Blessed - Address for Ho Wai-On's Memorial Service

Here's the address that I shared during Tuesday's Memorial Service for Ho Wai-On:

The teaching Jesus gives us in the Sermon on the Mount, of which the Beatitudes is part, is based on lessons drawn from his understanding of nature and creation. He looks at the cycle of existence – the circle of life - which enables all creatures to live and flourish in their way and time. We only need look at Wai-On’s music videos to see that she shared this understanding. We began our service observing the antics of a duck as we listened to ‘The Waves’ performed by her good friend Albert Tang. ‘Three Times No Less’ featured images of beautiful lotuses from Canton. Although longer pieces, we could also have included ‘Swan Beauty’ or ‘Fly Wild’, the latter incorporating images from Martin Singleton.

Jesus uses birds as a specific example in the Sermon on the Mount, possibly because they would have been prolific and yet are not reliant on human beings for their survival. The birds don’t do any of the things that human beings do to provide food for themselves – they “do not sow seeds, gather a harvest and put it in barns” – yet, in the circle of life there is a sufficiency of the food that they need in order to survive. In this way, Jesus says, we see that God the Father is taking care of them.

For Jesus, God’s provision for the birds is a sign of the worth that he sees in his creation as a whole and in each specific part. Just as the creation as a whole is “good,” so are the birds which are found within it. If that is true of birds, then is it not also true of human beings? “Aren’t you worth much more than birds?” Jesus asks. Wai-On showed that same sense of value to a woman she sought to comfort as described in a piece we will listen to later entitled ‘You Are Not Alone’.

In one of the Eucharistic Prayers that is said when the elements of Communion are consecrated, we read that in the fullness of time God made us in his image, the crown of all creation. That gives us incredible worth and value, in and of ourselves and regardless of how we feel about ourselves. Our unique position in creation - being conscious creators – speaks clearly to us of this incredible privilege of having been made in the image of God. To what extent do we appreciate this reality? Often, we can be so caught up in the busyness of daily life that we do not stop to reflect on the wonder of existence and our existence. Stop for a moment to think about the incredible complexity of our physical bodies and of our conscious existence. Wai-On clearly stopped in this way in order to create her compositions and the videos that accompany them.

Stop for a moment and think about the incredible achievements of the human race – the great art we have created, amazing technological developments and inventions, the cities we have built, the scientific and medical advancements we have seen, the depths of compassion and sacrifice which have been plumbed by the great saints in our history. Stop for a moment to think about the amazing music and wonderful videos that Wai-On created. While we are also well aware of the darker forces at work in human beings, our positive abilities and achievements reveal the reality of our creation as beings that resemble God in his creative power and energy. We can and should celebrate this reality – realising the worth that God sees in us – at the same time as giving thanks to our God for creating us in this way.

Isn’t life worth more than food and isn’t the body worth more than clothes, Jesus asks us. Often we can be so caught up in the busyness of daily life that we do not realise the wonder of our existence and do not realise all that we could achieve if we were to use our abilities and creativity more fully in his service. “We were meant to live for so much more” is how the rock band Switchfoot put it. Jesus challenges us to be concerned with more than the worries of daily life, to be “concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what he [God] requires of you.” Stop for a moment and think of the unique way in which you have been created by God – the unique combination of personality and talents with which you have been blessed – and ask yourself how these things could more fully be used for the building up of the Kingdom of God on earth, as in heaven, just as Wai-On made full use of the talents with which she had been blessed.

Stop for a moment and think about the Kingdom of God as described in the Beatitudes with which Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount. The Kingdom of God is a place of happiness for those who know they are spiritually poor, a place of comfort for those who mourn, a place of receptivity for those who are humble, a place of satisfaction for those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires, a place of mercy for those who are merciful, a place in which God is seen by the pure in heart, a place in which those who work for peace are called God’s children, and a place which belongs to those who are persecuted because they do what God requires. What might God be calling us to do for him to bring the Kingdom of God to others? Wai-On chose to bring that Kingdom to others through music and imagery.

Jesus argues that the goodness and worth of all created things can be seen in the way that creation provides all that is needed for creatures and plants to live and thrive. Our worth is greater still because we are made in the very image of God having power over creation and innate creative abilities ourselves. It is incumbent on us then to use the power we possess for the good of others and for the good of creation itself. Bringing happiness, satisfaction and belonging by giving comfort, practicing humility, sharing mercy and working for peace are all powerful ways of tending and guarding creation and building the Kingdom of God on earth, as in heaven. Stop for a moment to recognise the something more for which we are meant to live. Dedicate your life to be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what God requires of you. Then you will know blessing, as Wai-On also did.

To view the Memorial Service see here. For more on Wai-On's exhibition 'From Hong Kong to Wickford' see here and here.

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Ho Wai-On - The Waves.

Lent: A course in Christian meditation

Here's the sermon I have shared at St Andrew's Wickford and St Mary's Runwell today as part of our Ash Wednesday Eucharist's with the Imposition of Ashes:

When Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York, was a parish priest in Huddersfield, a friend of his, who was involved in Adult Education, told him that a course on Zen Buddhist meditation could have been filled three times over and asked why the church was not running a course on Christian meditation.

Archbishop Stephen later moved to a role at the Cathedral in Peterborough and when he told this story there, the Head of Adult Education asked him to run a course on Christian meditation as part of the Adult Education programme. He did, and the course filled up with a mix of those who were already Christians and those who would describe themselves are ‘searchers’.

This experience confirmed his belief that, with the right kind of introduction, many people are open to the riches of Christian spirituality. What better time than Lent for exploring some of that tradition? Lent is a time for going deeper with God; for going deeper into our faith and the riches of its tradition, particularly in terms of prayer.

This Lent we are essentially going to run a course on Christian meditation through our Lent Course ‘Ways to Pray’. Our five-week course explores some different ways of praying: Being Still with God, Prayer Through the Day, Using the Imagination, Multi-sensory prayer, Using Art and Images. The course gives some ideas on aspects of the Church’s tradition and practice that we could explore this Lent, as part of going deeper into God through prayer. Our Quiet Day, here at St Mary’s, on 4 March will also do more of the same. Here are some others ideas and resources too …

The Desert Fathers and Mothers were hermits, monks and nuns who lived mainly in the Scetes desert of Egypt beginning around the third century AD. These informal gatherings of hermit monks and nuns became the model for Christian monasticism. Many of the wise words and teachings of these early desert monks and nuns were collected and are still in print as the ‘Sayings of the Desert Fathers.’

One such saying has a significant overlap with today’s Gospel reading: ‘Stay in your cell. Your cell will teach you everything.’ The idea being that being in conversation with God through prayer will teach us everything we need to know. For this reason, when he was once interviewed by Radio 4 and was asked which wilderness would he go to for Lent if he could be taken anywhere in world, Archbishop Stephen replied that he would stay in his own living room. The location for our prayer is not the main point (although quiet and privacy can help); instead, the point is the quality and depth of our prayer.

Having said that, the Celtic Church has given us a model for the precise opposite; integrating prayer into our daily lives. Celtic Christians had a sense of the heavenly being found in the earthly, particularly in the ordinary tasks of home and work, which can blessed if we see God in our tasks and undertake our tasks as an act of worship to God.

This tradition was particularly strong in Gaelic countries and in the late 19th century Alexander Carmichael collected a number of the prayers and poems together in a book called the ‘Carmina Gadelica’ which ‘abounds with prayers invoking God’s blessing on such routine daily tasks as lighting the fire, milking the cow and preparing for bed.’ In more recent years, equivalent contemporary prayers have been written covering every aspect of daily life from turning on a computer to attending meetings, driving a car, stopping for a lunchbreak, and so on.

Some of the most visionary and passionate prayer in the history of the Church derived from the renewal of the Carmelite Order undertaken by St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross. Through quiet prayer, resting in contemplation of God which involved forgetting all earthly things, these attained occasionally prayers of union in which their whole being was absorbed in God.

They frequently described these experiences in terms of the union of lovers in marriage. St John, in particular, described in great poetry the experience of feeling abandoned by God which he described as the dark night of the soul. Their writings can help us understand those times when we feel God is very distant from us as well as those times when we feel an intimate closeness.

St Ignatius of Loyola devised a series of prayer exercises which many have found particularly helpful in the development of their prayer life. The Examen is a daily process for reflecting on the events of the day in order to detect God’s presence and discern his direction for us. The Examen begins with prayer for light then continues through thanksgiving, reviewing our feelings and focus before concluding with future appointments and the Lord’s Prayer.

Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises are a compilation of meditations, prayers and contemplative practices developed to help people deepen their relationship with God. These are divided into four weeks; not seven-day weeks but stages on our spiritual journey. Week 1 involves reflection on our lives in light of God’s boundless love for us. Week 2 involves imagining ourselves as Christ’s disciples as we reflect on the Gospel stories. Week 3 is meditation on the Last Supper, Christ’s passion and death, while Week 4 is meditation on the resurrection.

These are just some of the resources for prayer which can be found in the Christian tradition (some of which we explore in our Lent Course) and which are available to all of us as we seek to go deeper into God this Lent. These resources can be found in books, through retreats, and by using online meditations. It is possible to travel to centres of prayer or to the world’s deserts and wildernesses in order to learn to pray in some of these ways. But we don’t have to! Like Archbishop Stephen, we could take to heart the teachings of the Desert Fathers to stay in our cell and our cell will teach us everything. Our cell can be our own front room. If we use it for committed, regular prayer this Lent then like the saints, monks and mystics about whom we have thought, we can go deeper into God.

Jesus said: ‘… go to your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you.’

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Iona - Today.