for half a million visitors. This is a big pressure. Hotels and charitable establishments alike have a chronic need for more staff, and therefore for staff accommodation. Most have built extensions or rented cottages to meet this need.

Our small, Open Gate Retreat Centre, with only three guest rooms, offers hospitality and spiritual resources to larger groups, day visitors and members of our dispersed Community as well as to our own guests, including meals in a room which doubles for meetings. This creates unaceptable stresses on our volunteer staff, but we have no space to house the extra staff we need, so we drew up draft plans for an extension and consulted with island neighbours. We withdrew these, out of respect for those whose view would be affected, and those who have fond memories of this property as an Island Bar and who do not wish an Elizabethan treasure to be altered.

Out of the blue, the owner of The Lindisfarne Hotel asked us if we would like to buy that. The hotel had run down and was no longer what it used to be. It would enable us to have the staff, the meeting room and disabled access which we sorely need, and we could still sometimes offer rooms to the public. No decisions have been made. We welcome help and guidance.

Submitted: 09:57:57 on 16th September 2008

Topic: IONA, SWEDES AND PILGRIMS

I'm off to Iona to co-lead with Ian Bradley a week on Pilgrimage for Swedish pastors and others. Luther opposed pilgrimage, so why are so many Lutherans now exploring it?

Because, so my workshops will suggest, pilgrimage is a metaphor for a human life and for the life of a church.

At the same time our dispersed Community's physical pilgrimage to the Holy Land gets under way, led by Martin Warren. Pilgrims will meet ordinary fellow Christians who are involved in conflict resolution. Pray for them.

Submitted: 13:40:10 on 5th September 2008

Topic: AIDAN SIGN AND WONDER

An Explorer and a Friend of The Community of Aidan and Hilda placed Rosemary before the statue of Saint Aidan in Holy Island churchyard and took a photograph. The photographer saw blue all around the edges of the statue and the colour yellow at the top. She was quite taken aback. The other person also saw a blue aura around Aidan but it began to fade. What might God be saying?

Submitted: 18:14:48 on 29th August 2008

Topic: Aidan Week on Holy Island

Five Christian communities shared their treasures at a celebration in St Mary's Church, Holy Island during the Saint Aidan Week. At the close they made this open statement together:

As disciples of Christ we follow his path of simplicity of life; proclaim his message of peace and live his life of prayer in the power of the Holy Spirit. Through actively sharing in the Apostles' teaching, in fellowship, in the breaking of bread and by prayer we seek to make Christ better known in the world.

Submitted: 17:17:03 on 29th August 2008

Topic: BAREFOOT CAMPAIGNER

Today I met a man named Ewen Hardy. He is walking barefoot from Edinburgh to London to show solidarity with the oppressed Burmese, and to raise money for their development and education. He aims to arrive on the day the Beijing Olympics begins, in the hope that this will not entirely crowd out the world's awareness of Burma's plight. You can donate online at justgiving.com/barefeetforburma. For more information visit barefeetforburma.blogspot.com

Submitted: 09:17:25 on 2nd July 2008

Topic: SANCTUARY IN LONDON

Members and friends of some Ealing churches devoted a week-end to learning how to build an inner sanctuary while living in the fast lane. This involved learning several arts: the art of saying 'no'; the art of planning margins of time around each area we need for a balanced life; the art of meditation, and the art of loving God in the present moment. To find out more visit www.churchoftheascension.org.uk

Submitted: 09:08:08 on 2nd July 2008

Topic: THE ANGEL AND THE TOUCH ON THE SHOULDER

Sixteen Norwegians walked the sixty three mile Saint Cuthbert?s Way and then stayed on Holy Island in order to walk more closely with God. Two days before youth worker Hovard Haugland took his First Voyage vows with Anamcara ? The Community of Aidan and Hilda in Norway - he had a vision of an angel. Then Philip, a young man from Ghana doing business studies at Durham, who was staying elsewhere on the island, asked if he could sit in on the morning retreat session. That evening he knocked on my door to tell me something. He had felt a hand on his shoulder. But neither the man on his right nor the woman on his left had their hand on his shoulder. He kept looking to check this out, for the hand would not go away. Eventually he came to the conclusion that it was God?s hand on his shoulder, and that is why he had to tell me, for he had never experienced something like that before.

Submitted: 09:09:09 on 30th June 2008

Topic: Seabirds and saints

Recently visitors who came to a God in Nature retreat made a day visit to the Scottish seabird centre at North Berwick. The growth in pilgrimage includes both those who want to pray in a holy place, and those who want to find peace in a place of natural beauty. This visit combined both types. This amazing centre has permanent cameras on three bird sanctuary islands in the Firth of Forth, which the visitor can control from the centre. You can zoom in on every detail of a bird or a rock. Bass Rock, one of these islands, was the home of Saint Baldred, who the Lindisfarne monks sent to be a hermit there, and an ancient pilgrims chapel fronts the centre?s Saints and Seabirds exhibition. Their web site is www.seabird.org.

Submitted: 18:29:18 on 22nd June 2008

Topic: BURMA

Ben Rogers of Christian Solidarity Worldw-de and his Burmese friends Victor and Cheerie spoke at our Annual Week-end at Red Hill Centre neart Stratford, UK. Their news was dire. The troops order peoploe to return to non-existent villages. They shoot them if they do not go. We prayed for the 400,000 soldiers, many of who have a heart; also for the fortune tellers who tells the senior general what to do, that the Holy Spirit would fill the teller with loving insight.

We also heard from our member Therese, who is starting a medical centre in The Democratic Republic of Congo, for the poorest and most needy. We ended with a Eucharist for Justice by the lakeside.

Submitted: 18:26:23 on 17th June 2008

Topic: EX-ATHEISTS, GREAT SCOT !

This week I have encountered a young and an old ex atheist. The young ex is Scott Brennan, who spoke at our 'Heart for Scotland' conference at Scottish Churches House, Dunblane. Five years ago he started The Lighthouse church movement in theb Lothians. Now there are thirteen cells and a youth bus. But when Scott was at school he wrote an essay entitled 'Why There Is No God.' It won a national award. He received a prize. It was a Bible! It seems he has never looked back.

The second ex atheist is Antony Flew. For fifty years he was one of the world?s most influential atheists. He changed his mind in 2004, and wrote a book entitled 'There is a God.' He faced up to the fact that modern science spotlights three dimensions of nature that point to God. The first is that nature obeys laws; how did these laws come to be? The second is that there are intelligently organized and purpose-driven beings; how could they originate from non-life? The third is the existence of nature; how did it come into existence? He came to the conclusion that it is more unrealistic to account for these by chance than by God.

In his book 'There is a God' Flew quotes Professor Stephen Hawkins: ?You still have the question: why does the universe bother to exist? If you like, you can define God to be the answer to that question?. He quotes Einstein: ?We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws?A little child entering a huge library knows someone must have written these books. It does not know how?. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.? He quotes Charles Darwin: ?I feel compelled to look for a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.?.He quotes Paul Davies: ?Atheists claim that the laws (of nature) exist reasonlessly and that the universe is ultimately absurd. As a scientist I find this hard to accept. There must be an unchanging rational ground in which the logical, orderly nature of the universe is rooted.?

Submitted: 15:54:54 on 8th June 2008

Topic: CANADA\'S FORESIGHT GROUP, THE ENVIRONMENT AND THE CHURCH

At last I have time to catch up and I find some notes of my address last year to the Foresight Group that meets in Canada's Parliament. Representatives of science, business and Parliament met for the first time to consider future trends in religion. Evidently I said: 'There is a growing conviction among people most passionate to conserve the environment that we cannot swing it without a grassroots spirituality that motivates and sustains the changed programmes andhabits that are necessary....

The second millennium church in the West allowed itelf, however, to become disconnected from the soil. It identified its call to mission, allied with the work ethic, as a mandate to treat the earth as an inert commodity. Many therefore turned to Buddhism or New Age spiritualities. The international Community of Aidan and Hilda is an example of emerging Christian movements who enable church and other people to become friends of the earth in their values, religious observances and practical habits. This includes the habit of honouring the land and those who have lived on it in each place'. I then told the audience about some of our members: Lars the Deep Ecology Outdoor trainer in Norway, and Manfred, and his project to create eco lodges in Brazil's rain forests that encourage the indigenous people not to be bought out by the multi-national tree-slayers. The Deimels, and their rituals for seasons and blessing the earth...

God help us.

Submitted: 19:15:24 on 21st May 2008

Topic: TRANSFORMING CHURCH IN THE HEART OF ENGLAND

I went to Shakespeare country - Stratford -Upon-Avon - during the May Bank Holiday to launch the new series on 'The Transforming Church'. This consists of seven books: A leaders course guide, log books for adults, young people and children, little prayer books for adults and for children, and a little meditation book on the eleven themes of the course. These may be ordered from the resources section on this web site.

Submitted: 18:58:02 on 21st May 2008

Topic: CABBAGE AND KORU

In Christchurch, New Zealand, after a packed meeting at Theology House, the Celtic group presented me with a bunch of large cabbage leaves. They see these as a sign of God?s grace dancing in the leaves. The cabbage tree is unbreakable fibre, an enduring sign of the land and of God?s creation, of musicality, resilience, and of comfort. Maori use it for clothes and baskets, and on hill tops as way-marks.

That morning I had purchased a booklet by Mike Cole entitled ?Koru Christianity? which begins ?The centre of the Koru (a fern) is the Heart of God. From this place, life flows in all its forms. All creation came from this Heart that is Love?. God spoke to me. Mike, an Anglican Vicar, his RC brother Paul, and his Baptist colleague Alistair Mackenzie and wife Alison, who are all charismatic friends, took me out to a pub to talk through how new, young groups with kids can sustain a daily rhythm of prayer. Thank God for Koru people.

Submitted: 06:44:20 on 17th May 2008

Topic: EMERGING DOWN UNDER

The Launch of Brent and my book 'Emerging Down Under' is going well. It scratches where people itch and sells well. We met people at theAustralia Forge Festival who sense the time has come to set up combined studies of the Aussies Celtic faith hertitage with the reviving studies of the Aboriginal heritage.

We met with John McIntyre, Bishop of Gippsland, and his Diocese's new Anam Cara Community which fosters contemplative prayer. They have a loss-making centre on Raymond Island. They have resisted calls to sell it and aim to turn it in a centre of spirituality, ecology and pilgrimage with an ethos which Anam cara and contemplative residents will help to sustain. They wanted to learn from our mistakes and successes at The Open Gate.

Submitted: 23:40:48 on 13rd April 2008

Topic: COMEDY OF ERRORS DOWN UNDER

The start of my teaching and pastoral tour Down Under was a Comedy of Errors.The Edinburgh plane was delayed so I took an earlier one. My luggage was not transferred and six days later is still not here in New South Wales despite hours at baggage counters and on the phone. The Travel Agency listred me as staying at Empire Hotel Kowloon but they told me I was booked in at The Empire Hotel Hong Hong, so after several hours travel etc I was ensconced there. I was met at Sidney Airport by the recent leader of the Iona Community's sister Australia Community - Wellsrping - Neil Holm, and stayed with him and his wife Margaret. They put me on a two hour train to Newcastle. Matt was not there - he had told them I should get off at the previous station. I looked up our supposedly updated list of members and took a taxi. This was in fact the previous home of the Lamonts - they left it six months ago. Eventually, with more taxis, I got to them. This morning I queued and paid 105 dollars to get a month's supply of eye drops - I was advised by the doctor to live without the prostate tablets since I am now doing well - un less the problem returns - since they will be very expensive. I Matt and I have just gone to a 'high place' and had a good long talk, and he wishes to take The First Voyage. Tomorrow I lead the first seminar. Maybe God wants me to learn from the Aboriginals and be content with my skin, health, food, roof and friends. Tomorrow the first seminar begins. God Bless

Submitted: 16:07:54 on 22nd March 2008

Topic: IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH

I had a very nasty urinary infection. There is no way I could have gone ahead with the imminent tour of Australasia. Anti-biotics cured the infection. Three days before the planned departure energy returned. One day before departure the phone rang. Jean (the first warden of our Open Gate Retreat House) had gone to a church to hear her husband, Ross, preach and had been invited to share thoughts. These about healing. Afterwards Sonia and Rob who run a gym nearby, made friends with them. I had been a member of a gym ex marine Rob once ran in Berwick. Since meeting Sonia he had become convinced of the value of holistic healing. 'Did you know Ray wrote a book about spiritual gym'? Jean told them. 'I'd like to read it. We plan to set up a well-being centre here' they told Jean. So a copy of my book 'The Joy of Spiritual Fitness' (Zondervan UK) is on its way.

With a new sense of wellp-being I fly off Down Under. The main public events are on the News Flash on the web site. A garbled more detailed list follows soon on the blog.

Submitted: 09:35:29 on 9th March 2008

Topic: A VISITOR TELLS OF SLAVE TRADE HEALING

After seven week-ends on the job elsewhere, I succumbed to a nasty urinary infection which does not allow me to leave home until the anti-biotics do their job. But thank God for one visitor whose story I now relate.

David Pott walked from Hexham to Lindisfarne. He is the leader of the Lifeline Expedition, a Christian response to the legacy of the Atlantic slave trade. In recent years he has walked with a team along the meridian from Greenwich to the heart of Africa, in chains, to symbolise their recognition of the slavery their forebears promoted among Africans, and wearing T shirts which say ?Sorry?. The Vice-:President of Gambia was so moved to meet them that she personally took the chains from them and forgave them. Scenes like that, as those of England?s two Anglican Archbishops (one white, one black) leading the team in a procession of penance and healing in a former slave port city, have hit the headlines. But David told me stories of individuals of African descent who have experienced healing of false self image during their travels together.

My visitor brought more good news still. He told of the diary he has written about his aged parents? recent deaths, for they were good deaths indeed, and worthy to be treasured and learned from. David believes that if a child and a dying parent can talk about death openly, with no skeletons in the cupboard, they become free to grow ? in heaven and on earth. His parents did not cling on to life, nor were their children saying ?Don?t leave us? ? instead they recalled or did things the parents enjoyed, had a wedding anniversary party shortly before mother?s death which included a letter from the Queen, and shared Scriptures, prayers and plans that built one another up.

Northumbria Community has published David?s notes as a booklet entitled Journeying Home: thoughts on dying well (www.cloistersonline.com). It includes this paraphrase of George MacDonald:

Come now, live in us. Let us stay in You, since if we be all in You we cannot be far from one another, though some may be in heaven and some may be on earth.

Then I heard that my dear friend Hazel had died at Bowthorpe, and I made this our prayer for her.

Submitted: 19:26:04 on 24th February 2008

Topic: DESERT SPIRITUALITY IN LONDON AND PARIS??

Can contemplation thrive in the city? Can the inner victories wrought ?in the desert? shine out in the streets of London and Paris? The Bishop of Woolwich (south London) Christopher Chessun, who once said to me ?Help us bring the desert into the city? joined a small group at the Royal Foundation of Saint Katharine, in the heart of London?s renascent dockland, to explore this in retreat.

He told how had taken his staff to the Jerusalem Community in Paris. The mission of the Monastic Communities of Jerusalem is to live in the heart of the city, in the heart of God. The essence of their vocation lies in Jesus? words ?Father, I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one? (John 17:15). Since human beings are created as the most beautiful likeness of God, the monks and nuns want to meet God in the city, among its inhabitants. Through a life of community and contemplation, revealing God?s presence in the heart of this world, they want to serve and to reach out to all those who seek God. The Bishop outlined the five characteristics of their vocation. This is described in The Jerusalem Community Rule of Life see www.jerusaloem.cef.fr He felt that in contrast to many new and old expressions of ?mission-shaped church?, this faith community never pounced on people. Rather, they lived a life and invited others to enter into it. Their liturgies (which are preceded by 30 minutes of silent prayer) and some meals are open to others. Lay groups of similar age or interest relate to them.

The retreat examined the Sayings, Struggles and Soul Friendships of fifth century hermits in the Egyptian desert, and ways to put their principles into practice in the city; for example by turning city hold-ups into sacred spaces, city frustrations into the arena for spiritual struggles. We tried to meditate in the fast lane. We learned how Francis de Sales taught the practice of the presence of God in busy Geneva, and how John of Kronstadt learned the rhythm of total giving by day and total receiving by night in his hard-pressed Russia sea port. ?Takeaway Food? was the title of the last session ? ten tips on how to experience desert spirituality in busy places.

Submitted: 09:33:04 on 17th February 2008

Topic: COPT MEETS CELT IN NORWAY

As part of Coptic Bishop Thomas? preaching tour of Norway about fifty people met in the Church House at Grimstadt to meet him. These included members of The Community of Aidan and Hilda (Anamcara) who had gone on pilgrimages to Egypt. Bishop Thomas explained that, in contrast to western churches which often cut short times of prayer to fit the pressures of the clock, the Copts often continue until they have fully entered in an aspect of worship until they are ready ?from the inside? to emerge into a next phase. They also can teach us to enter into seasons of spiritual discipline or experiment. For example, Bishop Thomas felt he should spend forty days closely observing people in the city, and write down what he thought Jesus? feelings would be as he observed these people.

?We think there is a connection between Copt and Celt which we, too, need to connect with?, said the host, Tom Martin Berntsen, ? and tonight we have Copt and Celt with us?. He asked me to speak. After outlining the early Irish and British connections with Christian Egypt, I said that the western church had later become far removed from the purity of the desert traditions. But now, after all these years, a new interest in the desert is evident among people who are sick of the flabbiness of western Christian society. The British TV programme ?Extreme Pilgrim? had just featured an Anglican priest who was floundering in his faith, but who rediscovered it on a visit to the hermitage of Saint Antony of Egypt. Andthe Bishop of Liverpool had just suggested on radio that the account of Jesus? desert temptations should be required reading for the USA?s presidential candidates. I informed them that the Bishop of Woolwich (south London) had said ?Help us bring the desert into the city?. ?How do we do that?? I asked.

Bishop Thomas said that we have to create a desert space inside ourselves, for we are temples of God, and then go into the city with this space in our hearts. In the physical desert we bring the people to God in prayer. In the city we bring God?s love to the people.

Submitted: 15:32:08 on 11st February 2008

Topic: LENT AND ATHLETES OF THE SPIRIT

Muslims from an inter-faith women?s group in Nottingham were staying at Marygate House on Ash Wednesday, the start of the Christian season of Lent. Some came as friendly observers to the end of the morning service. I explained to one lady some of our Lent practices. She said, ?The Prophet Muhammed, blessed be he, taught us to have water in one third of our stomachs, food in one third, and to keep an empty space in the other third.? ?What a brilliant idea? I said. ?Yes?, she continued, ?but with fast food and additives that make you want to eat more, it is easy to give in to temptation?.

That, perhaps, is why the early Christians of the Egyptian desert were called ?athletes of the Spirit?. They knew they had to flee or overcome temptation. From 13-15 February I lead a retreat in London on the them ?Desert in the City?.You can book in through our office. I wonder how many will come?

Submitted: 18:03:08 on 6th February 2008

Topic: VOYAGERS AND THE DESERT

Last week representatives from Ireland, Germany and Norway joined UK Community of Aidan and Hilda Voyagers for our annual retreat, house-party and meeting. There was a Teaching Day, a Quiet Day and a Meeting Day.

David Runcorn led the Teaching Day on the theme of the desert. ?It took one year for ancient Israel to get out of Egypt?, he said, ?but it took forty years to get Egypt out of Israel? The desert is the primary scriptural symbol of the absence of human aid and comfort, and the priority of God. Those desert ?athletes of the Spirit? have much to teach us today. Tom Martin Berntsen, of Norway, informed us that a modern Desert Father, the Coptic Bishop Thomas, will meet with us next week when I join the Norway members of the community.

. On the Quiet Day Manfred Jahn of Germany led us into contemplation and deep silence; Stella Durand of Ireland gave a paper on Praying with Ikons. The Meeting Day included our Annual Meeting (like a Chapter of a traditional Order) in the morning, walking the moors of Sheffield in the afternoon and having a party in the evening. Our Episcopally endorsed Community Soul Friend, Godfrey Butland, led our final Communion service on Friday and reflected back to us what he felt God might be saying, which he summed up under the headings of stability, visibility, continuity. Following this the Caim Council, which aims to encircle all the expressions of the world-wide community, met for six hours.

Submitted: 11:25:15 on 5th February 2008

Topic: THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND RE-CONNECTING

Three CA&H Voyagers have just led a week-end for some hundred Readers (licensed but unpaid church workers and preachers) in the Church of England Diocese of Portsmouth. It was styled as ?A week-end of seminars and workshops to help us re-connect with the Spirit and the Scriptures, the saints and the streets, the seasons, the soil and silence.?

You may already have spotted that this echoes the Community?s headliner that is now printed on our literature. Brenda Lofthouse led sessions on how we can re-connect with the streets (e.g. the street angels of Bradford where she lives), and with silence. Ryk Parkinson helped lead sessions on how we can re-connect with the soil and with the seasons. I explored how we may re-connect with the Spirit, the Scriptures and the saints.

On Sunday morning we explored how existing and fresh expressions of church can make transforming connections. Ten groups came up with a vibrant and fascinating list of examples. These will be put on the Diocese?s web site. (do a google search for Portsmouth Diocese/Readers). I gave tasters from the multi-dimensional course soon to be published by Kevin Mayhew Ltd ?The Transforming Church?.

I began my homily at the final Eucharist by quoting child psychologist Oliver James, author of Britain on the Couch, who diagnoses our national condition as ?affluenza?, whose symptoms are ?hysteria that reflect feelings of low status, insignificance, powerlessness ? while part of us longs to be the best?. The church is the divine agency to heal and transform this sick society, to be the soul of the body politic. Sadly, however, the church has to overcome some built-in hindrances if it is to fulfil this historic calling. As Dr Wendy Savage, researcher in psychology and religion at the University of Cambridge impolitely put it in her comment on the 2006 report The Future of the Parish System: Shaping the Church of England for the 21st5 Century:

?One difficulty is how to motivate the ?settled blancmange? of the softly acquiescent majority ? social loafers who are just bums on pews. Christian ?niceness? is ubiquitous. This can tie churches up in knots??. She says that the hangover of feudal patterns elicits bad behaviour such as status seeking, fawning, bullying, passivity, blaming others and gossiping.?

This week-end explored how to spread a vision that takes people beyond all that, and how to motivate and equip leaders to raise up a new people who journey with God, and transform, in God?s way and time, every aspect of our society.

The Transforming Church course will be published the Spring.

Submitted: 21:25:31 on 27th January 2008

Topic: BOWTHORPE - A NEW MOVE OF THE SPIRIT

Last week-end a glorious thirtieth anniversary celebration of the planting of The Christia n Church in Bowthorpe, Norwich too k place, hosted by its current leader Simon Stokes, who returned with me from a retreat on Holy Island. Here are some extracts from my talk, which followed a reading about John the Baptist and Jesus from John?s Gospel Sunday 1:29-42

John the Baptist started something good. Thirty years ago I, and a few others, started something here. And it was good. John came to realise, however, that he had to make way for a fresh move of God. How did he know who to make way for, and when? He knew when he sensed the anointing of God?s Spirit on someone, who up till then, had looked like anyone else. We?ve also had to let go, to let God move things on.

I?d like to share with you a few ways in which I have been led since then, and since I left you, that illustrate what this story of John and Jesus teaches us.

Thirty years ago I was commissioned by representatives of more churches, said the Bishop, than this country had ever known, to ?establish one family of Christians for one neighbourhood.? Today?s Gospel reveals Jesus? first steps in creating a spiritual family ? he invites Andrew and his friend into his home.

I?ve learned a few things about what is, and what is not, true family in the last few years. When I won?t let the other person be their true selves, but am more concerned that they meet my needs, and fit into my way of doing things - I have lost the essence of family. If I try to control, or fear to lovingly confront another ? I have lost the essence of family. If I am unwilling to let my spiritual children multiply, and do different things - I have lost the essence of family. Even thirty years ago and later we envisaged something of that family flexibility here: the church focus was a shop in the first village, a school in the second, a home in the third. The seeds were there ? but now perhaps they can come to flower as the Spirit moves upon you now.

Thirty years ago two of us climbed up to pray on a large haystack where the heritage garden now is and did prayer visualisation over this land of promise named Bowthorpe. Jesus did this sort of thing. He went UP mountains to seek his Divine Father?s agenda as a prelude to MOVING mountains in the valley of needy people below. Jesus built this practice into his life-style. He lived a rhythm of prayer and action. We stumblingly did do when we started twice daily prayer here, but at the time God was moving me on He led some of us in different parts of the lan to build a rhythm of prayer and work into our way of life: publicly pledged and shared with a spiritual companion. We believe God is raising up a world-wide movement of people who journey with God in this way, and those in the Community of Aidan and Hilda, which I now serve, make daily prayer spaces and yearly retreats. Many Evangelical Christians nowadays are looking for churches that live by such a way of life.

Thirty years ago we had to hammer out whether we would be a closed or an open church .Isn?t it amazing that the Son of God began his world-changing three year mission by doing nothing except be around in the right place at the right time. Two of John the Baptist?s followers noticed this, asked him where he lived. Jesus was open to them, and invited them to his home. He had open house. Our Clover Hill Centre became The Open Door. Later, at this place of worship, we decided the doors would be open for some period every day. Even more important, we decided that we would open our hearts to every person in Bowthorpe because each is a loved child of God, and God longs to draw them to Himself.

After leaving Bowthorpe I learned what it is like not to be welcomed ? but also how to reach out to each person in the way Christ would. Our Vicar, Brother Damian onceasked us once ?If you saw a visitor for just half a minute, how could you touch them as Christ would with a word, a touch, a look, a gesture?? He asked each organisation on the island ?How can we support you?? And he found a slot for people like me so that we formed a team. He keeps us informed of why he does things and what is going on so we feel included, and understand, even when we don?t agree. In such ways I have learned to keep reaching out in love rather than nursing my hurts in private. God bless you as you seek to be open, like Christ, to every one of his children in Bowthorpe.

Thirty years ago we were a fairly mono-ethnic community; there was hardly a Muslim to be seen. John the Baptist was mono ethnic: he only worked with his own people. Jesus, however, begins to recruit a team of Twelve. After his resurrection some of these reached out to other races: Peter in Italy, Andrew in Greece, Thomas, so tradition says, in India, and John in what is today?s Muslim Turkey.

It was a Muslim at the old Bell School of Languages, across th road, who challenged me about corporate daily prayer. He said he had seen no Christians in Bowthorpe ? and that was because he had seen or heard no call to public prayer. Since I left Bowthorpe the number of Muslims in England who pray regularly in the mosque has overtaken the number of Christians who pray regularly in the Church of England. Are Muslims a kind of John the Baptist movement to shame the people of this land and shake them from their godless ways? And how does God want us to work with them? Jesus enlisted John?s followers in his mission before they understood who he was.

Since I left a couple who follow the Aidan and Hilda Way of Life turned their house, in a 90% Muslim area of Birmingham, into an Aidan and Hilda House. Their Muslim neighbours called: ?We have heard that Christians are hospitable ? can you give us accommodation??. A German student lodger walked their lawn each morning praying aloud. The devout Muslim neighbours were impressed. The German prayed in the streets and Muslims accepted his invitation to pray for their healing.

After leaving I wrote a book about the future of the church in Britain. It starts with a dream. A visitor from Mars finds worshippers taking off their shoes, and prostrating themselves in prayer on carpets ? but they are Asian Christians, who worship the Triune God in a way that is natural to their culture.

I am told 20% of St. Michael?s school pupils are now Muslim. In many areas Muslims, like most people, prefer faith schools, because they know that if pupils respect the Source of all, they respect people, learning, parents, streets, shops, their own body, planet earth. Let?s rebuff the delusion that Christianity is not central to education ? without it, education can be manipulated and not truly serve the common good.

Thirty years ago Bowthorpe was advertised as a dream village ? or three linked villages which would converge at the Main Centre with its shops, health centre and church. I remember going on Radio Norfolk with Bowthorpe Project Manager Jack Haggar. Jack said: ?This was a dream village ? until people moved in?. Over thirty years you, like people everywhere, have learned that when people are out of harmony with God dreams can become nightmares. Constant struggle is needed to overcome evil with good, to combat violence with love, disintegration with wholeness.

Since I left you we?ve had an archbishop of Canterbury calling on the inherited church to invest in fresh expressions of church, and we in Aidan and Hilda have explored with churches how they can become villages of God. In November I met with the leaders of a 600 strong church in Norway until 1.0 in the morning, who were all passionate to explore how their church could network with the nearby social services, shops, police, scouts and sports groups to become a village of God. They are so excited by this vision that I return in three weeks to lead a week-end on how they can equip fifty people to be soul friends or mentors to their young people.

It is true, as Lawrence Singlehurst, former head of YWAM, which has sought to extend God?s work through cell and other expressions of church has said, that: ?they always swerve to rot? (not to the right, but to rot ) In other words, what starts as a movment ends up as a monument. We are tempted to keep in our comfort zones. Of course, we do all need our nurture base. That?s why in CA&H we ask both how we may receive nurture and how we may reach out.But I believe that your growing and renewing vision is part of a rustling of the trees, a moving of God?s Spirit in different places that helps to carry us along and beyond these comfort zone tendencies.

As I left Bowthorpe to journey to Lindisfarne, a wild goose flew overhead ? which in some parts of Britain is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit was going before me to Lindisfarne. Now I bring you this quill. It is a symbol of how you can be one family, but each having your individual calling. The main bone is Christ in Bowthorpe. Each of you is one strand. You are different, but one, as you remain connected to Christ.

Submitted: 09:56:26 on 21st January 2008

Topic: BALHAM, GATEWAY TO ...

I spent last week-end with Balham Community Church, London. This multi-racial congregation has joined Concerned Citizens, a voluntary coalition of groups who ?listen to London?. This listening process has been extensive and inclusive. Any group is welcome to voice its concerns to CC. Muslim communities, for example, felt they were being wrongly stereotyped, and asked that councillors and officials should actually meet them. A list of the ten most commonly shared concerns was drawn up and presented to London?s mayor, who responded in some measure, at least, to each concern.

When communities who are the bottom of the social pile, or who are linked with a religion that is badly mis-represented in the media are not listened to, anger builds up that often explodes in violence. Comunities that are listened to and who feel understood usually find more creative ways of addressing wrongs. This is part of what we mean by ?healing the land?

Submitted: 20:50:38 on 17th January 2008

Topic: STORMS

Holy Island suffered a wild storm. The rushing, mighty wind was so great some people could not walk on the path to church - they held to the wall and crept round. There was a power cut.

Lindisfarne's previous Vicar, David Adam, said it was a good thing God chose Jerusalem, not Holy Island, for the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost like a rushing, mighty wind. 'If it had been here we would not have noticed' he said.

How about your place?

Submitted: 08:38:20 on 11st January 2008

Topic: CELTIC EPIPHANY?

Celtic Epiphany? In one sense there is no such thing. Except insofar as we seek to re-connect with the Wisdom tradition, which weaves naturally into the Epiphany insight of the gradual revealing of the riches of Christ. Luke chapter two tells how the adolsecent Jesus grew in wisdom, and in stature of body-mind-spirit. I have an icon of Wisdom which depicts Jesus as a slender South American boy upholding the globe.

Meditation on this Jesus enables Wisdom to be revealed in us, and through us in the world.

Submitted: 08:01:19 on 11st January 2008

Topic: THE SIXTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS - DIRECTIONS FOR THE COMING YEAR ? MENTORS, MONARCHY AND MEANING FOR OUR

December 31 is New Year?s Eve in western and other lands, a long day in which to seek God?s direction for the coming year and usher it in; a day to ring out the old, the false, and ring in the new, unfolding plan of God. Tonight we shall gather in a watch night vigil in The Open Gate Chapel on Holy Island. I share with you some directions that have been put on my heart.

In our global village our various peoples are adrift, aimless, hedonistic - an orphaned generation. That is the seed-bed for disintegration and violence. Each country needs faithful carers who strive for the good of people in every walk of life. The Bible calls these people shepherds ? those who feed and protect their sheep. But most people have never seen a sheep. The prophet Isaiah glimpsed a time when national and local leaders would be like parents to their people, humbly honouring, serving, challenging and mentoring them as they waited on God (Isaiah 49:23).

In the UK the recent TV series on Monarchy by the historian David Starkey showed how monarchy served the people well when it connected with real needs. A century back the UK royal family connected with and supported a) the class that formed the leaders - the aristocracy; b) the poor, through patronage of charities c) the multi-national family of peoples joined together in the British Empire. Now, all these three groups have dissipated: anyone can rise to the top, the Government runs welfare, most Commonwealth countries are republics. But who has taken over the Monarchy?s ?shepherd? role? The State? The State does not love individuals. Businesses ? even the national services such as health and education are run as if they are businesses?. The media, politicians, the professions are in the pocket of people with money. People in hoc to Money cannot be shepherds Starkey thinks that Prince Charles, as King, could redeem charitable care and make it a nation-wide engine of care, art and enterprise without strings. He suggests that there be a publicly acknowledged role for cultivating the things of the spirit ? in the widest sense, and that monarchy could take on this role. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, affirms that Charles could be an excellent defender of all faiths and minority groups who seek the good of the community by virtue of the fact that he would be symbolic Governor (i.e. Protector, not leader) of the Church of England, whose Faith requires respect for all.

This could, indeed, be a needed and inspiring role for monarchy in UK. But every land, and every level of society, needs such people. In Harry Potter?s ?Hogworts? Dementors are those who drag people down by feeding their inner demons. We need the opposite, Mentors. Mentors are leaders who:

Seek the best for each person without fear or favouritism

Come alongside and enable those who who lack encouragement

Foster education, talent, creative art and science, and the things of the spirit.

In ancient Israel such people, whether they were kinown as shepherds, foster parents or prophets, were not appointed but they were recgonised. I believe God is calling into being such people in our lands.. The Community of Aidan and Hilda will, please God, in a most humble way, seek to play a part in fostering this.in 2008.

Submitted: 09:35:03 on 31st December 2007

Topic: THE FIFTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS - A FAMILY FOR EVERYONE

On 30 December churches focus on ?the holy family? and on the value of family life.

Who is Jesus? family? It begins, certainly, with Mary, Joseph and Jesus in that stable. The Gospels later tell of other brothers and sisters ? or cousins. The New Testament describes James as ?the brother of the Lord?. Best-sellers such as The Da Vinci Code and The Grail fantasise that the blood line of descendants of Jesus? family can be traced. These books are fiction. When their pseudo research is investigated it leads nowhere.

Yet Jesus? DNA did seep into the human gene pool. Therefore every human on earth in this sense is related to Him. There is a deeper, more important, more spiritual reality even than this. Jesus bequeathed his beloved friend John to the foster care of his mother; thereby John became, in the early and in the Celtic understanding, the foster brother of Jesus. John and Mary were foster mother and foster brother of Jesus? first spiritual family (the men and women who accompanied him in life, death and resurrection).

In churches the world over Mary and John stand each side of an altar, with hands stretched out as if to welcome us into Jesus' timeless family. This is an eternal truth. We can be part of the holy family.

Submitted: 07:52:49 on 30th December 2007

Topic: THE FOURTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS - VISITORS

We go back now to the first week of Jesus? life in that cave. What kind of people would visit a family in such a situation? The Bible only tells us who were the first visitors ( shepherds from up the hill) and the last (magi from the east). But news soon spreads. No doubt all sorts of people wanted to visit in between times. Who would they be? The curious, the equivalent to today?s paparazzi? Maybe, though they may have preferred VIP?s in expensive inns.

The Irish had a better intuition. They thought that Mary would have needed a mid-wife, someone just like their saint Brigid. Out of her heart poured compassion. She would not hesitate to visit anyone who needed help. Out of her practised hands flowed skill. Out of her mind flowed a shrewd appraisal of the situation Jesus' family was in. And in her heart she knew God was there and that He demanded the best she could give.

Brigid was called the mid-wife who, second only to Patrick, brought pagan Ireland to faith in Christ. It was she who taught that a person who welcomes someone in need really welcomes Christ in the guise of that person.

Today, as we listen to our hearts, we may be shown who we should visit. And we, too, shall be visiting Christ.

Submitted: 09:52:54 on 29th December 2007

Topic: THE THIRD DAY OF CHRISTMAS ? ASSASSINATION

December 28: Mrs Bhutto is assassinated in Pakistan. The threat of a clash of civilisations draws closer. Confusion, anger, fear, violence rage. . What can anyone do?

On this day the Christian church recalls how a ruler assassinated infants in Bethlehem, for fear that one of them might one day usurp his role. . Confusion, anger, fear, violence raged. What could anyone do? Jesus? father listened to God, slipped away in the night, and found asylum in Egypt until that ruler passed away. Jesus inaugurated a way of bringing in good through a grassroots movement in which a thousand flowers bloomed.

The Community of Aidan and Hilda members on Holy Island used A Service After an Act of Terror for their Midday Prayer (from Volume Three ? Healing the Land ? of The Celtic Prayer Book). Each lit a candle for a particular intention. One prayed that a ?goodness bank? would be built up in Pakistan through the acts of many ordinary people that would come to be larger than the ?terrorist bank?. It worked at the time of the first Christmas. It can work again now.

'Goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than hate; light is stronger than darkness, life is stronger than death.' Desmond Tutu.

Submitted: 14:16:18 on 28th December 2007

Topic: WITH THE SECOND DAY OF CHRISTMAS COMES THE GIFT OF INTIMACY WITH GOD

Most people in the world know there is a Supreme God. John, Jesus? soul friend, goes further: ?We have heard ? seen ? touched ?? he writes in his First Letter chapter one, which is read in churches today.

In the Celtic tradition John, because he is contemplative, is imagined as having ?the eye of the eagle? ? for the eagle was thought, alone of all birds, to be able to gaze into the face of the sun, and Jesus is pictured as The Eternal Sun whose rays are revealed at Christmas. Bishop Tom Wright, of Durham, UK, likens John to a hawk. A hawk sees the big picture ? so does John, e.g. ?in the beginning was the Word? ? but a hawk also notices the tiniest detail, which enables him to get his daily food. Christ?s gift of loving intimacy enables us to experience God?s love both ?wide, wide as the ocean? and in the little nuances of another person to whom we become truly present.

Submitted: 08:57:06 on 27th December 2007

Topic: THE FIRST DAY OF CHRISTMAS

December 26 ? thoughts inspired by Canon Kate Tristram?s words at the 8.0 am Holy Island:

One day after celebrating Christ?s Nativity much of the Church commemorates its first martyr, Stephen. Why? This seems a major, unsuitable switch of gear and does not sit lightly with the glut of booze and buying that characterises today?s western Christmas.

The answer is, first, that martyrdom is a reason to continue, not to cease, celebration. Second, as the early Christian teacher Tertullian wrote: ?The blood of the martyrs is the seed bed of the church?. In other words, the number of people in whom Christ is born greatly multiplies. Third, it roots us in the reality of life. There was no birth without sacrifice. There is no ushering in of God?s society on earth without struggle and opposition from the selfish forces in and around us. There will be no resurrection without death

How different this is from the shallow Christmas that fills our shops and TV screens. Joy and suffering go together. Christianity is holistic. ?The holly bears a berry, and Mary bears sweet Jesus Christ. No berry without the sharp and prickly holly.

Submitted: 09:52:14 on 26th December 2007

Topic: CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR GREETINGS

Greetings to you all, and many thanks for your wishes, gifts or prayers. This Christmas morn I walked towards Cuthbert?s sun-lit beach and recalled these lines of Kathleen Raine:

Aidan and Cuthbert saw God?s feet walking each day towards all who on world?s shores await his coming.

That we too, hand in hand, have received the unending morning.

And this St Aidan?s Prayer from Bradford Cathedral:

Let the rumble of traffic diminish and the song of the birds grow clear and may the Son of God come striding towards you.

**********

On Christmas night Holy Island?s Vicar, Brother Damian, told how an island boy went into the lambing shed of farmer Jimmy Patterson. Adults were busy elsewhere, but this little boy, having time to explore, heard something in the corner, out of sight, hidden by old machinery. It was a lamb that no one had noticed being born. ?I have found Jesus? the little boy excitedly told the adults. 'Jesus is the Lamb of God, who is among us, but over-looked and marginalised', Brother Damian said. ?But supposing we kept in mind all day and every day that Jesus is with us, in this place, wherever we are, what difference would it make??

Why don?t we do this in 2008?

Some weeks before Christmas a troubled man and his wife came to Holy Island. They sought out first this person, then the Vicar, then a Minister, and none were available. Someone said ?Why don?t you knock on that door??. It was the door of The Life Boat House, where Graham and Ruth Booth live. Graham was utterly exhausted after a punishing series of undertakings. He had just sat down to a cup of coffee when the door bell rang.? ?Oh no?, he thought, ?I have nothing to give.? The man began to talk about his dilemmas. Graham realised that he was not listening. However, someone came beside Graham and spoke loudly into his ear. Graham repeated what this person said to him. And, although this kind of thing was not in Graham?s tradition, he knew without a doubt that this person speaking to him was Aidan. He repeated to the troubled man what Aidan said. After each sentence the man clutched his stomach and said ?Oh?. Shortly afterwards the couple left. Before Christmas Graham received a letter. The man explained that every word Graham (and Aidan) had spoken had cut to his heart and he had carried them out. He had resigned from all kinds of things, and now served Jesus among the poor. He was free, more free than he had ever been in his life, and he wanted to thank Graham and Aidan.

The endless rush and consumerism of a western Christmas is absent on Holy Island. But the best Christmas gifts are not made by man.

So I wish you such Christmas gifts as I have described . May your Christmas last for ever.

You are in my thoughts. Much love Ray

Submitted: 13:42:22 on 25th December 2007

Topic: CELTIC ADVENT

The Celtic Advent begins forty days before the Nativity, that is on November 15. This corresponds with the Eastern Orthodox practice.

One way to use these forty days of reflection is to contemplate 'the ancestors of God' - people such as Ruth, the mixed race God-honourer, David the righteous king, Joseph and Mary.

In our advent retreats we will meditate on Luke's story of Elizabeth and Mary meeting, and Saint Fursey's visions of angels, demons, and the judgement of God. Why not do something similar at home?

Submitted: 12:48:13 on 21st November 2007

Topic: The Pope and Saint Oswald

I sometimes contribute to the Lindisfarne.org web site's ezine newsletter. This is what I sublmitted to the editor today.

In recent times the leaders of the three churches and two retreat houses on the island have been meeting most months to see how best to support the island and pilgrims. These are St. Aidan?s, .St. Cuthbert?s Centre, St. Mary?s, Marygate House and The Open Gate. One thing we all thought we could do together is to offer a simple healing service at 11.0 am every Wednesday (except late December and January). This rotates around the three church buildings, and the five of us take it in turns to lead. Sometimes there is quite a queue for the laying on of hands. We never, of course, give away confidences, but I can say that a number of people have come back to give thanks for healings. One person said ?I have become a dry old stick and I want you to pray that I will come to life?. Soon after that I saw her beaming with happiness.

We all supported Sister Tessa when the Papal Nuncio blessed the altar of the renovated St Aidan?s Church in October. It was good to see a number of islanders and other residents also present, and Lady Rose. Bishop Kevin of Hexham gave us some interesting information. He told us that Saint Oswald, who became a model of a good and godly King throughout Europe after stories were written about him in German speaking lands, has many churches dedicated to him in the European Union. Pope Benedict 16 grew up in one of these St Oswald?s churches, and was ordained there. So, said the Bishop, we can all feel connected through our local saints with a much wider world.

Submitted: 15:03:40 on 29th October 2007

Topic: A MODERN KNIGHTHOOD

Members of the Blue Pilgrim Knighthood are on the island. I am asked to wriite a message for their newsletter This is it.

A Message from Wise Guardian to The Blue Pilgrims Knighthood October 2007

Since I shared your retreat at Offchurch a few years * ago we have not been in touch. Life is full of this and that , and our devotion to Divine Simplicity surely means that we must focus on the Present Moment, rather than vainly strive to be in touch with everyone all the time. Nevertheless, you have always remained in my heart. Some might say that your regular recourse to Tennyson and his Arthurian myths makes you dated, or irrelevant. I disagree. I believe, with you, that our emerging society cries out for truths and values that those myths keep alive.

Since I was with you I have written a novel (as yet unpublished) and visited Canada. In the novel Saint Aidan, the Peoples? Saint, is stationed by his Iona monastery at the royal stronghold of Dunadd, where Saint Columba anointed Dal Riata?s first king. That Christian King became a monk and so delegated his leadership of battles to his son Arthur, who won many victories at twelve places between the two Roman walls, and made alliances with Christian Britons thatv reached into the south west. Legends were growing about the late Arthur while Aidan was there, and he broke through the mists of later misconception. He found out, for example, that the Round Table is a knot of rock in front of what is now Stirling Castle. The novel is called ?The Lost Gospel?, for Aidan also takes a Gospel to Syria, and meets a follower of the Prophet Mohammed.

In Canada the Chief of Staff of the main Opposition Party, on hearing of a grass roots movement of people living out noble ideals, said ?We politicians must tap into this.? My host eschewed high office in politics, and has set aside his executive business position, because he wants to enable others to live out their highest ideals, rather than be dragged down by ego-centred agendas he is deputed to deliver. He, and others, have a vision of creating a ?Celtic Christian Village? in woodland. That is, a circle of simple, wooden dwellings where people of faith may gather for a day or a week to seek the ways of Christ for their profession and their land. What could be a greater calling than to see businesses where a person?s word is their bond, and where good, not profit, is the primary goal. To rally the forces of good. To create a ?cabinet of conscience? of the noble and wise from every walk of life. To re-establish courtesy in relationships and honour in love. To appoint Christ as the Leader of the Land?

Now I am down to earth on this little island and you are down to earth where you are. And each thing we do, each greeting we make, is grist in the hands of the Christ who is God come down to earth. This, therefore, is also my Christmas wish for us all.

Wise Guardian.

I came to the retreat under my birth name, Ray Simpson. When Undaunted asked me about adopting a Kinghthood name I explained that on the very day I discoverd that my first name, Raymond, meant Wise Guardian, my Community of Aidan and Hilda asked me to be its Guardian.

Submitted: 19:46:55 on 11st October 2007

Topic: UNLOCK THE SONG IN EVERY HEART

'What is the purpose of the Community of Aidan and Hilda on this earth?' we asked members. 'To unlock the song in every human heart' was one reply.

:In the later 1970's the Venezuelan composer Jose Antonio Abreu started rehearsing with eleven slum kids in a garage. Thirty years later the youth orchestra El Sistema was the flagship of one of the most extraordinary social experiments ever. The young musicians were not just talented: many were brought up in the violent barrios of Caracas, where free lessons in classical music turned them from potential gang recruits into virtuosos. Abrou headed a nationwide programme involving 250,000 deprived children and more than two hundred local orchestras.

Sexual longing and aggression are the emotions that always and everywhere inform the music of the youth, both at its magical best and its mindless worst. What Jose Abreu realised is that this is not enough: that what easily enthrals, easily infantilises. It wasn't just the challenge of learning an instrument and the pride of belonging to a skilful group that redeemed the children of the slums. It was exposure to a range of emotions way beyond the limited horizons of adolescence. It was a chance to grow up.

Extracted from Jeremy O'Grady The Week 1 September 2007

Submitted: 17:20:44 on 24th September 2007

Topic: OLDIES REVOLUTION

Today some churches celebrate Theodore, saint of Tarsus, and the first Archbishop of Canterbury to win the heartfelt allegiance of both Celtic and Roman traditions in the seventh century English church. But I celebrate the fact that he was sixty seven when he began his twenty one years of great work.

He was third choice. The first choice died. The second, the young African monk Hadrian, thought himself too inexperienced and so suggested Theodore instead. Most people in those days died at forty. Yet Theodore travelled far, visited the length and breadth of the English kingdoms, set up dioceses, educated the clergy, established agreed rules and good order, lived the faith, and was loved by the flock.

This makes me want to explore the lives of people who began a great work for God in their old age. Moses was one such person. he began at eighty. Send me details of others: .

You may not have guessed the reason for my interest in this subject. I am sixt yseven.

Submitted: 15:52:59 on 20th September 2007

Topic: N. Ireland Celtic Spirituality Initiative

An edited version of the address by Revd Ray Simpson, Guardian of the International Community of Aidan and Hilda at the commissioning of Rev Grace Clunie as Director of Celtic Spirituality by the Archbishop of Armagh at Armagh Cathedral on

Sunday September 2 2007

I bring greetings from Lindisfarne, Cradle of Christianity to English-speakers, to you, who have been, are and can increasingly become another cradle of Christianity in our changing world. I congratulate you on this inspired move to appoint a Celtic Spirituality Director, with its hope of a retreat house and resource centre to follow.

Some may ask ?Is this British?? Most certainly, yes. As you know, Armagh?s first Bishop, Patrick was a child of the British church. For a thousand years Christendom gave pre-eminence to the British Church because it believed it was founded very early after Christ?s resurrection by Joseph of Arimathea. The bright beams of Christ?s light that melted Britain?s pagan coldness soon reached up to the north west coast where Patrick was born.

Grace, with your help, is seeking to re-kindle that heritage for today. Patrick inspires people of most diverse backgrounds. In our Celtic Christian Studies Library at Lindisfarne we have a book on Patrick published by The Orange Lodge, a book by a Roman Catholic, and a book by George Hunter 111, the USA church growth leader, entitled ?The Celtic Way of Evangelism: how the West can be won ? again.? George Hunter believes that Protestant, as well as Roman Catholic churches, have been too ?top-down, one shape-fits-all? in the second millennium, and that if we are to recruit today?s generation we need to learn lessons from the likes of Patrick about how to swim our way into the imagination of the people, and inspire spontaneous, grassroots networks of faith.

Somebody might ask, ?Why do we need anything new?? Rowan, the first Celtic Archbishop of Canterbury I can recall, calls on the inherited church to cherish its own treasures and also to invest in fresh expressions of those treasures. Each generation needs to do this. When I was a curate in the Church of England my bishop, Hugh Montefiore, discussed parishes of which I might become vicar, but he also listened to what God had put on my heart. ?Ray?, he said, ? the church needs some people who have one foot inside the establishment and one foot outside among the unchurched, I think God may be calling you to be such a person.? That is surely true also of Grace.

People ask ?What is Celtic spirituality?? Look at this Celtic Cross that I wear, the cross with a circle which is so typical of Ireland. The cross speaks of the centrality of Jesus? Word, his Death, his Resurrection. The circle speaks of creation, the whole of life, which is embraced and transformed by Christ. This is inclusive. God loves and reaches out to everyone through us.

Celtic Christianity is about faith as a fire in the heart. You, here, have a heritage of holy fire. As you know, Patrick celebrated Christ?s resurrection by lighting a fire on the hill of Slane, which the High King?s Druid prophesied would never go out. Patrick prophesied, with a British colleague, that a holy man named Colum (the Dove) would be born to the Irish church who would spread the rays of Christ the True Sun far afield.. Columba?s disciple, Aidan was perhaps born about the time that the night sky became a fiery ball the night Columba died on Iona. Could that be why Aidan, whose name means Flame, was so named? Aidan went from Ireland, via Iona, to the largest of the pagan English kingdoms and set up his mission base at Lindisfarne. Explorers of our Way of Life, inspired by Aidan, wear a badge which depicts Aidan?s torch of fire, and which has the words ?Pass on the flame?. Grace ? I give you this badge to mark this occasion. Many people who seek God come as pilgrims to our Retreat House, The Open Gate, at Lindisfarne. I hope many will come in the future to your retreat house, and that we can send them on to each other. Pass on the flame.

Celtic Christianity seeks to restore Christianity as a way of life. When Christianity began, it was a way of life more than an institution. Those who follow our Aidan and Hilda way of life, for example, seek to learn something from scripture, creation or life every day, to share our life journey with a soul friend, to live a rhythm of prayer, work and re-creation, and to cherish the earth.

It sees the church as more like a ship than a house. Lutherans in the state church of Norway, like many of we Protestants, threw out monasteries, pilgrimage and saints at the Reformation. Yet they call their churches ships (as we use the term nave, from which we get our word the navy). Now increasing numbers of them realise that a ship is meant o voyage ? with God. They want to continue to avoid the abuses that flourished at the time of the Reformation, and yet to re-connect with God in the creation ? and how better than to walk and be pilgrims. Pilgrimage is reviving among all Christians, and that is why your provision for pilgrims here could be so timely and such a blessing ? as they use your libraries, the lovely garden, the beautiful daily liturgies in the cathedral and do the Patrick trail.

Celtic Christianity seeks to weave together those God-given strands within Christianity which became separated. That is why this new work will no doubt build on your existing ecumenical partnerships;

This re-connecting with roots that have been neglected can be important for our Episcopal/Anglican Communion. I returned from USA last week, carrying the heart break of members of an Episcopal church which is being torn apart. I would like our American friends to know that this world-wide Communion is not an accident of colonialism, it is a continuation of the church founded by the apostles to Britain and Ireland. I would like to tell them that they can come to Armagh and trace their bishops back to Patrick, or they can come to Lindisfarne and trace them back to Aidan.

There is another reason why your fostering of a Christian tradition that is grass-roots and non-threatening is so important ? power corrupts, even in the church. Here I have a confession to make. I have an addiction to Sister Fidelma novels. Unfortunately the bad man in some of them is Brother Ultan of Armagh ? for he wants to enforce his power upon all the other dioceses for most un-Christ-like motives. We have to admit that not every period in our church?s history has been as inspiring as the first period. There is a need for humility, repentance, reconciliation, healing of the land. That, too, is part of the Celtic Christian way.

Hospitality is at the heart of Celtic spirituality. There is a mother?s heart in the heart of God. I hope you will all offer a smile to the stranger, a space to the seeker, a prayer and a helping hand to Grace as together you develop the centre. Finally, blessing is important, too. Patrick blessed places. His beautiful blessing of Munster has come down to us. May I end by giving you this blessing from us:

Here be the peace of those who do your sacred will. Here be the praise of God by night and day. Here be the place where strong ones serve the weakest Here be a sight of Christ?s most gentle way. Here be the strength of prophets righting greed and wrong Here be the green of land that?s tilled with love. Here be the soil of holy lives maturing Here be a people one with all the saints above. (Celtic Hymn Book: Kevin Mayhew Ltd)

Submitted: 14:28:45 on 9th September 2007

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