Of altars and shrines

Something I've been doing for quite a while now, albeit on a small scale, is building altars. OK, yes, I'm a Christian priest, working in churches at the 'higher' end of things, so altars are, quite literally, part of my everyday life. But I'm thinking about something a little different here...

I have recently found myself drawn to collecting together significant items, pictures and 'found objects' and assembling them to create an altar or 'shrine'. Some of these are kept more or less in the same state, and in one place, whilst others are built a little more spontaneously, and rearranged or re-located after a while.

For example, here is the permanent altar which is in my study:

I use this altar as a focus for my prayers, or as a place to begin and end my yoga practice. Sometimes I will find and place a feather or flower here, as a little offering to the Divine or as a symbol of thankfulness. Sometimes I will sit quietly here, or spent time tidying and rearranging the items on the altar as a small act of devotion. Writers from many different spiritual traditions suggest that a house needs a 'main' or 'central' altar, alongside other, smaller ones. If so, then this is the main one. Perhaps it is the anchor point for each of the others?

This little collection of objects sits on our hearth.
 

It changes regularly, and we place there something from the garden or the wood which is part of that season: a leaf, seeds, a few stalks of harvested corn (as in the picture!). I guess this is really a little shrine to the changing seasons - there is also often a goddess picture here, too (Demeter is the goddess pictured here).

The final shrine is one I've begun to put together in the last few days, after reading this very interesting short article.

There is a picture of Brighid, and a little statue of Mother Mary. It's still a work in progress, but I'm getting the feeling that this is a little shrine to caring, nurture and parenthood. It is on a little window-sill halfway up the stairs so we see it, just briefly, several times a day. It acts as a small reminder to cherish the ones we love, and to remember that we, too, are loved.

Coming back to earth

Yesterday, I got myself very wound up over a work-related issue. It was one of those that begins in a meeting - things were said, things were not said - and then I carried the issue around with me for the rest of the day. Not only that, but I used the issue as a spring-board to imagine and develop other scenarios which might potentially cause trouble a little further down the line.

As the day drew to a close, I still had this issue whirling around my head. I couldn't shake it, and when I finally went to bed, I lay there running though it in my mind. Not good.

When I woke this morning I had the echoes and memory of yesterday's worry and stress. But today was my day off, and I dreaded the idea of carrying the issue around with me on what should be a work-free day. As the day looked like it would be sunny and warm, I decided that it was a good time to water the veggie garden before the sun got up.

First, I had a quick check of my Facebook feed, and came across this article posted by a good friend. Although I didn't read it all the way through at the time, I got the gist of it and decided to try it out: I watered the garden barefoot.

During the fifteen minutes of walking back and forth to fill the watering can, I found myself coming back to myself. I allowed my body to remind me of the things that are important to me: the garden, nature, creativity. The space and quiet of the early-morning garden, and the feel of the earth beneath my feet seemed to be healing the damage that yesterday's stress had caused. I remembered that I belong to the earth, and to myself, and that my work (even though it is important to me) does not define who I am.

So today has been about coming back to earth, returning to myself, reconnecting my mind and body. And next time I am in that meeting (and it will happen!) I will come home, take off my shoes, and pick up the watering can.

The opposite of faith...

I sometimes suggest to the folks at my church that the 'opposite' of faith is not doubt, but certainty. On more than one occasion I have spoken to my congregation of my own doubts, and been open with them about the extent to which I struggle with some aspects of the Christian faith. I can only hope that my willingness to admit my doubts has helped them with theirs.

It is, perhaps, even more surprising to learn of the doubts of senior figures in the Church (though, perhaps, we should not be so surprised - they are, after all, human). One such honest individual is Richard Holloway, former Bishop of Edinburgh and also a writer and speaker. I saw a short interview with him here in which he speaks of the doubts and uncertainties which came gradually upon him as he got older.

But as I watched in the interview, I got the sense that, rather than losing his faith, as some would have it, Bishop Richard was journeying into a new, more mysterious faith. A faith with fewer certainties and more wonder. A faith rooted, as it were, less in God and more in life. Richard Holloway's honesty, openness and sensitivity helped me to feel a little more accepting of some doubts in my own journey.

Whatever your own journey, the interview is well worth watching. As Richard Holloway says in the interview, he still belongs to the Church, and attends regularly, but he doesn't 'do God easily'. I wish that more in the Church were like him.

Spring balance

A reflection I shared at this morning's service in the chapel...

A few days ago was the Spring Equinox, when day and night are of equal length; darkness and light balance each other out. At this time, the natural world is beginning to come to a point of balance: the earth becomes warmer, flowers push through and leaves and buds begin to show. The starkness and harshness of winter is gone, revealing a landscape that seems more in harmony with itself, a world which is more in balance.

To be out of balance is to be unstable, leaning too far to one extreme or another and, therefore, prone to collapse or to acting out of desperation rather than out of wisdom and reflection. The season of Lent, in which the Equinox comes, may be a time to seek a point of balance, and ways of becoming more in harmony with ourselves and with God.

For inspiration we may look to nature, observing its rhythms and its pattern of coming back into balance so that growth may take place. The combination of warming earth and plentiful rain enables the burst of life which is needed to bring fruitfulness back to the earth. Likewise, for you and me, a balance of work and rest, learning and prayer, company and solitude, can bring about new life within each of us.

You, me, a tree

I received a short email post from The Girl God blog this morning, which drew a link between the nature of trees and that of human beings:

A tree that is beginning to grow sends roots down into Mother Earth even as it reaches and opens to the sky above, seeking nourishment from the sun and the moisture in the air and in the rain that falls. In the same way, we can envision ourselves as tree-like beings, imagining that we have roots reaching down into the earth, energetic strands that keep us connected... 

Part of what I have been learning over the last couple of years, both in my yoga practice and in my participation in Forest Church, is that I am connected to, and part of, the energy of the Earth. I had never thought of this before, and had assumed that I merely lived on the Earth, and not as part of it. 

The email post went on to say:

Contemplating the ways in which trees and people mirror one another brings us into alignment with the reality that we are part of Mother Nature.

One of my favourite yoga poses is Tree pose (Vrsksasana). I certainly don't find it easy: there's the balancing, to begin with, and then the combined process of both rooting down into the earth and also reaching skywards. I enjoy this pose, but I have a long way to go yet.

For me, Tree pose allows me to take the tree as my teacher, to connect myself to the Earth's energy and to bring my awareness back to my body. Occasionally, I am also able to become still enough to realise that I, too, am part of Mother Nature. 

The priest and the yoga mat

In my yoga practice today, as I was trying to rest in Corpse pose, I suddenly remembered that today is one of my favourite days of the Christian calendar. For today the Church remembers George Herbert, the 17th-century poet and priest of the parish of Bemerton near Salisbury.

I love Herbert's poetry for its tenderness and beauty, and for its understanding of what it means to seek an encounter with the Divine. Herbert is wonderfully aware of the motives, the hopes and the hesitancy with which human beings approach God, and also of the complete love with which God responds.

My favourite of Herbert's poems is the third poem in a short series called Love. It sums up the feelings of inadequacy humans often carry when coming into the Divine presence, and yet in every line it portrays the overwhelming welcome and acceptance which is offered in return.

And perhaps, after all, there is a connection between yoga and Herbert's poem: both are an invitation into Divine stillness and rest.

Love (III) by George Herbert

 

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
        Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
        From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
        If I lacked anything.

"A guest," I answered, "worthy to be here":
        Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
        I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
        "Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
        Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
        "My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
        So I did sit and eat.

A Doorway

This post from The Girl God arrived in my email inbox this morning:

The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.  

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Painting by Elizabeth Slettnes, from: thegirlgod.blogspot.co.uk/

There are many times at the moment that I long to live a 'wilder' life: one which is more spontaneous, more truthful, closer to the earth, more free from the expectations of those with whom I work (or, at least, the expectations I think they have of me...). What is my door into this fuller life?

I also, rather foolishly, and in my day-dreams, sometimes long for a door into other worlds: Narnia, Middle Earth, Avalon, Hogwarts. Perhaps this is a childish (or child-like?) activity, and something which, in the words of St Paul, I should have put away with other childish things (1 Corinthians 13.11)? But then, why should I not long to meet the characters who live in those other-worlds, who also seem to be longing to live deeper, fuller, saner lives? 

For me it is often story which is the door. I find that I carry stories around with me, and use them as sources of encouragement or strength. The journey of Frodo and Sam, the struggle of Harry and his friends, the terrifying kindness of Aslan - each of these can become for me a doorway into a fuller life, a more adventurous life, a more magical life. 

For others, the doorway might be something else. But I suspect that each of us has one. The key, I think, lies in discovering it and then having the courage to open it, however foolish or unlikely it may seem.