{"nodes":[{"node":{"title":"Easter Sunday","created":"1333845360","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

The angel said to the women he was not there, where they were looking for him, because he was risen. After death we know him no longer after the manner of the flesh \u2013 which includes the manner of the imagination. Like meditation, he is not what we think. Like the kingdom , not here, not there.<\/p>

Then the angel told them that he was going before them to Galilee where they would see him. \u201cNow I have told you\u201d, he concludes matter-of-factly. There is no explanation, simply the proclamation. Job done. How could this be made readily understood or explained satisfactorily?<\/p>","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

The angel said to the women he was not there, where they were looking for him, because he was risen. After death we know him no longer after the manner of the flesh \u2013 which includes the manner of the imagination. Like meditation, he is not what we think. Like the kingdom , not here, not there.<\/p>

Then the angel told them that he was going before them to Galilee where they would see him. \u201cNow I have told you\u201d, he concludes matter-of-factly. There is no explanation, simply the proclamation. Job done. How could this be made readily understood or explained satisfactorily?<\/p>

 The job is to communicate it and hope. If it\u2019s not true, after having seen the possibility and heard the proclamation, everything is drained of colour and energy.<\/p>

The stakes of the human condition have suddenly increased dramatically.<\/p>

Strangely, we can\u2019t say exactly what it is the early Christians were communicating and that has formed a continuous chain of transmission since. It was an experience that could not be held in thought or imagination or in the senses, of his being present, in a way that touched and changed them indubitably, not as a memory or an archetype but as a personal presence.<\/p>

How do we explain any of the most important occurrences in our life?<\/p>

The women turn back, to do all they could do in the circumstances \u2013 speak about it to others. Then there he is. Coming towards them to meet them. Didn\u2019t the angel say he would see them in Galilee? They aren\u2019t in Galilee. Why he is here when they were supposed to see him there? Is he there too?<\/p>

In seeing him they begin to see that they were in his mind despite (or because) of all he had been through. Death, the great oblivion, had not made him forget them. They must be worth more than they thought. He must be more than they imagined.
Do not be afraid, he tells them. It is fear that shrivels the mind and makes us incapable of the expansion needed to see him and to realise that we can live now in a quite different and fearless way. (Even the angel had told them not to be afraid). Perhaps we are more afraid than we acknowledge even to ourselves.<\/p>

He too gives no explanation just the experience in itself, of hmself. It leads to an action, a new priority in life, that defines the life of his friends and disciples henceforth \u2013 to share this life-changing news with others.<\/p>

Alleuia, he is risen indeed. Job done. A new creation. Where do we go from here?<\/p><\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Holy Saturday","created":"1333758000","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

An early Christian writer whose name is lost to us wrote these words in a homily to describe the meaning of this silent day of transition:<\/p>

Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.<\/em><\/p>

After the drama of trauma there is the long aftermath of ordinariness.<\/p>","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

An early Christian writer whose name is lost to us wrote these words in a homily to describe the meaning of this silent day of transition:<\/p>

Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.<\/em><\/p>

After the drama of trauma there is the long aftermath of ordinariness.<\/p>

 It is like a powerful wave of the sea that hit the land with great force and is now being sucked back into the ocean. You even wonder if the great crash ever happened at all, so quiet and empty and mundane everything seems.<\/p>

As we accept the uneventfulness and the untimed waiting, however, something emerges. It transpires through the immeasurable emptiness that is all that is left. A sense grows of union with what we will not ever again see in the same way. A mutual inwelling and presence to one another in a greater presence that contains everything.  Even in the residual grief of the loss a new kind of peace also shows in an awareness that this new union is as definitive and permanent as the very loss that lies behind it.<\/p>

So even when nothing is happening \u2013 as we learn in the emptiness of meditation where we experience death and resurrection daily \u2013 new life has begun to emerge. In the mind of Christ we see that there are two creations, both beautiful and terrible. The first is marked by mortality, the horizon beyond which we can see nothing. The new creation is known by those who awaken to their being one person with the one person who comes back to us over that horizon.<\/p><\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Good Friday","created":"1333673520","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

What\u2019s \u2018good\u2019 about a day when an innocent and good man is convicted of a trumped up charge, betrayed and deserted by his friends, rejected by the people he spoke the truth to, physically and mentally tortured, crucified and killed?<\/p>

The first vein of goodness is in his way of acceptance. When bad things happen we can try to deny them or they can turn us into bitter and hateful people seeking revenge.<\/p>","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

What\u2019s \u2018good\u2019 about a day when an innocent and good man is convicted of a trumped up charge, betrayed and deserted by his friends, rejected by the people he spoke the truth to, physically and mentally tortured, crucified and killed?<\/p>

The first vein of goodness is in his way of acceptance. When bad things happen we can try to deny them or they can turn us into bitter and hateful people seeking revenge.<\/p>

 Clearly in his case this did not happen. Out of what deep well of goodness and love in himself did he draw on to meet his oppressors with forgiveness and to embrace what happened with an equanimity of soul that turned the evil done to him into good for others?<\/p>

\u2018Only God is good,\u2019 he once said to the rich young man seeking eternal life but still entrapped by his possessions.<\/p>

The other vein of goodness in today\u2019s events is the transformative effect they have on others. It began at the historical moment they occurred and it continues, indeed continues to accumulate in its effect. Through today a new consciousness entered the human realm which has begun to undermine the very roots of the darkness in the human soul which allows us to do such inhumane things to each other by forgetting who we are and forgetting that the well of divine being is sourced in each us.<\/p>

With most terrible things we breathe a sigh of relief when they have passed. In this case we see that it has much more to do to lift humanity out of the cycle of violence into which we fell and which is our original sin. A violence that is born of Cain\u2019s anguished and illusory feeling that we are not loved.<\/p>


On the Bere Island mountain a cross stands, still, steady, shining at night, silently faithful. Not far away from it someone has illegally put up a wind turbine. The windmill spins like the ego in the wind making short-term profit at the cost of a greater integrity.
The cross has greater energy than the ego and to contemplate it in our lives, to embrace its transformative effect, is what makes this Friday good. <\/p><\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Holy Thursday","created":"1333585260","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

Do this in remembrance of me.<\/em><\/p>

We feel offended or diminished if we meet someone we know and they don\u2019t remember who we are. To have significant days or events in our lives remembered by those whose affection or opinion we value means a lot to the sense of our own worth.<\/p>

Yet remembering in a positive way \u2013 affirming we are still there and that the important things in life have not finally sunk out of remembrance under the waves of time \u2013 requires effort.<\/p>","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

Do this in remembrance of me.<\/em><\/p>

We feel offended or diminished if we meet someone we know and they don\u2019t remember who we are. To have significant days or events in our lives remembered by those whose affection or opinion we value means a lot to the sense of our own worth.<\/p>

Yet remembering in a positive way \u2013 affirming we are still there and that the important things in life have not finally sunk out of remembrance under the waves of time \u2013 requires effort.<\/p>

 \u2018Thank you for remembering\u2019, we say because the natural lethargy of egoism makes it easier to forget. Negative remembering \u2013 hanging on to past hurts and dead actions \u2013 is easier although sometimes we can feel a twinge of regret that even a negative memory is fading from our minds.<\/p>The Greek word that we translate as \u2018remembrance\u2019 and use to speak of the \u2018memorial of the Eucharist\u2019 is not just about remembering what we might (and one day probably will) forget as our brain cells run out. It means making present an event that had a historical beginning but whose life and influence has not yet expired.

Because we forget so much so quickly \u2013 what happened two days ago in a twenty-four hour period? \u2013 the things that ride the waves of time and do not disappear are the significant and life-enhancing forces. It requires effort and time to recall them but then we are called to life by their becoming present.<\/p>The gift of self never dies. It is ever present and can be called to mind at any time in order to renew and reassure us that life, for all its fatalities, is not just about survival. It is about flourishing, fullness.

This is what the Eucharist is. Despite the fact that it has been ringed round by rules and regulations and the politics of religion, its life-enhancing energies never cease to amaze. It is a channel of the endless generosity of one who cannot forget us.<\/p><\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Wednesday Holy Week","created":"1333499220","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

Toothache is bad enough. While it lasts, extreme physical pain blocks out the other stimuli of the world, good and bad. It becomes the centre of our field of perception. We can be annoyed that our minds are so absorbed by something so accidental; and also that it makes us so self-centred. We may say to ourselves that it won\u2019t last forever but while we are going through it is like a demanding animal that expects all our attention.","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

Toothache is bad enough. While it lasts, extreme physical pain blocks out the other stimuli of the world, good and bad. It becomes the centre of our field of perception. We can be annoyed that our minds are so absorbed by something so accidental; and also that it makes us so self-centred. We may say to ourselves that it won\u2019t last forever but while we are going through it is like a demanding animal that expects all our attention.

It is no only toothache of course. Great grief at the loss of someone we love weighs on our cardiac region and pierces the solar plexus exactly as a physical pain. The body is a sacrament and a medium of expression of our awareness at all levels of consciousness.<\/p>While they were eating he said \u2018I tell you solemnly, one of you is about to betray me\u2019<\/em>

The experience of betrayal as many marriages and friendships testify is also terrible suffering.<\/p>Where does Jesus get this knowledge that he will be betrayed? We don\u2019t know. But he holds it with reserve. He does not demonise Judas as some of the gospel writers seem to do. The traitor\u2019s motives remain hidden and it is hard to forgive without insight into why someone in whom we had placed our trust and love throws it away.

If we do have that insight, as Jesus must have had, we are silent rather than condemnatory. And forgiveness rather than recrimination enters the damaged system of our relationships.<\/p><\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Tuesday of Holy Week","created":"1333411260","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

\u2018Now has the Son of Man been glorified.\u2019 This is his response to the moment when his fate is sealed and one of his close disciples, \u2018filled with Satan\u2019, leaves the common table to betray him.<\/div>

The act of personal treachery hangs strangely loose in the story without explanation. No one is convinced he did it just for money. Inexplicably it seems necessary because it brings the main player to his supreme moment.<\/div>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

\u2018Now has the Son of Man been glorified.\u2019 This is his response to the moment when his fate is sealed and one of his close disciples, \u2018filled with Satan\u2019, leaves the common table to betray him.<\/div>

The act of personal treachery hangs strangely loose in the story without explanation. No one is convinced he did it just for money. Inexplicably it seems necessary because it brings the main player to his supreme moment.<\/div>

<\/p>


We speak of glory in battle, glorious weather and the glory of God. But what is this kind of glory that happens at a moment of defeat and disappointment. When someone in whom we have placed our trust or hope lets us down or when a plan we have been working on collapses it seems an odd time to speak of glory.<\/div>

When you open a fresh scallop it firmly resists you. It clams its shell tight against the probing knife you are trying to slip between the two hinged halves of its protecting world. The art of this cruel act, without which there would be no scallop farmers, is to find the muscle that holds it closed and slice through it. Then the shell springs open, the luscious looking food is there and the food chain continues.<\/div>

We prefer not to see this done or to hear of it but it is part of the world we inhabit. The ending of a life is the feeding of another in the chain of being. One should acknowledge the individual sacrifice and feel the loss of life as some native Americans are said to thank a tree before they cut it down.<\/div>

If the end of a life is accepted in this humble way it is as if something opens. The dark side of it is the shadow cast by the intense light that has been released.<\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Monday of Holy Week","created":"1333326300","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

We began the Holy Week retreat on Bere Island yesterday. Between the liturgies, the meditation times, the times of reflection and sharing on the elusive and unforgettable symbols of the Passion, we will try with all of you who have been reading these reflections to prepare for the three great days.<\/div>

Each of these spiritual practices \u2013 meditation, liturgy, lectio \u2013 reinforces the others. Like a dance they swirl together without competing or clashing, like the divine communion itself.<\/div>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

We began the Holy Week retreat on Bere Island yesterday. Between the liturgies, the meditation times, the times of reflection and sharing on the elusive and unforgettable symbols of the Passion, we will try with all of you who have been reading these reflections to prepare for the three great days.<\/div>

Each of these spiritual practices \u2013 meditation, liturgy, lectio \u2013 reinforces the others. Like a dance they swirl together without competing or clashing, like the divine communion itself.<\/div>

<\/p>


The deeper we go with their help the more we realise our wholeness. We become less divided and conflicted within ourselves and so between ourselves and others. The journey deeper is a healing of everything in our lives that has pained or damaged us, holding us back from the fullness of being we are designed for.<\/div>

But the focus is Jesus not ourselves. If we focus on ourselves the imminent danger is that we get stuck in self-centredness (often without knowing it). But to be focused on him is to elude the trap of egotism and fall into the great freedom of the true self where we are one with him; and then we fall into the even greater freedom of the divine communion in which all that is human is divinised.<\/div>

The focus on Jesus shows us that it is not through a series of triumphs and gains that we do this but by defeats and dispossessions. It is not the way the ego likes to go but it is the secret path direct to the Kingdom.<\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Palm Sunday","created":"1333241340","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

The curtain lifts again and we begin to recount ritually and relive interiorly the great events that took place over a few days a long time ago. The world did not stop when they happened. Only symbolically did the sun darken and the veil of temple split.  Peoples\u2019 commercial and emotional lives carried on as usual through the short tragic drama of the humiliation and extinction of a powerless pawn in the politics of the world. A short show-trial, public torture to keep the crowds satisfied, another execution of a religious (or political) activist who flared briefly in popular imagination and then lost their favour and sunk between the bigger waves of public affairs and personal concerns.<\/div>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

The curtain lifts again and we begin to recount ritually and relive interiorly the great events that took place over a few days a long time ago. The world did not stop when they happened. Only symbolically did the sun darken and the veil of temple split.  Peoples\u2019 commercial and emotional lives carried on as usual through the short tragic drama of the humiliation and extinction of a powerless pawn in the politics of the world. A short show-trial, public torture to keep the crowds satisfied, another execution of a religious (or political) activist who flared briefly in popular imagination and then lost their favour and sunk between the bigger waves of public affairs and personal concerns.<\/div>

<\/p>


His close friends ran away, disappointed and maybe angry with him, to save themselves. He was left to die with only his mother, one disciple he loved and a few loyal women at the foot of his cross.<\/div>

And here we are in 2012 telling the story again from the slightly disjointed but unforgettable accounts written down several decades afterwards. We do not have his own words except in translation. He put nothing in writing himself. We don\u2019t know what he liked for breakfast or exactly who he thought he was. He is more present than any other historical or fictional figure and yet when you look at him closely he becomes transparent and disappears. If we meet him we are changed but we cannot get a grip on him.<\/div>

These inconsistencies and paradoxes that so irritate the rational mind, when it operates in isolation, are the medium of a great transmission.
Children who like a story and those who recognise the value of a great work art are happy to repeat it indefinitely. In this story the repetition itself is an act of faith that strengthens faith and so clarifies vision.<\/div>

It is more powerful if we act theatrically in the telling rather than sitting like a passive audience. In this story there are no mere observers.
We have a limited number of chances in one life to replay the drama and penetrate its meaning. Not knowing how many is a part of the process that connects us with the one who suffered and died but did not stay dead.<\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Saturday Lent week 5","created":"1333145700","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

Generally speaking, experience comes first. First-hand experience always has something unpredictable about it even if we knew it was coming, like a long awaited birth or death. We can consciously wait for an experience that we know is in the pipeline but when it actually happens an unpredictable change has occurred.<\/div>

Experience then presents us with a challenge and often a conundrum. How does it fit in to the bigger pattern of our story? Is it really as significant as it looks?<\/div>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

Generally speaking, experience comes first. First-hand experience always has something unpredictable about it even if we knew it was coming, like a long awaited birth or death. We can consciously wait for an experience that we know is in the pipeline but when it actually happens an unpredictable change has occurred.<\/div>

Experience then presents us with a challenge and often a conundrum. How does it fit in to the bigger pattern of our story? Is it really as significant as it looks?<\/div>

<\/p>

 Does it mean anything at all? We would be content with being able to predict the future. That would give us a sense of security even if it would reduce life to a computer program. But human consciousness has to rise to the level of prophecy which is about insight into the present that cuts through all the layers of time. We have to take life seriously if we are to find it joyful.<\/div>

..you fail to see that it is better for one man to die for the people, than for the whole nation to be destroyed.\u2019 He did not speak in his own person, it was as high priest that he made this prophecy.<\/em><\/div>

Meaning is bigger than we are. So, when experience and meaning combine in the prophetic vision the person we are expanded.  Uncomfortably but wondrously. At that point in the process people stop arguing for a moment. We stop being anxious about things and we rest for a moment in a still and watchful state we could almost call pure worship.<\/div>

To be led to meaning is to be led home. Perhaps this is why Lent is built on the metaphor of a long trek to a promised land which we feel we belong to and that (more dangerously) belongs to us. It may also be why people so often say, as they reflect about the experience and meaning of meditation in their lives over a period of time, that it felt like a \u2018coming home\u2019. <\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Friday Lent week 5","created":"1333142580","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

Man has always seen the world in terms of great natural cycles. Everything that was will be again, says one of the Wisdom books of the Bible. The seasons revolve like the constellations, predictable and reassuring to those below who experience change and mortality. Repetition however has a double edge: comforting in its predictability, tedious in its sameness. So we try to have the best of both worlds, seeking change as it might better fulfill our wishes yet clinging to the status quo because, however incomplete, it\u2019s what we know best.<\/div>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

Man has always seen the world in terms of great natural cycles. Everything that was will be again, says one of the Wisdom books of the Bible. The seasons revolve like the constellations, predictable and reassuring to those below who experience change and mortality. Repetition however has a double edge: comforting in its predictability, tedious in its sameness. So we try to have the best of both worlds, seeking change as it might better fulfill our wishes yet clinging to the status quo because, however incomplete, it\u2019s what we know best.<\/div>

<\/p>


Perhaps most of human history and most of our lives are spent trying to square this circle.<\/div>

The cycle of nature is the bass-beat. But on it we prepare the creative variations that offer us freedom from all its monotony. Once the spirit of creation has been set free we feel connected to the source of the cyclical repetition which is never tedious and is always new. The experience of God as the fountainhead of all that exists is ultimately the goal of all human effort and desire even the most deluded and offensive. Like the great migrations in nature that constantly take place around us, we always seek home because that is where we can be fulfilled and at peace, secure and capable of development.<\/div>

\u201cThe Father is in me and I am in the Father\u201d<\/div>

On pilgrimage, in the great exodus from oppression of spirit, we realise that we carry home within us and that we make progress towards it in cycles of discovery and dispossession, of finding and losing. In the daily exodus of our meditation we turn the wheel of prayer and it always carries us to somewhere new.<\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Thursday Lent Week 5","created":"1333058220","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

People generally agree that exercise, like meditation, is a good thing. Physically and mentally we feel better for regular physical exercise. Depending on our personal temperament we may struggle to keep a daily exercise discipline and look for every excuse to avoid it even though we know we will feel better for doing it. Or, given a more compulsive personality, we might get so fixated on the exercise that we overdo it and so make it play a more dominant role in our lives than it merits. Enough is never enough. You can always be fitter than someone else.<\/div>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

People generally agree that exercise, like meditation, is a good thing. Physically and mentally we feel better for regular physical exercise. Depending on our personal temperament we may struggle to keep a daily exercise discipline and look for every excuse to avoid it even though we know we will feel better for doing it. Or, given a more compulsive personality, we might get so fixated on the exercise that we overdo it and so make it play a more dominant role in our lives than it merits. Enough is never enough. You can always be fitter than someone else.<\/div>

<\/p>


There are some parallels here to spiritual exercise. There\u2019s the need for discipline and the obvious benefits. But only a very few people overdo it, trying the fast track to get enlightened. These become spiritual extremists and the more extreme they become the further they are from their goal. There are of course also religious extremists, but they tend to be people who are escaping from something unpleasant \u2013 a personal problem or a political situation \u2013 and they turn religion into a justification for anything they think will help them. Spiritual extremists are not unknown but they are rarer because the stakes \u2013 sanity and health \u2013 are so much higher.<\/div>

So it is rare that people get addicted to meditation (depending as always on what you mean by \u2018meditation\u2019). The main reason, though, is that the discipline of meditation includes an inherent commitment to moderation and the middle way in everything, including spiritual practice. Meditation is the universal regulator because it attunes us to the spirit which pervades everything and is available to correct any imbalance or error as long as we are open to it. Meditation is also inherently a commitment to be open to reality as it is, not as we write it.<\/div>

Moderation and openness. The two sides of the ladder to happiness and peace. And every step we take is a deepening of our capacity for love. Let us hope that the 40 days in desert, which will soon be over, have taught us that. If not we can, thanks to the spirit, compress the 40 days into the present moment, now, because it always helps us make up for lost time. That is redemption.<\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Wednesday Lent week 5","created":"1332970800","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

When winter comes to the Arctic the solitary polar bears scoop themselves a bed in the ice and curl up for their long hibernation. Then snow comes and covers them keeping them alive in the frigid desert, the cold insulation preserving them from a fatal cold. The female bears give birth during their long deep sleep. The squealing of the tiny cubs activates her milk supply, seven times richer than human milk; and her maternal instinct proves stronger than the most powerful sleepiness. In Spring she goes forth, with the cubs tumbling at her heels, in search of solid food but keeps an eye open for hungry males for whom her babies would provide an irresistible snack.<\/div>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

When winter comes to the Arctic the solitary polar bears scoop themselves a bed in the ice and curl up for their long hibernation. Then snow comes and covers them keeping them alive in the frigid desert, the cold insulation preserving them from a fatal cold. The female bears give birth during their long deep sleep. The squealing of the tiny cubs activates her milk supply, seven times richer than human milk; and her maternal instinct proves stronger than the most powerful sleepiness. In Spring she goes forth, with the cubs tumbling at her heels, in search of solid food but keeps an eye open for hungry males for whom her babies would provide an irresistible snack.<\/div>

<\/p>


We cannot help but see ourselves reflected in the animal world. All our human faults are there, territorialism, sexual jealousy and possessiveness, the survival instincts of the ego. What is lacking among them is any sense of sin. To eat the young cubs, to fight to the death sexual dominance does not stain their innocence. If they do things that we find reflected in our higher qualities, fidelity or self-sacrifice these also remain in the natural sphere and cannot be counted as virtue. In Genesis God made animals to keep humans company but found that they were not enough to ease the human need for union.<\/div>

We often condemn human inhumanity as animal-like which is of course an insult to the animal kingdom. Animals hunt and kill but they do so in order to survive not as we do for pleasure or to displace their anger onto the weaker creatures.<\/div>

What makes the difference then? Some factor we call consciousness or a particular quality of consciousness that is specifically human. Not a kind that makes us innately superior but one that makes us infinitely fortunate. It is not (only) that we are biologically smarter or kinder. But we have been tickled into a more wakeful condition by the awareness that we are known. We live inside a benevolent knowledge that is more than instinctual and self-preservational. Let us call it grace \u2013 a gift that flows from some unobjectifiable spring of pure being straight into the reservoir of our souls.<\/div>

The next leap forward is that in becoming aware of this we are impelled to turn the attention towards the invisible source even if it means, as it does, taking the attention off ourselves. And so we search for a tangible, visible teacher in whom the great source is fully present and available. Through that connection we can drink from the source of being as nourishingly as the cubs drink their milk. <\/div>
 <\/div>
Enter Jesus. <\/div>
 <\/div>
If you continue in my word, you are my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free<\/em>.<\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Tuesday Lent week 5","created":"1332884280","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

And he who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him.<\/em><\/div>
 <\/div>
He had always yearned to please his father and win his approval. Long into his maturity, after he was married with children of his own, his father held back from him that final seal of approval and affection which he longed for. As his father reached a significant birthday he bought his father what he knew he had always wanted, a Harley Davidson.<\/div>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

And he who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him.<\/em><\/div>
 <\/div>
He had always yearned to please his father and win his approval. Long into his maturity, after he was married with children of his own, his father held back from him that final seal of approval and affection which he longed for. As his father reached a significant birthday he bought his father what he knew he had always wanted, a Harley Davidson.<\/div>

<\/p>

 It touched a secret wish his father had shared with him in a rare moment of intimacy years before. When he presented the gift he knew instantly it had not worked the miracle he had hoped for. <\/div>
 <\/div>
His father accepted it politely, coldly but held himself aloof, hiding his feelings from his son as he had always done. His grown son\u2019s heart was shattered; suddenly he became a devastated little boy again crying out for the male affirmation he had never received.<\/div>

This, however, has nothing to do with the theme of today\u2019s reflection. Jesus is referring as he often does in the Gospel of John to his relationship with his Father (our father). But it is not, like the relationship described in the anecdote above, a psychological connection. The image of a father or mother is so powerful for most people that one might question the wisdom of referring to God by either term, so loaded with psychological baggage in every individual story as they are.<\/div>

For one thing, Jesus and his culture were, of course, pre-Freudian. As we assume that the Freudian paradigm has got beneath the surface of all human interaction the pre-Freudian is often perceived as na\u00efve or primitive. More than this however is the level at which Jesus is using this symbol of his relationship with \u2018my Father\u2019 - who is his universal reference point and source of authority. It is human, but not psychological. It is ontological: the nature of being as such, not this way or that way, individual or inter-personal, but the way everything is in itself. Being.<\/div>

Put like that we might say \u2018well, what on earth does that mean\u2019? Perhaps that\u2019s why, after all, Jesus used the symbol of father, as something we can engage with, yet illustrating something impossible to put into words; yet more real than any thought. For this reason, feeling affirmed by reality at this deepest and simplest of all levels might be the bets or only way the unloved son could heal his unfilled need in his pscyhe.<\/div>

In the desert, in meditation, we drop right through the psychological realm (with a few bumps on the way), directly into the ground of being.<\/div>

Our mantra is our fiat<\/em>. Let it be.<\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Monday Lent Week 5","created":"1332799140","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

The Feast of the Annunciation, when the young Mary, mother to be learns her destiny. The imperceptible moment of conception recalled as the horizon of life becomes frighteningly visible. No wonder the old lose their short term memory but recall early life vividly. The young look forward, thinking of the decisions they have to take and the potential they are anxious not to lose. The old learn to synchronise the way things actually turned out, never quite fulfilling potential perhaps, as their experience fills up more and more of the canvas of their lives.<\/div>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

The Feast of the Annunciation, when the young Mary, mother to be learns her destiny. The imperceptible moment of conception recalled as the horizon of life becomes frighteningly visible. No wonder the old lose their short term memory but recall early life vividly. The young look forward, thinking of the decisions they have to take and the potential they are anxious not to lose. The old learn to synchronise the way things actually turned out, never quite fulfilling potential perhaps, as their experience fills up more and more of the canvas of their lives.<\/div>

<\/p>


She was \u2018deeply disturbed\u2019 by the angelic message and could not understand the meaning of what was happening to her. We long for something to happen, for God to appear to us, for reality to flower in our lives of expectation and frustration. And when it does we can hardly recognise it and wonder what it really means. There are no final answers and the desire for God, for the everything we need,  can never satisfied. We cannot equal the gift. That is why humility is wisdom.<\/div>

All we can do is give up own point of view and learn to see everything from the perspective of the giver. But then we feel as if we are being annihilated. The ego begins to campaign for its rights. So we try to let God be the true centre while retaining a bolthole for our own self-centredness. The absurdity of this and the frustration it involves may take a long time to become evident.<\/div>

Mary struggled and yielded her perspective as every loving parent, every loving person knows they are called to do. Her fiat, let it be done to me as you have said, was simultaneously a defeat and a victory, a collapse and a breakthrough, a death and the beginning of a new birth beyond the cycle of death and rebirth.<\/div>

Our mantra is our fiat<\/em>. Let it be.<\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Fifth Sunday of Lent","created":"1332636660","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

On a beautiful Highland day with a sky as clear as a child\u2019s eye we laid Rosie into the ground beside her husband and the sons who had preceded her. A piper led the way from the church door to the grave. The rituals were familiar, part of the family\u2019s experience of faith beyond belief and so did not need to be self-consciously explained. The words and gestures meant more than they literally said. For a few brief moments a space was opened which allowed death and life to intertwine and it was possible if you looked carefully in the clear light to see what lay on the other side.<\/div>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

On a beautiful Highland day with a sky as clear as a child\u2019s eye we laid Rosie into the ground beside her husband and the sons who had preceded her. A piper led the way from the church door to the grave. The rituals were familiar, part of the family\u2019s experience of faith beyond belief and so did not need to be self-consciously explained. The words and gestures meant more than they literally said. For a few brief moments a space was opened which allowed death and life to intertwine and it was possible if you looked carefully in the clear light to see what lay on the other side.<\/div>

<\/p>


We think reality has to be articulated and recorded in memory, to be verified later. But when we slip through the links between thoughts, reality becomes a presence, or simply presence. As soon as we think about it or to hold on to it, it dissolves. \u201cHe vanished from their sight\u201d. But again as soon as we return to a simple way of being present here and now it returns in a way both gentle and prompt.<\/div>

To speak of \u2018the other side\u2019 at all is to distort it with our own preconceptions. What we see ahead must be already here. In a completely unclouded mind all is present.<\/div>

Graves are very earthy. They remind us of our humility, our being earthly vessels. However we may decorate them, whatever natural grace or unfortunate aspect they have, this truth remains the great universal equality. It may seem too soon, in this fifth week of Lent, to think about the Resurrection; but that in fact is what Lent is all about \u2013 learning, preparing to see and experience the presence of the one who once rose above and beyond the confines of death and rebirth.<\/div>

Our practice, our meditation, our daily lives lived prayerfully are all ways of purifying the doors of perception to allow the vision of faith to show us what is always present. We cannot face any death in faith, including the death of our resilient ego, without learning something about the Resurrection of Jesus who is one like us.<\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Saturday Lent Week 4","created":"1332550020","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

So there was a division among the people over him\u2026 They went each to his own house.<\/em><\/div>
 <\/div>
When people come up to receive communion at Mass their way of doing so often illustrates the nature of the church they belong to as well as expressing their individual character in a few revealing moments.<\/div>

Younger people tend to make eye contact and often smile, looking for a personal connection. Then there are other usually older communicants who come as if they have a gun in their back or that God will be striking them dead for receiving communion<\/div>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

So there was a division among the people over him\u2026 They went each to his own house.<\/em><\/div>
 <\/div>
When people come up to receive communion at Mass their way of doing so often illustrates the nature of the church they belong to as well as expressing their individual character in a few revealing moments.<\/div>

Younger people tend to make eye contact and often smile, looking for a personal connection. Then there are other usually older communicants who come as if they have a gun in their back or that God will be striking them dead for receiving communion<\/div>

<\/p>

 when they are not in as pure a state of grace as Mother Teresa and St Francis combined. They there are those who are too cool or masculine to show reverence and grab the host and run. Or those who are more pious may approach on their knees and insist on you placing the host on their tongue.<\/div>

The diversity of people and their apparent reasons for coming to communion might make you wonder where the unity is supposed to be. But all true relationship does that \u2013 polarizing similarity and difference but never giving up on the potential for union. Such diversity is a sign of just how broadly the invitation of Jesus to \u2018come to me\u2019 has been distributed. No one is refused even if they don\u2019t understand at first what they are accepting.<\/div>

Every time we meditate it is because we basically believe and acknowledge that - at the deep core of my being - there is the very thing I believe in and hope for even though I can\u2019t see, touch or imagine it.  I know and I don\u2019t know. This means I may at times feel ridiculous. I may fail to see the reason behind things or that they exist only in order to help me get closer to that elusive centre.<\/div>

Similarly, I may come to meditation anywhere along the spectrum on any given day. What matters is not the superficial appearance or even the level of feeling but the deep-level unity that exists already and is the great attractive force.<\/div>

We say the mantra simply so that we can leave all self-conscious analysis behind. Only when we have once breathed the pure air of the spirit during this quest can we see ourselves for what we are.<\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Friday Lent Week 4","created":"1332461580","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

The body does not lie and it never forgets. The mind \u2013 it\u2019s hard to say what it really thinks as it works at so many levels that barely communicate with each other. And the mind, as we see in those slipping away from us in dementia, can easily and rapidly become mindless.<\/div>

So why do we assume the mind can take us further towards the truth than the body? Only the illusion that truth is abstract, disembodied. Bethlehem and the Desert of Jesus\u2019 temptation, the Cross and the Resurrection disabuse us of that idea.<\/div>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

The body does not lie and it never forgets. The mind \u2013 it\u2019s hard to say what it really thinks as it works at so many levels that barely communicate with each other. And the mind, as we see in those slipping away from us in dementia, can easily and rapidly become mindless.<\/div>

So why do we assume the mind can take us further towards the truth than the body? Only the illusion that truth is abstract, disembodied. Bethlehem and the Desert of Jesus\u2019 temptation, the Cross and the Resurrection disabuse us of that idea.<\/div>

<\/p>

 At this moment we are still in the desert, resisting the temptations of the mind towards abstraction and illusion (the power, fame, control, possessions the ego is enamoured by). We are learning to practice physical discipline so that we can be free of the attachment of secondary desires that substitute themselves for our deepest desire.<\/div>

In this way we learn to find and embrace that true desire which is fulfilled simply by embracing it, never by grasping at the image of its fulfillment. Only by facing it in the emptiness of our incompleteness and our longing do we fall into that poverty of spirit which brings the ultimate enrichment. Only by letting go of desire can we fulfill it.<\/div>

Yet old habits die hard, as Lent by this stage will have taught us many times. Like the Israelites discouraged in their trek through desert and recalling their days of secure slavery: We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic<\/em>. The problem is that it is memory not the present they \u2013 and we - are inhabiting when we become disembodied and only think about the material world.<\/div>

The more fully we are in the present the less we imagine, the more we see. That is why in meditation as in the Eucharist we eat and drink reality. And it is why both the body\u2019s posture and the mind\u2019s attention are both important as we learn how to meditate <\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Thursday Lent Week 4","created":"1332377040","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

If I bear witness to myself my testimony is not true; there is another who bears witness to me and I know that the testimony which he bears to me is true.<\/em><\/div>
 <\/div>
Humility is a curious virtue because the real thing never looks humble. Putting yourself down, self-consciously letting others dominate, seeking humiliation, may all earn you the approval of others - usually the  hypocritically inclined religious types. Those who are always playing a game and don\u2019t know what real life is.<\/div>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

If I bear witness to myself my testimony is not true; there is another who bears witness to me and I know that the testimony which he bears to me is true.<\/em><\/div>
 <\/div>
Humility is a curious virtue because the real thing never looks humble. Putting yourself down, self-consciously letting others dominate, seeking humiliation, may all earn you the approval of others - usually the  hypocritically inclined religious types. Those who are always playing a game and don\u2019t know what real life is.<\/div>

<\/p>

 <\/div>

True humility is unusually self-confident. It can be assertive when needed and it risks, almost invites misinterpretation.<\/div>

The humble, like Jesus, are those who know who they are, where they have come and where they are going. Self-knowledge of this kind make is easier to accept rejection because you have nothing to lose. You are not hiding behind the mask of your persona. If you are not controlled by the way others see you, you have the freedom of real solitude.<\/div>

Yet in that solitude of self-knowledge and humility you are not alone. \u2018There is another\u2019, as Jesus said. From this otherness which is our deepest intimacy arises the affirmation we need \u2013 the testimony that is true.<\/div>

To be humble we must first transcend the ego. Affirming yourself without another (bearing witness to yourself) is inherently untrue, inauthentic. You will always be looking for recognition of your martyrdom. You will demand a feats day for it. But we can only know ourselves because we know we are known. Knowledge of this kind also means the experience of acceptance. Someone has to know the games our ego plays and not be deterred by them. Love is this.<\/div>

You may be prepared to drive down a one-way street in the opposite direction if it is really necessary. You might even get a kind of kick out of it. You against the world. But it will always feel the wrong way as well as potentially dangerous. If you meet a car coming the other way you will be in immediate conflict. Self-knowledge (the psychological term for humility) requires a two-way traffic.<\/div>

The self is a channel of communion realised in truthful communication. It is not enough to give things, even time, even your life. To love, to be a friend, to be fully alive means to give your self. Only those who know themselves, and know they are known can do this.<\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Wednesday Lent Week 4","created":"1332289680","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

I realised recently that people who live on small islands have a low rating on punctuality. I think this is due to the fact that given the short distances involved they don't think they will be late as long as they set out before the time of their appointment. This philosophy of time doesn't work so well in the big world.<\/div>

Then there are personalities who can never keep a deadline and live in a time dimension of ever-melting horizons.<\/div>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

I realised recently that people who live on small islands have a low rating on punctuality. I think this is due to the fact that given the short distances involved they don't think they will be late as long as they set out before the time of their appointment. This philosophy of time doesn't work so well in the big world.<\/div>

Then there are personalities who can never keep a deadline and live in a time dimension of ever-melting horizons.<\/div>

<\/p>


If the spiritual dimension of life has been awakened and if we are exploring its life-enhancing depths then the balance between waiting and acting becomes regulated. This is no doubt why meditation reduces stress and promotes creativity.<\/div>

To learn to say the mantra and, as John Main said 'to be content to say it, is to see that all time exists in the present moment. The gift of seeing that that moment is the moment of Christ adds the icing to the cake.<\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Tuesday Lent Week 4","created":"1332204780","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

There are black and white days and days of full glorious colour. Weather. The one thing we can say about weather is that it is always there. Basically there is nothing we can do about it; it has to be accepted. Oscar Wilde said everyone in England complains about the weather but no one does anything about it.  Drizzly days, halcyon days.. also tsunamis and hurricanes.<\/div>

Meteorological weather affects our mood.<\/div>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

There are black and white days and days of full glorious colour. Weather. The one thing we can say about weather is that it is always there. Basically there is nothing we can do about it; it has to be accepted. Oscar Wilde said everyone in England complains about the weather but no one does anything about it.  Drizzly days, halcyon days.. also tsunamis and hurricanes.<\/div>

Meteorological weather affects our mood.<\/div>

<\/p>

 But our moods, or mental states, themselves are a form of weather. For no obvious reason sometimes our mood can mutate from sunny to drizzly, from peaceful sunset to raging storm.<\/div>

Some people actually prefer the cloudy, understated kind of weather and find that continuous Californian sunshine becomes tedious after a while. They like the change of seasons. Others move home and family to get as many hours of sunshine as possible. Some people prefer full colour action epic movies, others film noir.<\/div>

There is however an undeniable truth that, whatever our personal temperament, sunlight brings out the colour in the world as a black and white overcast day does not. The most pure white light is itself a concentration of the spectrum of colour, some bands of which are beyond the capacity of our physical vision to see which make up what we call light.<\/div>

We could not even see or like the cosy drizzly day we spend in front of the fire at home were it not for light.<\/div>

I am the Light of the World.<\/em><\/div>

We meditate because we have seen enough, whatever our temperament or the stage of the journey we have reached, to know that this essential, unconditioned pure light of consciousness is within us. It is also beyond and behind all forms of weather. It is the distillation and expression of the only \u201cI\u201d that can authentically be named.<\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Monday Lent Week 4","created":"1332117600","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

It\u2019s the feast of St Joseph today, patron saint of workers because he was (apparently) a carpenter and one of the great supporting actor roles in history. In the glitter world the ego likes to inhabit or (if it is not strong enough to inhabit) to fantasize about inhabiting, all that matters is the Oscar for the main role.<\/div>

Less confident egos may still be controlled by delusions of control and superiority without having the means or daring to show it. What matters is not so much the degree of fame or approval, which every ego, weak or strong, feeds on, but the work actually being done.<\/div>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

It\u2019s the feast of St Joseph today, patron saint of workers because he was (apparently) a carpenter and one of the great supporting actor roles in history. In the glitter world the ego likes to inhabit or (if it is not strong enough to inhabit) to fantasize about inhabiting, all that matters is the Oscar for the main role.<\/div>

Less confident egos may still be controlled by delusions of control and superiority without having the means or daring to show it. What matters is not so much the degree of fame or approval, which every ego, weak or strong, feeds on, but the work actually being done.<\/div>

<\/p>

 Is something being made that will outlive us because it transcends our ego? Whatever the ego inhabits will fall when the ego falls.<\/div>

In the end the prize goes to those who have done something with their opportunities and not invested themselves in unreal derivatives and short-term smash and grab raids on other people\u2019s resources. Words and ideas can be very powerful forces but in the end what matters is action not words.<\/div>

If we understand that the times of meditation are times of pure action, this will help calibrate all aspects of our lives and keep the pulse beat of reality steady. The point in life when we see the nature of the inner work is the true centre of life\u2019s narrative, the turning point, conversion. It may come as a wake-up call in middle age or we may be graced with it early in life. It is the moment we realize that there is a whole other floor to the house of the self we inhabit. Slowly we sense it is even bigger than the rest of the house - which feels odd at first and then exhilarating.<\/div>

The carpentry of life carries on as usual but its meaning is highlighted. What matters, when the spirit has been awakened, is not who gets the Oscar but if we are doing what we are meant to do.
It is a great grace to understand why daily meditation is the primary work of life.<\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Fourth Sunday of Lent","created":"1332029880","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

God sent His Son into the world not to condemn the world but so that through him the world might be saved<\/em>. (Jn3:15)<\/div>

It is (for many of us anyway) a sad thing that these words rankle with so many people who hear in them the very thing they are not saying. For those on the path of Christain discipleship (one day we might feel we can be called Christians, other Christs, but probably not today) these words have a different impact. <\/div>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

God sent His Son into the world not to condemn the world but so that through him the world might be saved<\/em>. (Jn3:15)<\/div>

It is (for many of us anyway) a sad thing that these words rankle with so many people who hear in them the very thing they are not saying. For those on the path of Christain discipleship (one day we might feel we can be called Christians, other Christs, but probably not today) these words have a different impact. <\/div>

<\/p>

They beckon into a deeper and deeper experience of the love that makes and continuously re-makes the world, servicing it, repairing it and guiding it to an ever better performance despite its inherent defects. I have checked this text for typos but maybe there are still some here. A few typos don't invalidate the meaning.<\/p>

The cultural baggage of the Church, in the west especially, makes it difficult for many to see that this imperturbable kindness and graciousness of God is reflected and active in our psychological and material worlds - if we activate it by recognizing and receiving it as the unexpected free gift it is. We are not set up to be condemned but to be made whole. I don't know anything better or more immediately effective than meditation to help us realise this.<\/p>

The John Main daily reading for yesterday nicely expressed the way we best approach meditation as an inner pilgrimage that influences our whole life and being. He said don't be disappointed by your failure to be perfect in meditation, either in saying the mantra continuously or in the daily discipline. But he also said it is absolutely important to meditate every day. Holding to those two handles of the teaching helps us steer our way through any desert and over any mountain.<\/p><\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Saturday Lent Week 3","created":"1331944860","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

Energy. It comes in an infinite variety. Most of its forms, like the dark energy of the cosmos, we cannot even imagine. We recharge batteries, we sleep at night, we have good days and low days. Organisations go into the doldrums or buzz with life. It can be low key, like the rumination of cows in a time-space all their own, or the wired, impatient tension of an athlete in last-minute training. There is physical energy and the energy of a remembered word, cruel or loving, that lingers in the mind and shapes the electro-chemistry of our whole being for days.<\/div>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

Energy. It comes in an infinite variety. Most of its forms, like the dark energy of the cosmos, we cannot even imagine. We recharge batteries, we sleep at night, we have good days and low days. Organisations go into the doldrums or buzz with life. It can be low key, like the rumination of cows in a time-space all their own, or the wired, impatient tension of an athlete in last-minute training. There is physical energy and the energy of a remembered word, cruel or loving, that lingers in the mind and shapes the electro-chemistry of our whole being for days.<\/div>

<\/p>


More than this we can sometimes glimpse the truth that we are not just receptacles or channels of energy, not just receivers and transmitters. But we too are no more, no less, than a form of energy which itself is in constant permutation. In those moments of insight we feel, as the psalmist sang, the \u2018wonder of our own being\u2019. We see that our own energy is in flow and flux with all forms of energy. We belong to the world which ebbs and flows in relation to a source we cannot see or imagine and yet is ever-present.<\/div>

It is in stillness that we experience energy in its simplest and purest form. We come closest to its source and realise that the source is our source, ourselves and yet infinitely other than our selves. To undergo that experience of identity- without-identity is love and then we know that the essence of all these myriad forms of energy is love.<\/div>

Amazingly, we can forget it as quickly as we understand it. That is why we need to meditate every day of our lives in order not to forget to be fully alive. <\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Friday Lent Week 3","created":"1331857020","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

I remember as a novice singing the words of the morning hymn every day : \u2018the day is filled with splendour...\u201d They rattled around I my memory like a jingle. One day it struck me that perhaps they actually meant something. They were not just a pious phrase repeated for centuries to keep the mind half-comatose, like spiritual koala bears munching on eucalyptus leaves.<\/div>

Maybe the someone who wrote those words really felt that there was splendour filling each day whatever the emotional or geometric weather reading.<\/div>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

I remember as a novice singing the words of the morning hymn every day : \u2018the day is filled with splendour...\u201d They rattled around I my memory like a jingle. One day it struck me that perhaps they actually meant something. They were not just a pious phrase repeated for centuries to keep the mind half-comatose, like spiritual koala bears munching on eucalyptus leaves.<\/div>

Maybe the someone who wrote those words really felt that there was splendour filling each day whatever the emotional or geometric weather reading.<\/div>

<\/p>

 Etty Hillesum clearly saw this amid the dreary and degrading conditions of camp life.  And, if we are not a little better able to understand and see it for ourselves as a result of our Lenten disciplines we should extend Lent until we can.<\/div>

Every day, however stressed it is, whether it brings good news or repeats disappointments, is embedded with moments of silent eloquence, natural glory. It might be the dignified descent of a setting wintry sun, the bright effusion of colour in a red hibiscus, the shy appearance of white or pink magnolia blossom scenting its world like a lovely person becoming innocently aware of their own beauty for the first time. It might be the kind smile and graciousness of someone doing you a minor paid service, a flight attendant who is present to herself and her passengers, a policeman who walks a few steps with you to give you better directions, while their colleagues do their work with reluctance or bad grace.<\/div>

The more of these individual splendid moments you see the more they join up. You realise that they are not isolated phenomena, supernova moments of dying stars, but appearances of the natural and universal order of things. This splendour actually is the underlying nature of reality.<\/div>

The disciplines of Lent or the daily discipline of the mantra are a small price to pay for entry into this, the real world. <\/div>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Thursday Lent Week 3","created":"1331771160","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

Jesus was casting out a devil and it was dumb; but when the devil had gone out the dumb man spoke, and the people were amazed. But some of them said, \u2018\"It is through Beelzebul, the prince of devils, that he casts out devils\"<\/em><\/p>

There\u2019s always someone to spoil the fun or to think, as in so much of our media, that cynicism is the right, response to enthusiasm. Somewhere lurking in the ego there is a little mechanism that is triggered whenever it senses expansion of spirit. It tries to pull down, draw back and control.<\/p>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

Jesus was casting out a devil and it was dumb; but when the devil had gone out the dumb man spoke, and the people were amazed. But some of them said, \u2018\"It is through Beelzebul, the prince of devils, that he casts out devils\"<\/em><\/p>

There\u2019s always someone to spoil the fun or to think, as in so much of our media, that cynicism is the right, response to enthusiasm. Somewhere lurking in the ego there is a little mechanism that is triggered whenever it senses expansion of spirit. It tries to pull down, draw back and control.<\/p>

<\/p>

One has to watch for it, in oneself or in a group, because it is not the true critic that speaks the truth in love and that never fails to point out the positive. It is a false critic intent only limitation and negation. Once it has started it becomes contagious. Suddenly everyone is focused only on the negative and distrusts or rejects the creative.<\/p>

In today\u2019s gospel Jesus casts out the demon of dumbness and restores the power of speech. In the desert, in meditation, we are exposed to the power of true silence. When silence meets the dumb demon of fear and pride that prevents us from telling the truth and bursts out only in negativity, then the demon is demolished. Fear is dissolved and pride is humbled. Then when we speak, if we speak, it will be in words that build up and restore the broken-hearted or the discouraged. Such speech does not cease to be immersed in the silence for which it flows.<\/p>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Wednesday Lent Week 3","created":"1331685480","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

The kingdom of heaven is close at hand.<\/em><\/p>

This is the subtext of all the practices of Lent which are designed to remind us how easily we forget this and how simply we can remember it.<\/p>

Etty Hillesum was a young vivacious Jewish woman who perished in Auschwitz in 1943. In the midst of the horror of the deportation of the Jews from her native Holland she underwent a personal spiritual awakening that has resonated down the decades.<\/p>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

The kingdom of heaven is close at hand.<\/em><\/p>

This is the subtext of all the practices of Lent which are designed to remind us how easily we forget this and how simply we can remember it.<\/p>

Etty Hillesum was a young vivacious Jewish woman who perished in Auschwitz in 1943. In the midst of the horror of the deportation of the Jews from her native Holland she underwent a personal spiritual awakening that has resonated down the decades.<\/p>

<\/p>

 Sustained by her deep inner world and the new vision of human life and the natural world it gave her, she spent herself in relieving the misery of her fellow sufferers. She refused to hate her persecutors and in the flowers and skies around her she found inexhaustible treasures of beauty and revelation.<\/p>

One of those she was helping once asked her how she could waste time thinking of flowers in the midst of their ordeal.<\/p>

She discovered God through the throwing open of her inner world but she did not seem to worry about how religions score points off each other. Once she was expressing some ideas about forgiveness and someone replied \u2018But that sounds like Christianity.\u2019 \u201cYes,\u201d she replied, \u201c Christianity, and why not.?\u201d<\/p>

Whatever anxieties or fears we carry with us today \u2013 and they must surely be less than those she and her fellow Jews endured in that time of madness \u2013 the flower and the faith capable of plunging us into the depths of God are at hand.<\/p>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Tuesday Lent Week 3","created":"1331600100","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

How often must I forgive my brother if he wrongs me? As often as seven times?\u2019 Jesus answered, \u2018Not seven, I tell you, but seventy-seven times.<\/em><\/p>

A: You always win. You always manage to get your way<\/p>

B: That\u2019s not how I see it. This hostility makes my life miserable too.<\/p>

A: Well you deserve it. I\u2019m glad.<\/p>

B: Thank you. Who\u2019s getting his way now?<\/p>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

How often must I forgive my brother if he wrongs me? As often as seven times?\u2019 Jesus answered, \u2018Not seven, I tell you, but seventy-seven times.<\/em><\/p>

A: You always win. You always manage to get your way<\/p>

B: That\u2019s not how I see it. This hostility makes my life miserable too.<\/p>

A: Well you deserve it. I\u2019m glad.<\/p>

B: Thank you. Who\u2019s getting his way now?<\/p>

<\/p>

A: See what I mean? You always turn things around and get people to see everything from your point of view.<\/p>

B: Well if I do I don\u2019t feel I am the winner. Anyway being the winner is lonely too. You make people jealous or angry if you think you won and they lost.<\/p>

A: Poor you..<\/p>


And on and on. And on. The cycle of resentment draws on a deep supply of dark energy that perpetuates the sense of being a victim or a born loser. To forgive those who wrong you is to escape from this self-destructive state of mind which paralyses the emotions and freezes rational thought. It breeds illusion and the only cure for illusion is to increase the daily dose of reality.<\/p>

Almost everyone who is chronically unhappy feels that someone somewhere is or has been their enemy. This is the way out of the quagmire, to identify the enemy, look them in the eye, wherever they may be, blink and let them go.<\/p>

The spiritual view of life takes account of both sin, the state of illusion and all its consequences and grace, the perpetual second chance. It focuses on redemption, liberation and healing as the life-giving and rejuvenating processes we should be committed to.<\/p>

The desert is a great place to diagnose these negative states of mind. They rise naturally in the early stages of meditation. We have only to consistently prefer reality to illusion, to return to the mantra, in order to be free of the wrongs we feel have been done to us and start again -  this time further along the path that, despite appearances, we in fact never leave.<\/p>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Monday Lent Week 3","created":"1331511780","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

The Christian message, born of an insight deeper than words and transmitted through the full silence of the Spirit, is embarrassing. \u201cGod became human so that human beings might be come God.\u201d<\/p>

This refrain of the early theologians sounds more daring than many theologians would risk today and it strongly resisted the attempts of gnostical dualism to dilute it. What it means, of course, can only be understood through the experience of our lives when we try, weakly most of the time, to live as if it were the central truth, the real thing in all circumstances.<\/p>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

The Christian message, born of an insight deeper than words and transmitted through the full silence of the Spirit, is embarrassing. \u201cGod became human so that human beings might be come God.\u201d<\/p>

This refrain of the early theologians sounds more daring than many theologians would risk today and it strongly resisted the attempts of gnostical dualism to dilute it. What it means, of course, can only be understood through the experience of our lives when we try, weakly most of the time, to live as if it were the central truth, the real thing in all circumstances.<\/p>

<\/p>

It suggests that Incarnation is God concentrating into a singular human being so that God can indeed \u2018become fully human\u201d. How else can one be human without being a human being in a particular time and place? The classical theologians thought this was necessary but that the suffering this individual underwent was inevitable. God needed to be human. Jesus, the fulfilling of this divine need, didn\u2019t want to suffer any more than any human wants to suffer. (Father if it is your will let this cup pass me by).<\/p>

This doctrine might sound abstract and parochial to many today. In fact it changes the way we ourselves become incarnate in our own unique life-stories through all the phases of our development. It helps us not to get stick in infantile mentality or adolescent behaviour as we see happening in most violent conflicts and indeed in many of our own personal problems.<\/p>

It also teaches us the authentic way of handling suffering. As Leonard Cohen says we must learn to lament within the strict limits of dignity and beauty. The ego\u2019s tendency to self-pity risks making us isolated and bitter. But to know what our destiny is, what suffering taking us towards, gives both compassion and dignity to our approach to suffering, disappointment and loss.<\/p>

This is why Lent is a Christian season. And why meditation is Christian prayer Not to be punitive towards ourselves because of our failings or to seek enlightenment merely as an escape from suffering. But to be fully human, wholly awake, in order that we can indeed \u2018become God\u2019 as we are programmed to do.<\/p>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Third Sunday Lent","created":"1331425380","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

In the Temple he found people selling cattle and sheep and pigeons, and the money changers sitting at their counters there. Making a whip out of some cord, he drove them all out of the Temple, cattle and sheep as well, scattered the money changers\u2019 coins, knocked their tables over and said to the pigeon-sellers, \u2018Take all this out of here and stop turning my Father\u2019s house into a market. Jn 2:13<\/em><\/p>

He was certainly not a politician and did not mince his words. He acted in accordance with his higher feelings and paid the price of alienating those who held power.<\/p>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

In the Temple he found people selling cattle and sheep and pigeons, and the money changers sitting at their counters there. Making a whip out of some cord, he drove them all out of the Temple, cattle and sheep as well, scattered the money changers\u2019 coins, knocked their tables over and said to the pigeon-sellers, \u2018Take all this out of here and stop turning my Father\u2019s house into a market. Jn 2:13<\/em><\/p>

He was certainly not a politician and did not mince his words. He acted in accordance with his higher feelings and paid the price of alienating those who held power.<\/p>

<\/p>

 We admire this in people of integrity who make us aware of how many compromises we make in our own actions. We can rationally justify any action at some level. \u2018Common sense\u2019 has justified many mistakes. The question that won\u2019t go away, however, is at what level of reality and integrity do we choose to live.<\/p>

Being unpopular is not necessarily a sign that you are acting justly. But to do the right thing consistently will inevitably lead you into a deeper solitude where you are open to criticism, vulnerable to your enemies and exposed to your own inner demons. Easier to go with the crowd and avoid your own depth. In solitude you will have fewer co-travellers but those with whom you make the pilgrimage will be in good faith with you.<\/p>

Half way through Lent now is a good moment to evaluate how we are using this season of simplification and reduction. Has it lost its edge already? Have we forgotten why we undertook the practices we chose to do?<\/p>

Measuring time has the advantage of making us aware of how imperceptibly, unconsciously it can slip through our fingers. Living in the full appreciation of the present moment is hard to sustain but it tends to help us to do the right thing in the right way at the right time. Right meaning what serves to make us and those we travel with more real, more free and more loving.<\/p>

Even to make space for one extra meditation today would help reset the program. (Where does our immediate resistance to that idea come from?) <\/p>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}},{"node":{"title":"Saturday Lent week 2","created":"1331340000","teaser":"

\"\"<\/p>

What do a lost sheep, a lost silver coin and a lost son all have in common? They are all lost, of course; but also, in the parables of Jesus, they are all found. Their re-discovery triggers joyful celebrations. The people who lost and found want and need to share their relief and happiness and call their friends and neighbours together.<\/p>

Happiness, like fear, anger and sadness, is infectious and, though for different reasons, calls out to be shared.<\/p>

","body":"

\"\"<\/p>

What do a lost sheep, a lost silver coin and a lost son all have in common? They are all lost, of course; but also, in the parables of Jesus, they are all found. Their re-discovery triggers joyful celebrations. The people who lost and found want and need to share their relief and happiness and call their friends and neighbours together.<\/p>

Happiness, like fear, anger and sadness, is infectious and, though for different reasons, calls out to be shared.<\/p>

<\/p>

 With the negative states we want to share them because they are destructive; perhaps we instinctively feel if we bottle them up they will destroy us more quickly but if we can infect others it will dilute them.<\/p>

But with happiness, to bottle it up would diminish it and ourselves. Parties and celebrations are essential to human happiness because they allow us to share what is itself a fruit of participation in the ground of being. People who refuse to go to a party, like the jealous older brother, are seen as life-deniers. Revelers sometimes act as if they should all be put into a party of misery by themselves for spoiling others\u2019 fun.<\/p>

However in the spirit of the gospel let\u2019s not exclude those who seem condemned to be excluded or exclude themselves. Celebrating life includes the compassion we feel - and show - to those who cannot celebrate. We cannot be happy by excluding the unhappy.<\/p>

By exclusion we lose. By inclusion we find. By embracing the unlovable we gain deeper insight (experience) into the nature of happiness. We see that it is not just about recovering what we lost or about having a good day. Some things we lose are lost for ever. There are good days and bad days.<\/p>

Happiness \u2013 the kind that is not lost even when we lose something precious \u2013 is not about having but being. Not being content or discontent. But being who we are.<\/p>

Laurence Freeman OSB<\/p>"}}]}