In A Dream

                                                 Josephs Dream -  Gaetano Gandolfi

Matthew 1:18-25

When the unthinkable occurs we may find our selves operating in a daze, a dreamlike state where no thing feels real and everything seems a mirage. How did this happen? What does it mean? What do I do now? How am I going to cope with this and the fallout from this situation? We can lose touch with the world we live in and become bambozzzled by anxiety, frustration and stress.

Joseph is just a man. Mary is just a woman. Two material beings plunged into the unreal world of an unwanted child in a time when for this to occur was an outrage. How do you handle not only the possibility of a child but the tragic consequences which was the normal response to such an event? In Matthews retelling of the story agency is given, not to Mary but to Joseph to steer his little family through the crisis.

Joseph was a good man. Mary was a good woman. According to Matthew they hadn’t lived together, they had followed the rules yet, somehow, there was a child on the way. So what to do?

In spiritual matters angels, sleep and dreams play a significant role in discernment and direction. Mary was informed by an angel about what was to occur and Joseph has an encounter with an angel while asleep and dreaming.

Angels have a history. They are the messengers of God, sometimes even, they are the Godhead itself. The Old Testament are full of such stories. They bring a message, interpret a situation and provide direction for the confused and bewildered followers attempting to live out their faith in a material world.

It is no surprise that these encounters occur when one is asleep. They rarely occur when one’s fully awake and engaged in the busyness of life. When we are distracted by our ego self we can fail to see the messenger standing right in front of us. When we are dealing with a disturbing situation, when someone is confronting us or we have been so unbalanced by an event, it is all we can do to defend ourselves in an attempt to stay upright, let alone see the angel present in the situation.

Being asleep is when we allow our subconscious the opportunity to process the events we are working through and to provide us guidance and direction. Sleep is that time when our brain takes the time to recalibrate itself and to put into order the chaos of our days. We miss things when we are awake and busy. We are so focussed on any number of things at the one time that what can be a key element simply isn’t connected with and miss the obvious. Asleep our brain cleans up and puts things together.

One of the things we need to do with computers is to defrag our system, this simply means defragmenting that part of our computer which stores data. A defrag simply puts things back in the right place so what was possibly lost in another place is restored to where it should be. Sleep is the time our brain defrags its storage system and returns things to its proper place.

No wonder one of the wisest pieces of advice is to sleep on it. It does work miracles. In the morning things look different and what seemed impossible before is now so obvious you can’t believe you were so anxious about it.

Dreaming is one of the tools our brain uses to review the day. Sometimes it is a realistic dream, sometimes it is symbolic and metaphorical and may take a little time to unpack, but this parallel world is seen by the ancient worlds as vital to discernment and wisdom. Again being a sleep and entering into a dreamlike world we are open to the present of others, known and unknown because we are no longer relying on our ego for direction.

My father spoke often of his spirit friend who would visit him at night and sit on the edge of the bed. They seemed to have discussed many things and the visitation was real and valuable to my father. He relied on this visitor for advice and direction. It was no doubt a dream like event but it was real, not imagined, for him.

Joseph’s dream like experience is a way of describing the process he went through to make sense of the impossible situation he found himself in. What he had decided to do and how he decided to do it reflect the importance of the event. He wasn’t making a decision on his own. A supernatural experience require(d) supernatural guidance. Being still and silent, asleep, he was able to hear what was there and what he needed to do.

Here we return to the idea of waiting in stillness we discussed last Sunday. There is no panicked running around trying to solve it. It happens in the stillness of waiting, in this case while he is asleep. When we enter into liturgy and the spiritual life we enter into a place of waiting in stillness. Of letting go of ego and allowing what is to come to come, what is to be to be and what we need to discover to appear. This is not simply a passive stillness or waiting but a waiting to see, to see what is to be and how I am to respond.

Joseph responds very differently to what he would have been expected to respond. He didn’t call off the betrothment, he didn’t abandon Mary, he didn’t go away in shame. He was able to discern that something very special was present and he was to take the uncomfortable journey with Mary. He did so because he acknowledged the inner wisdom present in his inner being. He recognised the fingerprint of God and was prepared to go where logic and local law said not to go. He, the ordinary man and Mary the ordinary woman became extraordinary, making it possible for the intersection of the divine and the human, of the perfect and the imperfect, of the infallible and the fallible.

He and Mary made it possible for God to walk among us in the shape of Jesus of Nazareth and experience the enigma that is being human so that humans can aspire to be like God in their relations with one another.

The challenge for you and I is to find the space to be still and wait for the visitation of wisdom. It can happen anywhere and does, indeed happen in our dreams, while we are asleep. But it can also happen, far less dramatically as we sit in the spaces within our liturgy, in the moments before church and the moments after communion. It simply requires us to be still, to wait and to be open to the possibility. Lets try it now. 

Liturgical Waiting

Matthew 11:2-11

²When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples ³and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” ⁴Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: ⁵the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. ⁶And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.”

 

 

As a child I helped my father on the farm. One of my favourite activities was moving sheep from paddock to paddock. Just the old dog, me and 500 hundred sheep. A great time of reflection, day dreaming and slowness that counteracted the busyness of the school week. It was life in the slow lane.

 

My father had set a standard of slowness. If the dust was raised behind the mob you were moving to fast. Slowness necessitated stillness and the inevitable waiting for the mob to graze and move at their own pace. It wasn’t a life of linear progress or rushing to get this done so you could go and do something else. This was all you had to do and it would come to an end when the end came. Any sign of dust indicated anxiety to be somewhere else with something else and not right where you were. This is a waiting to move on.

 

John the Baptist exhibits this last type of waiting in our Gospel reading today. Are you the one we were waiting for or do we have to wait some more? His question is full of anxiety, frustration and impatience. If this is not it, then we have to hurry up and wait for some more. And what are we waiting for?

 

Jesus replies, wait and see. Stop being anxious and looking for something else; stop being anxious and wanting to be somewhere else; stop being anxious and looking in a linear fashion. Look around you and see what is already here, what is already happening and what you are already in touch with. Yes, you have to wait, but the waiting is to see what is already here, mot waiting for another person, idea, experience or event. The kingdom of God has come near and is here. Wait and see.

 

One of the gifts of being an artist is this waiting to see. Walking home from taking may car to the garage for repairs I wandered slowly back along streets near here and was gobsmacked by what I saw. Melbourne in the morning is a place of great light and I discovered beautiful trees, amazing garden scapes and intriguing little finches buzzing around and was made aware, once again, that the Spirit of God is alive in Glen Iris. We simply have to wait and see.

 

We are often to anxious to move on, shift our seeing, all our senses without allowing ourselves to settle into what we see, feel, hear and sense. We pass a cursory glance across our world and those we share it with and move on, looking for something we already have.

 

We are like John, neurotically looking for that definitive moment to complete our hopes and our dreams.

 

It is a challenge to the church to stop our rushing to succeed and to simply wait as the Bride of Christ and be aware the marriage is alive and active now.  In our Sunday liturgy we are called to let go of our anxious searching and engage in a waiting, a stillness, a welcoming presence open to the Spirit’s embrace. Yet it seems we want to rush through the formalities of worship to get on with our busy lives. We give an hour or so and that is all. We have family commitments, morning tea to run, lunch to serve and a busy week ahead and our minds flit back and forward between these competing anxieties and we struggle to be present here, now in a waiting stillness feeding our soul.

 

The liturgy has been skilfully constructed to give us time out from the busyness of life, although we often do our best to make it as busy as possible. Liturgy is a work in waiting and stillness. It is the process of stopping, of letting go and of being available to wait with what is happening for us in that moment. As Jesus says to John, wait with what is happening and allow your self to hear what the spirit is saying to the church.  We can’t do that if we are anxious to move quickly and efficiently through the various sections of the service.

 

The creed isn’t a linear race we have to finish in so many seconds, neither are the Psalms. They have been devised in stanzas allowing us space to sit with what has come before and wait for what is coming next. The are many places of waiting in our service and it is through these spaces that we begin to unload the baggage we bring with us and unhook ourselves from the need to get a to a defined outcome – usually morning tea!

 

John wanted a definitive answer. Jesus said sit with what is already here and make sense of that. Take time to process and unpack your life and your experience and recognise the depth of that experience. Do not be in a hurry to chase after some golden thread of idealised promise. What is, is. Wait with it and allow it to speak.

 

Our liturgy is a rich treasure of stillness and waiting. Our 21^st century sensibilities finds it difficult to sit with empty space – be it on a wall, in our garden or in our worship, yet it is in this waiting space we discover truth. As you have noticed already this morning we have instituted longer spaces, slower movement and a little less urgency in our service. This will become a pattern which I hope will be helpful.

 

I encourage you to enter the church with quiet waiting as your intention. Using this space before the service as a time for sitting in the place of no-thing doing, allowing your presence to deepen and lengthen ready for the liturgy to come. There is time after church to meet and greet, to chat and swap stories and to share aches and pains. Prior to and during the greeting of peace let us find our centre and be still and know that God is God; that we are more than our anxieties and this is a safe sanctuary for being at rest.

 

Finally I would say, as we begin to explore our liturgy and the treasure it holds, to be still, very, very still, and above all else do not wobble! Waiting without anxiety will open up the vista of the treasures we already have and allow us to avoid repeating Johns frustrations.

 

Let us be still. 

And Jesus Stood Still

(Mark 10:46-52) How difficult it is for modern humans to be still! When was the last time you were really still? I don’t mean physically still but still at the centre of your being, deep down at ease with nothingness; a little while ago, a long time ago or never?

 

Riding the train into Melbourne I watched as people sat still, most not talking, most seemingly at rest. Yet this was not the case. Most had the white cords of distraction in their ears, were fiddling with the mobile communication device in their hands and sitting looking down in what appeared to be a permanent hunch, rarely were they in conversation, looking out the window or just sitting without doing anything.

 

When I got to Synod, Cheryl commented on the number of people whose heads were down, a soft blue glow lighting their faces as they stared at their mobile communication devices, reading messages, posting to their Facebook page or, heaven forbid, playing games. The gentleman across the aisle from me sent and received emails all the way through the Eucharist service, automatically responding on cue to the responses in the service!

 

I have written a small book on the experience of leading the students from Lindisfarne on 3-day silent retreats. I spoke to the publisher to see what they thought. The publishers representative said she had read it and it was excellent, but it won’t sell. I asked why? She said the idea of taking middle school students on 3-day retreats is to challenging and frightens people (adults, teachers, clergy).

 

It is sad that that seems to be so.

 

Brett Esaki in his article, ‘Desperately Seeking Silence” suggests that silence is the youth cultures unmet need.  And I would add, society at larges unmet need. He would say that those who wear the white cords in their ears do so to blanket out the noise of the world and to be alone with themselves. The music that they hear becomes a wall protecting them from the sounds of a world which is challenging, frightening and just a little bit foreign. My discussions with teenagers confirms this as the practice of young people in particular, all people in general.

 

Esaki suggests that ‘silence is the space and time to listen, where to listen is to learn, to allow one’s consciousness to transform, or to absorb.’ Silence responds to sound, it is not the absence of sound. Sound creates the environment in which silence can grow and become. Being still in the midst of noise gives permission for us to unshackle ourselves from the noise and note the learning, the message, the insight or reflections present in us and in the world.

 "The day Jesus came to Jericho Bartimaeus was sitting and waiting. All the longing in his heart cried out, and though the disciples couldn’t see past his blind eyes and his beggar’s cup, Jesus heard what was in his heart, stood still and responded.” (With apologies to Nancy Rockwell)

Jesus encounters Bartimeaus in the midst of noise. If we close our eyes and imagine the scene on the road we may imagine Jesus is moving along in the company of some or all of his disciples. They are walking along a busy road on the outskirts of town, a place where you would typically encounter beggars who were seeking support. Not much good sitting on a back road. No traffic. There would have been  any number of beggars on the road into town – the blind, the crippled, lepers, the sick and more.

 

Jesus would have attracted those who were seeking miracles, others watching out for anything sensational and newsworthy, and others wanting to catch him out. It would have been place full of the hustle and bustle of celebrity and the chaos of ordinary folk seeking extraordinary treatment. In the midst of this we encounter the power of stillness.

 

Bartimeaus is sitting still on the side of the road. His blindness makes it almost impossible for him to move without help. To move anywhere requires another to make it possible. After being escorted to his place by the side of the road, he sits. He hears the noise and attempts to sift out the message, the story the sounds tell him about what is happening on the road. Only then does he call out and not before. He calls out of his stillness and silence. It is this place of repose that informs and allows him to encounter with what is going on. He is not distracted by the noise, but is able to discern what is occurring in the noise and make contact with Jesus.

 

Jesus is surrounded by the noise. It is everywhere, people clamouring for his attention and response. But Jesus is so practised in silence and stillness, he takes this with him into every encounter. The Gospels are replete with stories of Jesus retreating into silence, stillness and isolation. He encourages his disciples again and again to follow his example. Silence and stillness are the central spiritual practices of Jesus, and because they are, they define his life in engagement with others.

 

Here he discerns the authentic voice amongst many and ‘stands still’. He does not move toward action, he doesn’t rush to see how he can solve this persons problem, he stands still. In the stillness he calls to the authentic voice who responds and makes his way to Jesus. Jesus avoids the tendency to rush in where angels fear to tread. He stands still, waits, affirms, calls and is responded to. Bartimeaus has so honed his awareness through the many years of sitting and listen that he too can hear the authentic response. They meet and Bartimeaus finds his need met.

 

This afternoon we have Shush Church and on November 7^th we have a silent retreat. I would suppose that these can be seen as challenging activities for those who have not had previous experience of such and wonder what is expected of me if I come along and take part?

 

Silence and stillness are to be practiced with out expectation. Mostly nothing happens. Sometimes something happens. And then nothing happens. It is a place of training where we simply sit with ourselves, being aware of what is or is not happening within us without trying to make something happen with in us. It is about coming into peace with ourselves, recognising the noise that is there and sitting with it so as to hear the authentic voice and response.

 

Silence and stillness is scary because we are in fact letting go of distractions and excuses and becoming open to what is really happening within us. Distractions like loneliness, anger, busyness, gossip, others and their opinions, children and grandchildren disappear as we begin to be comfortable to be with ourselves.

 

It is and does take practice before it becomes our practice. Jesus knew the power of the Psalmist’s plea, “Be still and know I am God” and the Zen koan of  “Be still, be very, very still, and above all else do not wobble”

 

I would encourage each of you to attend this afternoon or to join us at the next silent retreat. They are good places to start. Amen. 

Dealing with Difficult People

I noticed the following topic on a conference agenda, 'How to deal with difficult people' and it got me thinking, what if the difficult person is you?

It seems to me that I am the most difficult person I have to deal with. Whenever I find myself in conflict with others and take the time to be still and reflect, I usually discover that I have had more to do with creating the problem than I would care to admit publicly.

You see we spend a lifetime creating our image and story and because that is the case, we believe it to be infallibly true. So, whenever something happens to challenge that sory we resort to attack as the best form of defence, blaming others or anything but ourselves.

Yet, I fear that we fib to ourselves quite a lot, and we spend a lot of time in that Egytian river, denial. If we could but be honest with ourselves we would discover that we are high maintenance and needy, so much so that we use others to fulfil our needs, evenif we do so in a nice way. It takes a lot of courage to face ourselves and commit to deconstructing the story we have taken a lifetime to build aand begn to buld again.

But that is the core of our journey in life, being brave enough to face the most difficult person in our life, ourselves, and having the courage to renew ourselves each time it happens.

Too Busy To Be Still

2011 is fast passing us by - term 2 is almost over and the mid-year break here. Where has the year gone? I look at this blog and realise that Father Glenn has been a little slack – there seems always to be too much to do. The only comfort I have is that all around me seems to be just as busy.

I have vague memories of the promise of new technology to free us from all the mundane little things which clogged up our lives and it would provide us with so much free time we would not now how to fill in our days. What happened? With all the technological gadgets and the amazing range of options and choices we rarely find a few moments just to stop and reflect.

When do we actually breathe slowly, not frantically as we dash from one event, one chore, one activity to another? When do simply sit without checking our emails, Facebook or the latest app on our iPad? When do we listen with full attention to our children laughing, bickering, talking or crying? When do we give uninterrupted time to our partner instead of watching the clock ready to shoot off to the next deadline?

Yes, our world is full of BIG questions we all need to engage in but the BIGGEST, the watershed question for each of us, I believe, is to be still long enough to listen, hear, reflect and become capable of engaging truthfully and completely in life.

Psalm 46:10 reminds us to “Be still and know that I am God!” Time for reflection, a few moments of meditation, a time to just sit reminds us to let go of our addiction to frantic action and rediscover our place in creation and the one who created us. Slow down, be still and rest is the call, and rest and calmness will return.

Meditation is one the tools we can use for this. A useful site for those wishing to pursue meditation is: www.wccm.org

Try it. It does help.