For Anglican priest Dr Colleen O’Reilly, who is chaplain to Trinity College at the University of Melbourne, Australia, reading Henri Nouwen’s ‘Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life’, first published in 1975, was a turning point, leading her to a “reaching inwards of the kind that transforms”, and into a relationship with God “which becomes the great adventure... that defies our predictions and calculations”. Nouwen, (1932-1996), a Dutch catholic priest and theologian with a particular interest in psychology, was one of the greatest spiritual writers of the 20th century.
My mystical path to love, joy and peace
Roslyn Harper has had a deep spiritual inner longing from the age of five, but it is only recently that she has found a contemplative church service that provides “balm for her thirsty soul”. Here Roslyn, who lives in Melbourne, Australia, reflects on her life’s spiritual journey, including a life-changing mystical experience at the age of 33, and how, when she was a teenager, she saw the words LOVE, JOY, PEACE on a sticker, her heart yearned to know what they meant. And even though as an adult outwardly she had the perfect life, inwardly she knew something was missing.
Compassionate consciousness the driving force behind the universe
Quantum physics suggests we are all part of one great universal consciousness, which brings about reality, and in which all matter originates and is sustained. The Rev’d Don McGregor, author, retired Anglican Priest and former science teacher, argues that this new scientific understanding supports the Christian view of God as the compassionate consciousness from which everything emanates and which holds everything in being, and that we can awaken to this through meditation. This is the sequel to his earlier Living Water article ‘A new era dawns as mystical and scientific insights converge’.
Ignorance abounds in a world in crisis, but an ‘ocean of love’ awaits
The world is “in a place of tremendous crisis... [and of] incredible ignorance, compared to the truth that the mystical life has been trying to share over the centuries,” believed one of the greatest spiritual teachers of our time, Trappist monk Fr Thomas Keating OCSO. However, he also believed it is a time of tremendous opportunity, because “we are on the edge of another axial period,” moving to a higher, reflective consciousness “that leads us ultimately into divine consciousness”, and becoming one with an “ocean of love”. In this interview, one of the last he gave before his death in October 2018, he talks to author, psychotherapist and teacher of meditation, Loch Kelly. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAy2X-8vgrM
Meditation can help us save the planet
World-renowned naturalist Sir David Attenborough has recently warned that “we are facing a man-made [environmental] disaster of global scale”. However, if we are to effectively confront the causes of the crisis, then a new consciousness needs to emerge which meditation provides, argues eco-theologian and long-time meditator Dr Deborah Guess*.
Freefalling in the love of God
COVID-19 has imposed solitude on many, but Anglican solitary Maggie Ross has chosen this as a way of life. From the age of five, she knew she was destined to live a life “preoccupied with God”. Now 79 and living in Oxford under vows to former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, she spoke to Roland Ashby before the pandemic about her two profound and magisterial books on silence,* and what she calls “deep mind” and the “beholding” of God.
A new church grounded in meditation and committed to radical transformation
Anglican priest, theologian and author Dr Sarah Bachelard*, who studied under Rowan Williams at Oxford University, leads a new ecumenical church community — Benedictus Contemplative Church — which seeks to be a blessing to the world around it. A leading member of the World Community for Christian Meditation (WCCM) and keynote speaker at the WCCM’s annual John Main Seminar in Vancouver in August 2019, she reflects on what it means to be a church committed to transformation through the practice of silent meditation.
A new era dawns as mystical and scientific insights converge
Humanity is at the beginning of a great awakening as new science catches up with the ancient wisdom of the mystics: that we are all part of the One Consciousness which holds everything in being, permeates everything and is the Oneness ‘in which we live and move and have our being’. So argues the Rev’d Don MacGregor, retired Anglican Priest, former science teacher, and author of ‘Blue Sky God: the Evolution of Science and Christianity.’
The Blessing of the Black Walnut Tree
“The waters of life run deep at Bonnevaux” says Episcopal priest and retired school chaplain The Rev’d Dr Mary Katherine Allman. Here she reflects on how life in a community which seeks to live contemplatively, close to nature and under the guidance of the Rule of St Benedict, brings inner healing and the blessings of kindness, patience and slowness to judge. Bonnevaux, the international retreat centre of the World Community for Christian Meditation, near Poitiers in France, has a residential community which Dr Allman joined in January 2019.
Treating the virus of unforgiveness
We all carry woundedness within us.
This thought has come into sharper focus for me over these last few months, spending, as we all have, much time in solitude and isolation imposed by COVID-19. Spiritual writer Eckhart Tolle calls our woundedness, our accumulated hurts, the “pain body”, which can have a crippling effect on our lives, and adversely affect those with whom we live, unless we can learn to let go and forgive.
The grace of being present, even in times of suffering
Joy and beauty at the heart of life
The universe exists for the sake of joy. So believed Thomas Aquinas, Dominican polymath and one of the Church’s greatest theologians, according to US author and scholar The Reverend Dr Matthew Fox. In this zoom video, Dr Fox, a former Dominican and now Anglican priest who has spent a lifetime studying Aquinas and translating his works, speaks to Roland Ashby about his latest book.
In the midst of despair, we can find hope at the fount of love
For several months now I have been waking up in the morning feeling slightly depressed. The solitude imposed by COVID-19 has created more opportunities for negative thoughts to arise, and what seemed to be safely buried in the past - mistakes and failures and humiliations, as well as hurts (both given and received) – suddenly reappear as if they happened yesterday - with all the freshness and immediacy, and therefore pain, that that entails.
Being in the now is very heaven
As I struggle to come to terms with Melbourne’s second lockdown, I am starting to look at our family dog Bessie with new, and envious, eyes. Her simple joy in life has not wavered throughout the pandemic. Each morning she greets me with gusto as she gleefully anticipates her first walk of the day. Each day, it seems, offers a new banquet of olfactory delights. And surely that’s a smile I discern as she leaps through long grass, or frolics in fresh puddles.
Only love can drive out hate
One of the most shocking aspects of the brutal treatment by police towards George Floyd, which caused his death, was that it was so brazen, and so calmly and routinely carried out. This suggests a fundamental and intrinsic problem of the police seeing him as less than human. Hence the resurgence, and necessity, of the Black Lives Matter campaign.
Boris Johnson’s spiritual awakening?
Statements by British PM Boris Johnson about his recent brush with death suggest he may have undergone something of a spiritual awakening. This would not surprise St Benedict, sometimes described as the father of Western monasticism, who in the sixth century advised his monks to “Always keep death before you”.
A time of lament, and a time of awakening
Coronavirus, Easter and the rebirth of compassion
The coronavirus pandemic has led to much suffering, hardship and anxiety, but it has also been a time of reawakening and rebirth. This is what Easter is all about. Lent, traditionally a time of fasting which prepares Christians for the new life and joy of Easter Sunday, offers rich insights into the solitude and privations imposed on us by the virus.