Long-time meditator and retired chaplain Adele Mapperson recently received a profound and life-changing insight into the sacredness of the human person, and how God is alive in the very fibre of our being. Adele is also coordinator of the Victorian Chapter of the World Community for Christian Meditation (WCCM) in Australia. This is a slightly edited version of a talk she gave on 17 June 2023.
Director of the WCCM, Laurence Freeman, writing to the WCCM community in the February newsletter, opens with the words: “Metanoia: let your minds be remade.”
“Ordinarily”, he continues, “when we speak of changing our mind, we think of altering a decision we have made or an opinion we hold. Metanoia is different. Letting our minds be remade means more than changing mental positions or opinions; it is seeing the world bathed in the sunlight of God. Sometimes blindingly as St Paul did in his conversion experience.”
I recently watched an online talk by Giovanni Felicione, a master practitioner of yoga, speaking on the theme of metanoia. Speaking form Bonnevaux, the WCCM’s international retreat centre in France, he entitled his talk Embodiment - meeting God face to face in the body.*
As part of his presentation he described the development of the human body, starting from before our birth, learning to sit up, gradually in habiting the space around us and eventually becoming upright.
Towards the end of this part of his talk, I was unexpectedly moved by a deep sense within me of the marvelous and creative beauty of the human person; it was as though this became for me so much more important and true than the purely physical description I was hearing.
It was quite a deep and physical response in the upper part of my body. I can distinctly remember knowing that my head had nothing to do with it. It felt warm and very present.
(As I reflect on this, it makes me wonder about the sense of warming/burning in the hearts the disciples as they walked along the road to Emmaus with the risen Jesus.)
As I prepared to meditate the following morning, and pondered on the talk, suddenly and completely out of nowhere it seemed, I had a deep sense of the holiness and sacredness of the human person, the extraordinary life and creativity of God centred in the very fibre of our being. It wasn’t a learned response to all that I had been taught over the years, but a profound and deep knowing of the truth of this.
John Main, writing in Word made Flesh, says: “The mind cannot comprehend this. Only the heart can know it - because it is the knowledge that arises from the heart.”
As I sat with this, my question became: “So if God is fully present to us in our being from the very beginning, what is the purpose of the incarnation? (Also the question asked by the early church fathers.)
And the answer came: “It is in the Christ that we are fully reconciled to God”. What suddenly shone out for me was the wonder of God’s loving self-emptying in the human person of Jesus, and that in his resurrection we are also joined in him, the One who was there at our beginning, the One in whom we are made, the substance of our being, the One in whose resurrected life we are raised to live eternally with God.”
It really was like seeing the world bathed in the sunlight of God.
Laurence Freeman, again writing in WCCM’s February newsletter, says:
“Experiences of this kind are rare, authentic expressions of the giftedness of life, (as John Main described it.) They are worth waiting for. Our daily spiritual practice prepares us for them. When they appear, they are like a bonus boost on the path of metanoia, which we are following every day.”
And that is exactly what it seemed like … the authentic expression of the giftedness of life, of God’s gift, of life, love and blessing.
It felt to me like meeting God face to face in my body, knowing without doubt the truth and reality of the living God, knowing his eternal presence in Christ living within me. It gave me a sense of being rooted and grounded in something far beyond myself, which was also present to me. I knew I was known and loved within it, and that it was real. It gave me a sense of bedrock out of which I can live always.
Laurence Freeman further writes in the newsletter:
“Somehow, we understand the path of metanoia, uniting inner life and external events, is the healing, the wholeing and the divinising of the human condition. Because it makes this obvious, meditation is commitment to metanoia.
In this moment of knowing, I felt healed and whole.
Laurence says we notice such moments of knowing and transformation “living within us, slowly transforming us.”
Over the past weeks I have noticed something of this in my life. I find myself being more patient … and in particular with my partner who is struggling with early stage Alzheimer’s. This has called a lot out of her and also myself, a lot of grief for both of us, often misunderstanding and frustration for both of us, and often I have found myself not being as patient as I would like to be. I have to say I am noticing a change in myself, I am more able not to try and fix things, to leave her be, as she constantly asks me to do, and there is a growing peace between us.
I am noticing myself being more open with people I see each day in shops and cafes, entering discussions with them in ways I have often not done in the past, often about themselves and things that are important to them, and as we do so, a growing sense emerges of the value of the other. This has been a great blessing to me and perhaps to them.
I am noticing a wonderful difference in the way I read and respond to the words of John Main and also the scripture as I read them each morning. They are coming alive in me, offering me such insights in meaning, illuminating my path, walking with me, revealing the God present within them.
And I find myself reflecting on John Main’s teaching that the path of meditation is about gradually become fully alive in Christ, finding ourselves within the mystery of the risen Christ, knowing more and more what it means not to live an isolated life, but rather into the infinity of God.
St Paul calls these blessings, the fruits of the Spirit.
We change the world by being changed. That is the ultimate goal of meditation.
John Main, writing in the Way of Unknowing, says:
Meditation is experientially concerned with two important things; the presence of God, and becoming attentive to that presence. We become attentive to the presence of God, who described him/herself as I am who I am, who gave us the name of the Messiah, calls himself God with us, who reveals himself to those who walk with him, who live in confidence in his sight. Meditation is a pilgrimage in which we journey to our own heart, there to find Jesus – the revealer and embodier of God. Finding his Spirit is the first stage of our pilgrimage. Then we continue our pilgrimage with Jesus to the Father.
What an incredible gift, what an incredible journey! We are indeed truly blessed.
*This talk by Giovanni Felicioni, and other talks on metanoia from Bonnevaux, can be seen here:
https://wccm.org/events/metanoia/
For more information about the WCCM, see: