For some, the journey must now go deeper still. Deeper into the woods, the hills, the caves, the rivers and waters of our coastline. Deeper still into 'the aloneness with God' in the isolated places of our land. Deeper still as we locate ourselves in the ascetic practice of penitence and humility, with only the promise of God to free us from the seductions of this world and bring us to the place of simple encounter.

The encounter of heaven on earth and His promise to bring us home to the eternal embrace of creations Creator. For the path home, for all who crave the adornment of the soul, with the full grace of heaven, must be to embrace the call to be alone with Christ in love. And this aloneness is not to be feared, but like the Baptist, it is to be known as a charism. It is the path of true discovery and not for those whose needs can be met in the comfort and safety of hearth and material home.

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; ³⁸and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

Gospel of Matthew chapter 10.

And it is into this aloneness that winter teaches us to walk. Where our only warmth is the strangely warmed heart turned to Christ, as your breath is clouded in the freezing air before your face and your knees know only grey stone. Winters song is the lonely mourning of longing for release from the shackles of our own barren sin. It is the deep frustration of knowing our own internal death, were our life blood and spirit has frozen still and in our muteness and paralysis we strain our eyes upward pleading for release. And God whose deep affection stokes our cheek with a reassurance of tomorrows safety, awakens our voice to simple worlds of love. The silent prayers of our hearts move the coldness to a touch of warmth, a few words of connection and understanding, and our dull minds awaken to the language of the eternal Holy Spirit.

Then finally we reach out beyond ourselves and we are touched by the green shoots of spring. The moisture of grass and the pent-up energy of the budding blossom that is now pregnant with an explosion of colour, and we await the first rays of The Son's spring sunshine. The grafted branch that has been so lifeless now tastes the early sweetness of Christ's flowing life-giving sap, bringing love and potential back to our lonely lives. And as we awaken, we find our struggle is the voice of our land crying for an end to its winter of discontent and suffering. For our land has forgotten He who formed it, and our lonely prayers are the first whispering dreams that call it back to the warmth of His glorious summer.

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the path that leads to life, and only a few find it. (Matthew 7 v13-14)

I start this blog with a quote from the American agrarian mystic Wendell Berry taken from his 1969 essay entitled The Native Hill.

The difference between a path and a road is not only the obvious one. A path is a little more than a habit that comes with knowledge of a place. It is a sort of ritual of familiarity. As a form, it is a form of contact with a known landscape. It is not destructive. It is the perfect adaptation, through experience and familiarity, of a movement to place; it obeys the natural contours; such as obstacles as it meets it goes around. A road, on the other hand, even the most primitive road, embodies a resistance against landscape. Its reason is not simply the necessity of movement, but haste. Its wish is to avoid contact with the landscape; it seeks so far as possible to go over the country, rather than through it... It is destructive seeking to remove or destroy all obstacles in its way.

A similar idea had occurred to me on my recent trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo as I was visiting small-scale gold mines, and Berry helped to crystallise the essential paradox of what I was experiencing in a way I could not fully grasp at the time. As we drove north from Bunia on the Mongbwalu road, we travelled on a road constructed by the infamous Anglo-gold Ashanti too facilitate their huge open cast gold mining operation. It carved it way through the landscape, bisecting entire villages, leaping over rivers and meandering its way mercilessly through the terrain, dominating everything in its way. The ride was a smooth one, yet somehow unnatural and intrusive. When we came to visit the small-scale artisanal operation we had to wander single file through Plantain fields that glided down the valley. The path itself barely perceptible. Its impact minimal, natural and strangely wholesome.

The trip became an external  metaphor for the internal challenges I face as a contemplative. There is a sense as I journey towards God I must abandon the arrogance of the concrete road and stand in simple awe of the delicate path that leads me forward. The road is an age old symbol of arrogance, the path the lightest touch on a living landscape of awe and encounter. On the path I discover the joy of travelling with the few, as the path itself cannot contain the masses you find on the road. Here there is no speed, no traffic, no noise, no congestion of the soul. Your companions become the natural contours of land and sky, sun and moon, heat and cold, light and darkness. The natural fragility of the path attracts the ancient friendship of creation. The other day as I travelled on a back lane towards my place of prayer in the Mardens I was forced to stop as three white stag deer crossed my path. On the pathway, creation steps forward as its true self, and that which is fallen must stop to share the Eden encounter.

In contrast the road stops for nothing and this was evidenced a few years ago on the road I use to get to my secluded prayer spot. A car had collided with a young deer leaving its body twisted and broken on the road side, with the offending driver having fled the tragic scene. I was grateful to the game-keeper who was able to clinically dispatch the broken beast and end its obvious suffering. That which is fallen ploughed through that which is a theophany of God in creation and the guilt of the fallen, was not the accident itself, but the arrogance of assuming that the animals life was of no moral consequence, a mere inconvenience.

The narrow path has space for myself and one or two other travel companions, the narrow door of my homecoming being sized for one entrant at a time. This mystical path is perhaps the one part of modern western life that cannot be concreted over by the road builders of commodified religion and the mega church megalomaniacs. The narrow path stands in true contrast to this mega-church construct. It speaks of uniqueness and the authenticity of the human soul in its true proportionality to the Divine God of our origin. On the path we become a peregrinus for Christ. St. Columbanus the 6th century Irish monk spoke of, 'life being the path that leads us to home'. Travel light was his injunction and don't be fooled into thinking the road is your home.

This is perhaps the most important lesson that I have been learning in recent months. The road can be deeply seductive and speaks of being served, of material comfort, material wealth, security and of emotional gratification. It can lull you into thinking that you have arrived. A little like driving on the motorway, stopping at a service station and calling it Paradise. One can only mistake a service station for Paradise if ones formative introduction to Christ is shaped through a lens of Christianity being a religion that delivers prosperity and self serving convenience. Jesus does not eat at MacDonalds.

I am slowly abandoning the road and the concrete boulevards of the false self. I am looking for a simple path, the narrow path that leads me onwards and upwards to the narrow door of my true home. This narrow path is full of new friends such as silence, stillness, and the discomfort of my own self-awakening. To contemplate Christ seems to me to be the discipline of losing yourself and the discovery of your own absence. An absence that is not self destructive, rather an absence that finally accepts a true perspective on the value of life and the part you play in it. St John of the Cross seemed to capture this journey far better than I ever will when he wrote,

I live without inhabiting

Myself - in such a wise that I

Am dying that I do not die.

Within myself I do not dwell

Since without God I cannot live.

Within the splendid magnificence that is God, I can now begin to glimpse my eternal value in the eyes of the one who holds the scales of justice in which we must all be weighed. The path of contemplation is teaching me, to travel light, so when I reach that day I arrive as the essence of me and I am found to be carrying no excess baggage.

In fact in many ways I am quite the opposite. I work from home, if earning a profit of £320 for the last tax year can equal work. I write the odd article for the jewellery trade press and have been working on a commissioned autobiography of my days with CRED Jewellery and the work done in fighting for justice through the jewellery trade. I don't travel much any more, I am content to stay at home, indulge the vain love I have for my football team and try to remind myself I am more than a work machine for the worldly system.

So why the confession? Perhaps because during my short vignette I made the statement 'that my internal journey is far more dynamic than my external one'. At the time it was a slightly off the cuff statement to a group of mainly young(ish) Christians who were aspiring to serve God in the way of social justice, experimental church communities and artistic forms of worship. And before you run away with yourself and assume I am about to launch into a diatribe against this, I am not. Quite the reverse, the enthusiasm for new expressions of faith in a volatile and insecure world, such as the one we live in, is undoubtedly important for the re-establishing of faith in a modern secular society like Britain. After all we have the freedom to do this and for us not to explore the vibrancy of the gospel and its power to change life is vital. In fact would be a crime against Heaven if we did not.

So my point in this short blog post is not to detract from this activity, rather to promote the need for encountering God in the mundane of daily obscurity. It is a lesson I have needed to learn over the last few years and will continue to learn as I grow older. The real change and most dynamic activity I can undertake is the discipline of the daily encounter with Christ. This contemplative activity is in itself a project. The project of the negation of the false self and embracing the silence. Of encountering the voice of God the Creator in the walk into town, filling the dish washer, having the ear to respond to the simple cry of help from a friend, the request for money from the beggar (that requires you notice him first), as well as the grander plans that may be on offer. This mundane discipline was not on the foundation course I took when I was first a follower of Christ and as far as I am aware is not part of the now world-famous Alpha franchise.

To be a Contemplative Activist is first and foremost to be a contemplative. To contemplate Christ is to learn to be undone, and in the undoing be discovered as I truly am and who I am truly called to be. This undoing often means facing the brutal facts of ones own failure, sins, and weaknesses. Of accepting the natural grace of God regardless of my failures. In fact I have discovered that God supports us in our sin, which may sound controversial, but is the scandalous nature of God's active grace in nurturing all of life regardless of performance. To contemplate Christ is to embrace the dynamism of the inner journey that leads to Paradise and the fulfillment of the souls primal desire for authentic union with God. This union requires two simple conditions; stillness and a silent heart. Is this not the greatest battle we face in a wild, noisy, chaotic world? To be still and silent.

In the stillness and silence we allow ourselves to be embraced by the ocean that is Gods creative person, thereby dispelling any fear we may hold that stillness leads to inactivity, or silence means be mute and losing ones voice. I confess that when I first encountered God's deep silence the fear I would lose the one commodity I seemed to have been blessed with, namely my voice, was a very real fear and one I need not have worried about. Gods activity in creation is eternally ongoing and therefore to reside within a relationship with God is therefore to reside in that ongoing creativity of Gods original voice.

The trajectory of God's love seems to send us and receive us in the same motion, and I confess living in this vital motion is not natural to me. It does require my intentional focus and the support of a nurturing set of relationships. I am glad I have travel companions on the road home and am learning this to be the communion of the Saints.

Living in limbo is vital to me now, as it has afforded me the time and space to be discovered and is proving a healthy antidote to the worlds confusion to be busy.

As many will know, we have started this monthly event in partnership with The Octagon Parish and have found a genuine hunger in people of all ages and denominational backgrounds to engage with God in the silence and stillness that is the ambient setting of St Mary's by candle light.

Everyone is welcome and if you are local look forward to seeing you there. If you are unable to join us why not spend the hour in prayer with us where you are located.

A link to a map of the location is below.

Many thanks,

Greg

http://www.octagon-parishes.org.uk/247097194194.htm

There are many markers I could reference from the last 5 years that demonstrate Gods consistent faithfulness to me, even when I have been too slow and thick to realise. Prayer walking, the discovery of bird song as the chorus of heavenly worship, moving beyond buildings and discovering that creation is the cathedral of my worship, stillness and silence and the practice of learning scripture, so one is carried by the words formed in you rather than recited in front of you, are just some of the markers on my journey. Indeed discovering that life itself is a journey and peregrination on the road that leads us home, has been a great source of comfort to me, given my continual sense of disaffection for the world and its pretenses to power and its claims of ownership over my soul. All these discoveries and more have had a profound personal impact upon me and how I see myself in the world. But they have been personal and although I am sure if I ask my wife she would say I am basically a nicer person to live with as a result, the primary beneficiary of this process has been me.

But over the last few months something has been stirring in the City of Chichester where I live. I have started to meet with other journey men and women who have been on a similar path. This pilgrimage has led all of us to discover a desire to explore a more collective approach to prayer and contemplation.

So on St Francis Day (4 October) eight of us gathered for the first time to celebrate Compline (night prayer) in a tiny 11th century chapel nestled in the South Downs. St Marys is not used for public services any more, given that the hamlet it is based in only has a few houses these days.

Although none of us really understand the nature of the journey we are on, like all travellers, we can tell you were we have come from and are sure of where we want to end up, but are often unclear as to which path to take to link the beginning and the end.We have found that our individual paths have connected and as we sat in the silence of the candle lit church, beyond the reach of roads and the general white noise of suburbia, we sensed a connection with the undertow of the Holy Spirit pulling us forward into a fresh encounter from an ancient day.

None of us know where this will lead, also none of us are interested in new models of Church or building 'a new thing' that can be commodified. What we do know is that as we grow in our personal rhythms of contemplative prayer, worship and allow this to impact the world around us, the Spirit will in time find a way of pluralising the veracity of what is happening.

I am glad that I am on a journey and that I can find comfort in the fact that others are walking with me.

Greg Valerio

Reflections

So here I am having waited! These reflections follow 400 emails to my contacts as well as personal emails to friends talking of the Retreat planned in November with friend and urban monk, Jeff Pratt. As I lay in my bath I got to wondering if it is really somewhat arrogant to take responsibility for the running of more retreats that seek to encourage others into this way of contemplative living? Is it perhaps the illumination God has provided for my walk of faith? The path God has drawn me onto to walk and fathom the ways of God, ably assisted by the Holy Spirit?

Some four years on from Katey's death I wonder if this is yet one more stage of detox from the life I once lived, remembered with fondness, yet perhaps I still seek to reactivate when time and context has truly moved on. After all, four years has passed and I still feel that not one door is opening back into the life of Christian service I once knew and loved. In spite of wide networking not a single invitation to speak, minister or join an organisation. I can say this reassuring the reader that I feel not the slightest tinge of regret about this since I know I am travelling, albeit very slowly, in God’s call and purpose. However, it is now time to move on and recognise that those years are past and I need to find a new role and means of contributing to life. God has closed the door, I must lock it and move on!

I am so comfortable living as a Contemplative yet why is it that I feel the need to communicate this to anyone else beyond myself? Surely this is my journey, my response to God. Is there any value in 'marketing' it to others? The mindset that was formed within me, and then the mindset I chose to develop through my long years in the service of the evangelical church - Youth for Christ, Spring Harvest, Evangelical Alliance and Revelation Church - is one that assumes growth, communication, the gathering of the like minded. Jesus however, issues a simple, singular invitation, 'Come. follow me'. I hear that call and respond positively.

Transition

Transition is always strange and difficult. It is the familiarity of what I knew that draws me. Yet, perhaps it is another stage of growing up. Just as leaving my childhood home so many years ago was both daunting yet exciting, the leaving of the former things to explore and find the new thing God is doing now feels much the same; a new thing around, within, to and for me, and not a ‘new thing’ for the church per se. For of course the church has a long history in contemplative activism. I have much to learn and little to teach!

This is a time to let go of familiarity and its comforts and make room for the unfamiliar, the unknown. So often my experience is of the false self seeking to craft a space for meaning - manifesting as self importance and self gratification - out of the tender shoots of fresh growth in Christ's Formation process.

It is not that I lack confidence in the potency of retreat. This is a significant part of my spiritual rhythm. Yet to assume that others from my historic circle will want to explore encountering God in this way, well that is the height of arrogance and somewhat ‘totalising’ my personal experiences.

I believe in that midnight hour God says that the way forward is to follow God's call with a singularity of commitment; to pursue the life of the ascetic regardless of anyone else’s understanding or collaboration. This is not an issue of leadership it is one of obedience. God is simply speaking clearly, 'Get over yourself and get over your history'. Transition is always strange and difficult!!

Three Questions

So, I shall leave the retreat open a and see what God does and who it is that the Lord invites. However, more significantly the decisions I have to make are threefold; Firstly, what shall I invest my time doing to provide the minimum income I need? It is time to seek some counsel about finding a remunerative job enabling me to service my bills whilst pursuing my personal contemplative journey of faith. I have no trade to fall back on and my near on forty years of Christian leadership speak more about who I have been rather than about who God is calling me to become. Like many others in these difficult economic times I must now work out how to secure regular paid employment!

Secondly, I want to serve my immediate local community and so I begin my search for the church where I now need to make my commitment. This year will be one of learning, challenging prejudice and making new friends.

Thirdly, honouring the call of God to be friar and contemplative within the Franciscan/Carmelite tradition and resisting the temptation to create something forged out of the strength of personality, charisma or personal ego damage.

Well I am grateful for the Midnight Hour - you have served me well and I have greater clarification and a sense of freedom as well as that sense of sadness at saying goodbye to a fondly remembered past, and slight foreboding in greeting an unknown and unknowable future. Lord have mercy.

Canticle

“I’m gonna wait 'til the midnight hour

That's when my love comes tumbling down

I'm gonna wait, wait 'til the midnight hour

That's when my love begins to shine, just, you and I

Oh baby just, you and I

Nobody around baby, just, you and I, alright

You know what, I'm gonna hold you in my arms

Just, you and I, oh yeah in the midnight hour

Oh baby in the midnight hour.”

As I crossed through into the Umbrian Province from Tuscany, it began to rain. Throughout the ride it had been sweltering hot, now as the heat of the day burned onto Castiglione del Lago and its water hit the Umbrian hills, my second baptism of the trip took place. Within minutes I was soaked. Twice now it had rained on me, both times as I crossed respective borders and I took this as a sign of being washed and cleansed in preparation for what was to come.

Assisi is a very comfortable Italian medieval hillside city over looking the Umbrian plains and as you approach it is quite simply beautiful. I was heading for the centre of the City and snaked up streets, populated by locals and fellow pilgrims and the general vibe was one of serenity the minute you crossed through the Gates of St Peter.

Assisi is a dangerous place, this old medieval city of cobbled roads, narrow passages and shade and light draws you into its heart with stealth and conviction. I move through its history, walking in the footsteps of Francis, Clare, Bernardo and the many thousands whose call to poverty became such a powerful witness to the purity and essence of the living God. This move towards simplicity and the embracing of creation seems on reflection to act as a purifying agent, a fire that purges and exposes true motives and intent, whether in the individual or in the society of which you are a part. It has remained a constant truth on my journey with God that the draw to the imitation of Christ through a 'de-materialised' and stripped back faith is the closest I can find to the authentic witness of Christ crucified.

Assisi gave me the time to reflect on my contemplative journey and the profound shift that has taken place in my spiritual practice. Union with God is now my motivator, too ascend the mountain and commune, dwell, behold, be known by God and too know I am known. This mountain well is the daily invitation of the Spirit to drink with an open hand and to drink from deeper pools to find Gods pure source of being. The more I drink the more I am exposed to myself and the contrary motives that drive my life. Those deep addictions that mask my true self. I find myself confessing in St Clare's church every morning 'I am a hypocrite'. Job understood this all to well, 'The Light is very near the darkness' (Job 17 v12).

Discovering personal hypocrisy is one of the first steps we take on the road of contemplation. That call towards God requires daily honesty and examination of self in a spirit of gentleness and grace. I find myself more drawn and subsumed into the mysteries of God than ever before. I recall a line from a prayer I wrote at Church Norton, near Selsey on our first Celtic Easter celebration in 2008, calling for 'mystery over certainty' and perhaps now I am beginning to live in the consequences of pray answered.

Assisi is a constant reminder of the power of total surrender to love. The atmosphere is pregnant with prayer. Prayer born in an attitude of surrender to the love of God. The love that defies definition or comprehension. God can be no other than Gods eternal self and if I am to abide in Gods love then I too must be no other than my eternal self to the fullest extent possible. This I am clear now can only take place in the context surrender. Each morning I find myself meditating on the vital motion towards surrender and understanding that this vital motion has a name; renunciation. If I renounce the world as the Apostle John instructs me to do (John 15 v18-19), I renounce the primal compunctions that drive life away from God; like materialism, self-aggrandisement, the power to rule, violence and revenge. I renounce the tiny seeds that each day seek to germinate in my soul the primal rebellion of Paradise; that of putting myself first. This seems to be the thrust of what Matthew was teaching in his Gospel. If I look at a woman lustfully I have put my satisfaction ahead of another, if I place my material comfort before the needs of the poor I have chosen to deny the poor their right to justice, if I harbour hate and vengeance in my heart, the seeds of murder are sown. Removing the seeds of the world and their daily challenges are the stumbling steps I take towards God.

I understand Francis better now. His choice of renouncing the world and embracing the mystery of God through contemplation was not some romantic gesture rooted in medieval naivety and pre-scientific ignorance. It was the steps of a man into the primal simplicity of God and the source of all life. The unintended consequence of this movement was akin to the throwing of a mountain into the pond of the world and calling out its true deception.

My friends for the journey, Columbanus and Francis, are exemplars who have travelled this road of contemplation and transformation and completed the journey. They are the pioneers of normal Christianity. I have been convicted of my own hubris in encountering them. The radical Christ is someone I have discovered is a creation of my own vanity. My own self projection of needing meaning in a mediocre pallid world. I need Christ to be radical, because I need to be seen as radical in my own eyes. But I am increasingly asking, radical for whom and in the face of what? For the followers of Christ the world is an illusionary benchmark and has nothing to offer us. The Father is our benchmark for progress and to move towards the Father of all light is not radical or ground breaking it is normal. This simple act of orientating myself towards God is an act of surrender, conformity, humility, imitation, denial. This is the normal path and it is here that friends like Columbanus and Francis help me. They have walked the road before me and have left markers in the ground that I can follow. They cannot walk the road for me for their journey is complete, but as prior pilgrims I can learn from them and hopefully meet up with them at the final destination.

Finding God in tempestuous times and challenging circumstances can prove difficult.

I remember a family holiday at the tender age of 15 when I caused some distress to both myself and my family. We were on the south coast when I decided to hire a rowing boat. Coming from London I had no boating knowledge, but always loved the sea and thought what fun it would be to row out a little. There was no difficulty hiring the boat and no questions asked concerning my competence or otherwise.

So I set out and rowed away from the shore. Within thirty minutes the pier was but a distant speck. My vigorous rowing, assisted by a strong current, had carried me well out to sea. As I realised my predicament I was overcome with emotions of loneliness, loss and fear - in equal measure. These must have been some of Peter’s emotions as he found himself fishing with his friends after Jesus’ death, processing his thoughts following his public denial of Jesus, the last interaction the two men had.

We read in John’s gospel, ‘Jesus was standing on the beach but the disciples didn’t recognise him’. One reason may well have been that they were not expecting to meet Jesus there. So often we can miss meeting and spending time with God because we’re not anticipating such a meeting. Yet God is everywhere, all the time.

We also all know what it feels like to be alone, somewhat lost and fearful. Life is challenging, not always kind to us. At such times God can seem so distant it’s as if he doesn’t care. This can create feelings of anger, frustration or hurt within us. Yet God has experienced being alone. Wrestling in solitary prayer in Gethsemane, then deserted by his closest friends and abandoned by God the Father as he hung and died upon a crude wooden cross on Golgotha.

Yet as Jesus wrestled with his own sense of loneliness, loss and fearfulness he reached out to his Father and said the simple words of humble acknowledgement, ‘Not my will, but yours be done’.

However, Peter and friends fail to recognise Jesus’ voice when he first speaks, ‘Did you catch anything for breakfast?’ Eventually John identifies Jesus and the impetuous Peter - don’t you just love him - grabbed some clothes and leapt into the sea to swim ashore. A fishing expedition that had started in pain and sorrow to process his emotional isolation, ended with recognition of the Lord he loved.(3:11).

Often the noise created by our personal circumstances can drown out all voices but our own. Jesus may be calling yet our current fishing expedition requires all our concentration. Whilst the wind carries away the softly spoken words of greeting from our Lord.

In whatever our circumstances today let's take a moment to respond to Jesus’ greeting and lay before him a specific concern. It is in our heart - no need to name it. Rather let’s open our hands, palms upwards and slowly lift them up to God and hand it to him. Remember we are responding to God’s invitation; lets Stop and take a minute to know God.

Amen. Oh, by the way I got back to shore in my little boat - at 7:00 PM having set out at 2:00 PM! The boatman had seen me drifting off out to sea, but I had failed to hear his voice as I wrestled with the oars.

Initially I found challenges with moving from what I called 'spontaneous prayer' to a pattern that appeared to repeat the same phrases and routine morning and evening every day. I discovered that there are clear and very positive reasons for adopting this approach to prayer. Scripture reminds us to pray without ceasing, and one of the problems we all find is making the time and generating the motivation. Obviously we all send arrow prayers throughout our day, yet I think the scripture is calling us to a different approach. The Offices prayed Morning and Evening at the very minimum join my voice to the voices of others praying these offices around the globe. My voice, therefore, joins a ceaseless global choir 24/7, 365 days a year.

Motivation has historically been my major problem. I prayed some times and not at others, with no discipline to my approach to God. It was as if I so took God for granted that it was OK for me to show up just whenever I felt like it. Somewhat disrespectful treatment of the Creator of all. With the Office, I may not 'feel' enthused every time I pray it, yet I am engaging with God in a clear and precise way.

The Office is also built around scripture, the Canticles and many other parts ARE direct quotes from the Bible. I also follow the Lectionary and so consistently explore the God of the scriptures in a coherent and appropriate manner. Certainly when I was 'spontaneous' in my approach, there were large chunks of time when I failed to open the scripture at all, and when I did there was little coherence to my reading. If you struggle, like me, with finding a suitable Lectionary you can have one emailed to your tablet or phone daily. Check that out for convenience!

Here on the South Coast in St Francis Friary, the Morning and Evening office is read everyday - I've not quite got the courage to chant it as yet, though contemplating it - and as the Friary opens its doors and expands its ministry offering days of prayer, retreats and the like, I am praying that these times become moments when others might join and participate. The Office is always enriched when prayed by a group.

The Office we use in the Friary is that of the Society of St Francis, relatively easy to use and enriching in a variety of ways. MY concern is that in surveys it is always shown that prayer is something people struggle with. Yet without prayer we fail to find the space to draw near to God, and therefore God cannot draw near to us. Gazing out over a society in freefall in every sphere, might we conclude that a lack of maturing prayer across the church is in part to blame? This UK church that was invigorated by significant growth through the 1970s and 1980s has perhaps taken prayer too lightly and has in real terms made little impact on the shape of society or in offering a transformational vision to a rising generation. Those of us committed to such a resurgence of God's spirit across these Islands are returning to prayer, a disciplined and regular prayer, as a priority. Please join in. Further information available and your questions answered micha@the-contemplative.com.

Lord have mercy

Christ have mercy

Lord have mercy

As soon as arrive in Newhaven I know something is wrong. There is no ferry, no cars, no people, nothing. I check my ticket to discover 'numpty head' (that is me for the non-english) has booked his ticket in reverse. I am booked on the 6am ferry from Dieppe France to Newhaven. Once I sort my ticket out, I have a few hours to kill before the midday ferry so I wonder down to the beach.

The quintessentially English Newhaven pebble beach neighbours a still becalmed English channel. Flashing silver Mackerel are leaping in the early sun and behind me in the white chalk cliffs, doves are trilling and intoning low songs, the perfect accompaniment to my morning office of Psalm 63 and Daniel 3.

The road to Bobbio.

I have wanted to visit Bobbio for years. The final resting place of St Columbanus the famous Irish missionary of the late 6 and 7 centuries, he founded his final monastery at Bobbio in circa 611. It seemed a fitting location to overnight as many Franciscan scholars believe that St Francis spent time in his early years at the monastery in Bobbio. I have always been intrigued by the similarities between the Celtic and Franciscan charism. The eremitical contemplative spirituality beautifully balanced with missionary zeal, the establishment of praying focused communities and their closeness to nature.

Riding through France was glorious; warm sunshine, open roads, miles of sunflower fields, the lush Loire Valley, past Taize and into the Alps speeding towards Mont Blanc. Snaking up the Mont Blanc pass towards the tunnel it began to rain, a symbolic baptism preparing me for the encounter with Columbanus the following morning.

For a road is to be walked on and not lived on, so that they who walk upon it may dwell finally in the land that is their home. St Columbanus, Sermon v

It seemed natural to encounter the great Peregrinus of the Celtic Church so far from his beloved Ireland. His shrine was in the crypt of the the Basilica named after him and stepping down the few flights of stairs I saw the simple tomb, softly lit by candles and I felt a huge surge of emotion and connection, a feeling of being discovered by a friend again whom you have not seen for many years. These mystical encounters defy language and transcend emotion. I had walked into a thin place, pregnant with potential that was not of my making. I knew I was on holy ground and holiness demands silence of those who would stand in its presence. You walk softly, but without fear, your words are few but chosen carefully as though there are a thousand ears listening, counting, weighing up the veracity of your heart and ensuring there is no vanity in your speech. A divine screening system whose purpose is to keep you honest in your prayerful discourse.

I had taken in a few of St Columban's sermons that he had written in the last years of his life in Bobbio. Reciting them out loud brought the words to transcendent sharpness. I could hear the old mans voice, deep and lyrical, strong and clear, encouraging me to disavow a world so encumbered with material things, so burdened with false responsibility and so disjointed from its original condition of grace. The simple truths of normal discipleship, to love God with all your heart, renounce the world and to enter into the solitude of the beloved's desire to be fully known. He, like the St Francis I would encounter later that week, prayed 'wound our souls with your love'.

For two hours I sat, contemplating Christ, sometimes in silence, other times conversing with St Columbanus and musing over the state of the British Church. I cannot confess to have had any grand words of wisdom or insight on the state of the British church scene, but I was deeply struck by the essential simplicity of the Celtic Abbots spirituality and I found myself weeping tears of gratitude for the exemplary nature of his faith. Equally I had to accept my anger at the sense of loss we in Britain have suffered through allowing the fire of men like Columbanus to die out. That dynamic spirituality, now commonly called Celtic, that found in ascetic practice, contemplative prayer, communal practice and creational encounter a fire that I have often likened to the coal from the throne of heaven that touched the lips of Isaiah. In our post Christian UK landscape how we need to rediscover ancient fires like these.

My peace was broken by a bus load of tourists who arrived with flashing camera's and cans of Coke. Time to leave and head towards Assisi...

Greg Valerio - also blogged at Chasing Columba