News Flash

Maintained by Helen Maguire & the Holy Island Team

Volunteers needed at the Open Gate

Members of the Community are invited to volunteer to help at the Open Gate during this year’s retreats. We have a list of booked retreats which you will see below including dates, in which we would love to have some help. In particular the Enneagram Retreat and the Holy Week Retreat. Volunteers will have all their meals and accommodation free, and in return we ask that they assist practically with cooking, cleaning and general assistance with guests. This is a great way to join a retreat you might be interested in, whilst giving some practical help to the team here on Holy Island.

We would also love to here from you if you would like to volunteer at any other time during the year, as there is always much to do!

If you would like to volunteer please contact the Open Gate on opengate@aidanandhilda.org.uk or phone 01289 389222

Many thanks

The Holy Island Team

February 22nd-26th: Reading Week
March 15th-19th: Lent Retreat– Ego & the True Self
March 22nd-26th: Enneagram
March 29th-April 4th: Holy Week Retreat
April 19th-23rd: leader’s Retreat
May 17th-21st: Missional Leadership
May 31st-June 5th: Saints & Seabirds Retreat
July 19th-24th: God in Nature Holiday Retreat
August 17th-21st: Journally Retreat
August 26th-September 1st: St Aidan’s Week
September 13th-17th: Explorer’s Retreat
October 1st-3rd: Overcoming Depression
October 11th-14th: Finding Our Way
October 25th-30th: Autumn Wilderness Retreat
November 8th-12th: Ways of Praying
November 22nd-26th: Advent Inspirations
November 29th-December 3rd: Advent Retreat

A New Year Message to the Community of Aidan & Hilda and the Wider World

2010

The Year of God’s Crackpots

In 2009 Susan Boyle, unknown under-achiever, became Susan Boyle, world-wide icon thanks to Simon Cowell’s Britain’s Got Talent and U-Tube. In USA she chimed in with the rags to riches American dream. Throughout the world, at a time of down-turn and dashed hopes, she gave hope that those who had been passed over might still rise up. Susan Boyle means that there is no age limit on fulfilling your dream. In her we see the blooming of a woman who had never been a high achiever and never been asked to marry. People fired by the vision of Hilda of Whitby, who unlocked the song in Caedmon, the first, ill-educated English pop singer, seek to unlock the song in every human life. Let that be our task in 2010.

In 2009 Richard Dawkins spread his ill-conceived ‘Science Proves Atheism’ campaign across the world. However, the latest scientific findings made his claims much more difficult to substantiate. The Genome Project revealed, to the surprise of many, that human genes are overwhelmingly similar to those of apes, and 30% the same as those of a banana. So random selection producing gene variations does not explain why humans enjoy beauty, create art, discern and choose between right and wrong. mechanistic theory cannot account for these, or for free will or for Being. A materialistic theory of evolution might account for acts of enlightened self-interest, but cannot account for acts of unconditional, sacrificial love. At our Annual Gathering I met James Le Fanu, a Daily Telegraph writer. Over Christmas my sister Sally and I devoured his book Why Us?, which details how many new scientific advances point beyond the mechanistic laws to a parallel law of Mind which is not the product of material creation, but with which our brains and bodies may connect. Our task in 2010 is to develop a communal mind that recognizes Being, it is to out-think and out-love the materialists.

In 2009 the continuing financial crisis led many to face up to the fact that our civilization is skin deep and could come crashing down. The planetary threats that the Copenhagen summit was called to address, and its inadequate response, lead some to despair and others to participate in a grass-roots revolution of simple life-style, and the building up of more sustainable local communities. In 2010 our Way of Life, which commits us to simplicity and earth-care, must move from being the option of a few to the choice of many.

In 2009 a prophet said to me ‘Attend to the DNA of The Community of Aidan and Hilda’. The publication of Waymarks for the Journey does just that according to one of its first readers, and is a means by which the above aim may be achieved. Its year’s daily readings ends with this prayer, which perhaps we can make our own as we journey into 2010:

Great Spirit,

Encouraged by your cloud of witnesses,

Help us to take your word deep into our souls

Live it out, bravely, freely, creatively:

To be cheerful when we want to complain

To be patient when we want to flare up

To push on when we want to stand still

To keep silent when we want to prattle

And to love when we want to harden our hearts.

In 2009 I and others experienced the limitations which make up the fragments of our lives. ‘The hope I have’, said one, referring to the woman who anointed Jesus by breaking the vase in which was contained the oil, ‘is the broken vase from which the oil of anointing comes’. This reminds me of the words of the apostle Paul that divine treasure comes through our faulty human frames, or as David Adam expressed it in a sermon: ‘God uses crack-pots’. Increasing numbers of people now see that the ego-centred world is falling apart and has no future, and that Jesus’ words ‘the meek shall inherit the earth’ may be literally true. So may 2010 be ‘The Year of the Crackpots’.

Ray Simpson White House Holy Island

www.aidanandhilda.org

Online Shop

Now that Naomi has moved onto Lindisfarne we can now go ahead with the development of the online shop. With hard work and good fortune, it should open later in 2010.

You can, of course, pay your subscriptions online by going to the members pages.

Farne Retreat House Opens in Canada

Barbara and Bob Hudsmith came to an Open Gate Retreat last year. and have created their own farm retreat house for those needing silence and spiritual direction. They have called it ’Farne’. See their website at www.bmts.com/~farne. You are welcome to stay with them. For more information you can contact Barabra at barbhuds@bmts.com or by writing to:

Barbara Hudsmith

R.R. #3 Elmwood

Ontario

NOG 1S0 519-369-1727

Canada