Haiku May 9, 2013 Kindness
Kind acts leave real ripples. Emotional drawing…
One simple kind act
Like one pure drop of water
Ripples from center.
Art Prescription: I don’t watch the news much. I think it sensationalizes negatives and leaves people feeling depressed about the world we live in….And that is just NOT the whole picture! People are good and generous, and acts of kindness occur daily all around us, they just don’t make the evening news! Be the water!
The first five days of a book of sparks
I am finding my journey with a book of sparks to be a real encouragement. For a start, it doesn’t have a to do list at the end of each chapter, which to begin with unnerved me a little, but I have found it has caused me to engage with what is being said for longer,rather than going tick tick tick, done… and forgetting it all.
There have been a few highlights for me over the past few days, and I thought I would share them with you:
The memory verse. When I read Mark 1:35, I thought, oh ok, Jesus spent time in prayer, yes, its another reminder that prayer is important. But then I stopped and read it slowly. That was when my mind opened, I could see Jesus getting up in the dark, suddenly awake with purpose, slipping out the house and receiving the solitude full of his Father…
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The scribe of The Lindisfarne Gospels and his historian via @BaptistTimes
The scribe of The Lindisfarne Gospels and his historian via @BaptistTimes
Click on the link above:
My interview with Michelle Brown, FSA, who is Professor Emerita of Medieval Manuscript Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. She was formerly Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library and a Lay Canon and member of Chapter at St Paul’s Cathedral, London. She has published, lectured and broadcast widely on medieval culture. She is currently a Visiting Professor at University College London and Baylor University, Texas, and is a writer and freelance researcher, living, praying and praising in West Penwith, Cornwall. Published this week in the Baptist Times.
From protection into perception – The Thought-Fox a #mindful poem
Ted Hughes The Thought-Fox click on link to read poem
From Protection into Perception reflections on a mindful poem The Thought-Fox
When I first read Ted Hughes’ ‘The Thought -Fox’ and heard him read it, it seemed a mindful poem. He had slowed down through awareness the entrance of a thought into the mind.
A thought which is potent and powerful, mysterious and yet observable and in that process not tameable, but gone again – as mysteriously as it arrived. Its wholeness put into words by the poet.
It is a thought that carries feeling and smell, a primitive smell. The poem conveys the otherness of thoughts that we think of as ‘ours’ or as ‘me’. They may be part of us but they are not us, although they can tell us something about us.
We often protect ourselves from our thoughts, through deliberate defences of unawareness. And yet in the end we need to face them.
What fascinates me about Ted Hughes is the clear awareness and attention he has developed as a poet. After reading The Thought-Fox I read Terry Gifford’s book ‘Ted Hughes’. In it he quotes from Al Alvarez who says of the poem, that in it Hughes ‘hardly thinks at all.’ He puts my sense of it being a mindful poem into the right words. It is written in the ‘now.’
Gifford, T. (2009). Ted Hughes (Routledge: London, New York), p. 102, quoting Alvarez from Observer 27.3. 1966).
Lent, men and resilience in the face of recession depression
Lent, men and resilience in the face of recession depression
We all like to play with sticky snow that makes snowballs, and lament wet snow that cannot hold together. Fuller Youth Institute has developed the theme of ‘sticky faith’ for young people. They’ve developed it because the church is losing young people when they leave, what has been referred to as, the goldfish bowl of church and are thrown into the open sea of the world. Their faith doesn’t stick.
Have you also noticed the lack of men in the church? According to some recent research, at the current rate of loss there will be no men in the church in this country by 2028.
An implicit concept in the idea of sticky faith is resilience, faith that sticks even in difficult circumstances. The government has been focusing on preventing suicide among young men, but new figures show a sharp increase in suicide among middle-aged men. This is partly about a lack of resilience in the face of life’s difficulties such as losing a job, financial worries, or a breakdown in relationships.
Psychologists are seeing a rise of what they call ‘recession depression,’ with a rise in depression, anxiety and suicide ideation due to financial hardship.
The youth specialists from Fuller Youth Institute argue that the way to make faith stick is to notice God through spiritual practices. I think there is a similar lack of ‘sticky faith’ among men, and the solution is the same. These spiritual practices practised regularly are a key way to develop resilient faith.
The 40 days of Lent (which means spring) is an opportunity for new growth in creating ‘sticky faith’. Forty days is a significant biblical number. It is also the length of time that helps us, psychologically, to break unhelpful habits and start new helpful ones. Making changes stick is not easy. It is why Lent as a season is so important. I first really discovered the power of Lent and 40 days when I read Rick Warren’s bestseller The Purpose Driven Life. Ever since then I have taken Lent seriously. It can change lives, with change that sticks.
By the way, do keep eating chocolate; Lent is about something else. It is a chance to notice Jesus again in a fresh way.
One of the problems with creating ‘sticky faith’ with men is that they are presented with a distorted, feminised portrait of Jesus. We need to rediscover a lost portrait of Jesus: he is not gentle Jesus, meek and mild; he does not float around in a nightgown. Mark’s gospel offers us a neglected title for Jesus, one that speaks powerfully to men. Jesus is called the ‘more powerful one’ by John the Baptist (Mark 1:7). In the Greek he is literally ‘the stronger one’.
Who does this make Jesus like? It echoes the portrayal of Yahweh as divine warrior in Isaiah’s new exodus theology.
So Jesus is the divine warrior. But he was also a contemplative. Men like the idea of being a warrior, but how do we get men to take contemplation seriously, because many don’t?
One ancient term for a contemplative is that of a ‘tracker’. The contemplative was someone who tracked ‘the footsteps of the Invisible One’, in the words of a fifth century Bishop, Diadochus of Photike. This is the lost bushcraft of the soul that men need to be reintroduced to if they are going to be changed into the likeness of Christ and develop his resilience. TV programmes by wilderness experts like Bear Grylls and Ray Mears are very popular with men.
Lent is associated with Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness, where he battled Satan and contemplated God. It also echoes the story of the Exodus, the people of God in the wilderness journeying from slavery into freedom. Isaiah the prophet talked about a new exodus. As Christians we believe that is what Jesus came to fulfil, and Mark’s gospel takes up this theme.
Lent is also a time for recognising that in order for Jesus to do this, his journey needed to end with the cross and the resurrection. This process begins in Mark’s gospel with Jesus ‘the stronger one’ binding Satan ‘the strong one’(Mark 3:22-27) at the beginning of his ministry.
It is on the cross that he completes his eschatological victory over Satan, death and sin. That victory, won in principle, needs now to be won in reality in the present through hard conflict. Men who are caught in bitter existential battles with lust, greed, power and the slavery of the economic system – who are caught in addictions to pornography, alcohol, drugs and the emptiness of competing in the arena of consumerism – need to hear the language of the strong man being bound in their lives. This language needs to be part of their spiritual rebirth. Forty days of wrestling with these addictions this Lent might just be the breakthrough they need.
In my pastoral experience and in running a men’s group, and counselling men, helping them use the language of binding the strong man in their spiritual life is very important, as is asking them what is the strong man that needs binding. Which inner demon afflicts them the most, to use the language of the earliest Christian psychologists, the Desert Fathers? The afflictive thoughts they identified are still the ones that need wrestling with: gluttony, lust and greed; anger, sadness and spiritual apathy, or carelessness; vanity and pride.
We may have opened the door to Christ, but very often we fail to close the door to Satan; very often we fail to close the door on our sinful thought patterns. These thoughts are tracked and transformed through spiritual practices like Lectio Divina (a slow, prayerful tracking of God through reading Scripture in a meditative way)and the Jesus Prayer, the simple repetition with our breath of the ancient words, ‘Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner,’ which enables us to become aware of the presence of God. They also enable us to step back from the catastrophic thinking that can spin us into depression, anxiety or even suicidal thoughts, when we face redundancy or other difficulties, and help us to notice the small details of God still involved in our lives.
We need to go back to Scripture to recapture the true image of Jesus and men, and we need to go back to more ancient traditions than our own to challenge our thinking. Lent is a perfect opportunity to unplug from the things that drive us and consume us.
But just as we need to get our children to notice God more, and learn to pay attention to Him, so we need to do that with men. They need to be taught how to track God again, to relearn the joy, to borrow the words of a wilderness expert, of tracking the Mystery to its Source.
My talk at Somerville College Chapel Oxford, #mindfulness- a Christian perspective
My talk at Somerville College Chapel Oxford, #mindfulness- a Christian perspective
Link to my talk on ‘mindfulness – a Christian perspective’ at Somerville College Chapel Oxford, now on their blog
Crossing the river – again
The link to my interview with Shalom Eilati, Holocaust survivor, in the Baptist Times online is posted above. It first appeared for National Holocaust Memorial Day, 27th January 2013.
How can #mindfulness be secular, Buddhist, or Christian?
How can mindfulness be secular, Buddhist or Christian? Richard Burnett has written an excellent, well-researched, erudite and thought-provoking thesis called ‘Mindfulness in schools: learning lessons from the adults – secular and Buddhist (see link below). Within his thesis are important ideas that enable us to begin to answer the question above.
Firstly, mindfulness can be used in different settings because it is a universal human capacity for awareness and attention in the present-moment and must be distinguished from the meditative or mindful awareness practices that lead to this mode of awareness. In an important note on page 6 of his thesis Burnett says, ‘There is nothing ‘Buddhist’ about being mindful and paying attention to the present moment. Kabat-Zinn compares this to calling gravity ‘British’ because it was discovered by Newton.’
Secondly, it has a historical presence in Buddhism and Christianity, and in secular psychology there has also been a long focus on awareness and attention and the regulation of emotions. In other words people came across the capacity for mindfulness within different contexts, originally these contexts were religious. The other key idea, then, is to understand the context.
Richard Burnett is someone who has looked at this question of context within the setting of introducing mindfulness into schools (http://mindfulnessinschools.org/).
Thirdly, in counselling there is an important emphasis on client autonomy, respecting a person’s world view, experience and ethical values. That means boundaries are important. What is the context in which the client lives? An atheist might want to engage with a purely secular mindfulness.
This question of boundaries and client autonomy arises in mindfulness because it is a universal human capacity, and therefore appears in different contexts. These forms must be well defined and clearly articulated, although there is shared territory between the forms as well as distinctives. But a secular mindfulness course must not be ‘Buddhism by the back door.’ (p.32)
The key question is I guess: how do we ensure secular mindfulness is secular, Buddhist mindfulness is Buddhist and Christian mindfulness is Christian, for those to whom it matters? Someone looking at life through a secular lens for example.
Burnett argues, quite rightly that mindfulness in schools does not have the same objective as clinical psychology, because ‘in a classroom context we are not treating specific pathologies.’ (p. 24). Nor can it be introduced as a spiritual practice ‘as a classroom is not the place for religious instruction.’ (p.24) It can be used more generally to promote the key attitudes found in the National Framework for religious education of ‘self-awareness, respect for all, open-mindedness and appreciation and wonder.’ (p.27)
It then requires what has been called an ‘informational context’ (Feldman); or a ‘framework of understanding’ (Teasdale) or what Kabat-Zinn calls ‘scaffolding’. (p.28) Buddhist mindfulness is set within an ancient and complex scaffolding. (p.28) Helpfully, Burnettt argues that ‘The scaffolding in clinical mindfulness may be much smaller, but is very well constructed and arguably more effective in the treatment of specific conditions.’ (p.29) Mindfulness within Buddhism is set within religious or spiritual scaffolding, within clinical mindfulness it is secular (generally), although there are psychologists reframing Buddhism as a wise and ancient psychology and bringing in Buddhist insights that are psychological.
Burnett quotes from Kabat-Zinn, the pioneer of clinical mindfulness, as saying that mindfulness ‘may have to give up being Buddhism in any formal religious sense.’ (p.31)
This clear boundary around clinical mindfulness to ensure it is secular is important as Burnett outlines in a quote from Michael Chaskalson, (one of the key figures in mindfulness he has interviewed): ‘If you don’t establish clear boundaries you will exclude some people. There will be practising Christians for example, or dedicated Dawkins style atheists coming on courses and I don’t want to exclude them from conversation.’ (p.31)
So within schools Burnett argues that mindfulness should not be Buddhist (almost certainly). (p.31) If you are doing a Religious Studies A-level in Buddhism you would refer to the Buddhist scaffolding. But when taught as a practice it should be within scaffolding that is clearly secular. In that context what it can address, as a backbone for the engagement, is what Mark Williams calls ‘universal vulnerabilities.’ Although specific vulnerabilities identified in the context of schools such as ‘anxiety of exams,’ peer pressure, or mood swings, could be indicated to pupils. (p.33)
Burnett argues that mindfulness, especially in schools, brings with it ‘a sense of possibility.’ ( p.33). Burnett highlights these other possibilities, pointing out that there are a broad ‘range of potential applications’, including functional, therapeutic, to more spiritual applications when the context is appropriate. (p.33)
What I have been trying to develop, through ‘A Book of Sparks: a Study in Christian MindFullness’ and other writings, is a Christian scaffolding, drawing on biblical and historical roots for the development of mindfulness within the Christian tradition, as well as looking at the benefits of engaging with it today.
Within this setting I believe it has spiritual as well as therapeutic benefits, because of the overlaps, and shared territory, and because we are ’embodied’ people. The evidence-based research within clinical psychology suggests that it would also be appropriate to point Christians, under the holistic guidance of doctors and therapists, to secular clinical mindfulness which might address ‘specific’ vulnerabilities they might be living with. For Christians are not immune from the universal and specific vulnerabilities that afflict all human beings.
Within this research I am keen to work collaboratively with other Christians who are interested in mindfulness, both psychologically and theologically. I am grateful for the collaborative partnerships that are beginning. Space doesn’t permit a description of the scaffolding that makes mindfulness Christian, I have done that elsewhere, but I do believe that for Christians, as well, as they rediscover their contemplative roots, it has a very real ‘sense of possibility.’
sticky faith and noticing God more in youth ministry
sticky faith and noticing God more in youth ministry
This is a link to Ian McDonald’s website http://www.youthblog.org/ and a piece he has written about a new resource from Fuller Youth Insitute about sticky faith, and noticing God more for youth ministry, including importance of contemplation and spiritual practices.
shaunlambert.co.uk 