Contemplation leads us beyond the egoic temptation to run life on our terms, says Sarah Bachelard. And it draws us, she says, towards the possibility of sharing in the very relationship with God that Jesus knew – a relationship ultimately of communion or at-onement, God’s life living itself in ours, God’s love flowing out through ours. Dr Bachelard made the comments in her launch of a new book by Dr Kerrie Hide: Love’s Oneing: A Book About Contemplation, on 25 February, as part of a sermon which follows.
A wisdom that speaks heart to heart
Wisdom is not about cleverness, but the integration of our wounds, says Sarah Bachelard. In the following homily, which was given at the service for the opening of the Australian Parliament on 6 February 2023, Dr Bachelard* invited the parliamentarians, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, to respond to Australia’s first nations people, and their heartbreak, borne out of a long and continuous suffering, with a wisdom that comes from the heart. This year Australia is due to hold a referendum on whether a First Nations Voice to parliament should be enshrined in the constitution. The Voice proposal was part of the Uluru Statement of the Heart, a profound cry from the heart, produced in 2017 by a convention of 250 representatives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
The holiness, and mystery, of water
While recent catastrophic flooding in Australia and other parts of the world has reminded us of the ravages that water can wreak, water also has a profoundly sacred quality. Author and teacher Ann Rennie reflects on why for her water is not just holy, but also a symbol of being part of something “mysterious and magisterial”, a great flowing river of time and tradition which looks towards eternity.
Suffering as a ‘portal of grace’
Clinging to Christmas’s fragile hope: ‘Love is always born’
Bringing Christ to birth, with meditation as midwife
Desert spirituality shows the way to ‘heal’ the world, and ‘re-inhabit paradise’
COP 27, meeting in Egypt, has again reminded us that we are in the midst of a profound ecological crisis. But as Douglas E. Christie’s book The Blue Sapphire of the Mind – Notes for a Contemplative Ecology shows, we can learn much from the desert spirituality of the 3rd and 4th centuries - which developed in the deserts of Egypt, Palestine and Syria - in facing the crisis. The Christians – the ammas and abbas - who sought refuge in the desert at this time hoped to become “healers” of the world, and to “re-inhabit paradise”, by nurturing and living out of simple awareness and compassion. Janet Galos and Judith Keller reflect on a thought-provoking and wide-ranging book, and how the wisdom of the desert tradition can be applied today.
Francis of Assisi – Saint as ‘holy fool’
Like Jesus, in becoming a ‘holy fool’, St Francis subverts the illusions we live by. Dr Frances MacKay* reflects on how a young man rejected wealth and status by stripping naked, going on to live joyfully in simplicity and poverty, care for the outcast, and experience nature as a place of divine encounter. She explores how the 'holy fool' archetype might help us understand not only St Francis’ calling but also our own.
Julian’s message to the world – Love is the meaning
The great English mystic Julian of Norwich (1342-1418) lived at a time of pandemic and war, a time of enormous suffering and anxiety similar to our own, yet she received a profound vision of God in which she saw that “Love was his meaning”, “all shall be well”, and “Peace and love are always in us, living and working”. The Rev’d Philip Carter* pays tribute to a remarkable woman and her book Revelations of Divine Love, which was the first to be written in English by a woman.
Christ-Consciousness and the new physics
The new physics has opened the door to a new vision of reality in which the physical, psychological and spiritual are interdependent and interrelated. This expanded consciousness also allows for the possibility that the Christ-Consciousness, a powerful cosmic force of love and wisdom, is drawing humanity into the hidden mystery of the Absolute, the Godhead, a communion of love which Jesus embodied. Meditation and mindfulness teacher Lydia Dyhin* reflects.
From silkworm to butterfly
Roland Ashby, Contributing Editor of Living Water, reflects on St Teresa of Avila’s understanding of prayer, in which God’s love is always available to us in abundance. She says that growing union with this love, if we let it, can transform the soul from a silkworm into a butterfly, and transport us into a life of true freedom.
Unblocking the heart
Contributing Editor of Living Water, Roland Ashby, reflects on his own recent experience of confronting his mortality, and how this relates to what Spanish mystic St John of the Cross termed the “dark night of the soul”. Through this “dark night” God is encountered as passionate, intimate lover who seeks to liberate us to live in true freedom, in the fullness of love.
Winter joys and the promise of new beginnings
Winter is a time of special consolations, including space for more interiority, reflects author and teacher Ann Rennie. Living in Melbourne, Australia, which is now in its final weeks of winter, she writes that winter is a time for the slow joys of poetry, letting go of the detritus of our lives, and looking forward to new beginnings.
Responding to the silent cry of our hearts: ‘Love me!’
14th century Sufi poet Hafiz invites us to be the love for others that we wish they would be for us. Author and founder of Benedictus Contemplative Church, Dr Sarah Bachelard, reflects on Hafiz’s poem With That Moon Language*, and also that if we are truly to live by Christ’s injunction to love others as we love ourselves, then we must let ourselves be loved by God, and receive the life God longs to bestow on us.
Meister Eckhart’s deep wisdom for our times
In October, the Australian Government, for the first time, will deliver a ‘well-being budget’. In so doing, Australia will join other countries including Bhutan, Iceland, Finland and New Zealand in recognising that economics alone is not an adequate measure of a nation’s well-being. German mystic Meister Eckhart (c.1260-1328) would approve. In the last posting on Living Water, the Rev’d John Stewart summarised Eckhart’s teachings*. Here he draws on Matthew Fox’s book Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior for our Times to distil some of Eckhart’s wisdom in the fields of ecumenism, economics, ecology and education.
Go out of yourself and let God be God in you
The 13th-14th Century German mystic Meister Eckhart has been described as ‘the man from whom God hid nothing.’ The Rev’d John Stewart, Co-Director of the Living Well Centre for Christian Spirituality* in Melbourne, Australia, explores how Eckhart’s fourfold path of spirituality can lead to God continually being reborn in us so that we can carry on God’s work of re-creation.
Only ‘inner work’ can save conflict-riven humanity
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the Children of God,” Jesus said. But how can we be makers of authentic peace in a world so riven by conflict and violence? Author, priest and long-time meditator, Dr Sarah Bachelard*, considers one of the most urgent questions of our time in the light of a new book, Practicing[1] Peace: Theology, Contemplation, and Action, by Michael Wood.
Doubt, death and the Dark Night - a personal journey
Since childhood, retired Anglican priest Ron Browning OAM has lived with hidden doubts about an afterlife. But two years ago these doubts were brought into sharp focus when he was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. His journey into the Dark Night of the Soul has been a journey of naked trust which has brought pain and loss, but also profound insight into how Christ’s mystical love can be a bridge into the next life.
The time for uncommon courage is now, says Joan Chittister
The times are such that they demand that each of us find our inner prophet, says one of the great prophets of our age, Benedictine nun Joan Chittister. In her recent book, The Time is Now – A Call to Uncommon Courage, she quotes the late Jesuit priest and prophet Daniel Berrigan, who spoke out against the Vietnam War: “The prophet is one who speaks the truth to a culture of lies.”
Election campaign underlines the urgent need for contemplative wisdom
As Australia heads towards a federal election on 21 May, I am daily reminded of western culture’s urgent need for a deep wisdom arising out of a contemplative consciousness. During this election campaign, as in previous campaigns, the political discourse has largely been reduced to slogans and sound bites, shaped by advertising/PR agencies and focus groups, and there has been very little discussion of some of the underlying challenges facing Australians, and indeed humanity globally.