Lent for Extroverts 6: A material world

In a somewhat non Lenten spirit on Day 6 of Lent I gorged on good food and art. 

'Gorged' is a slightly strong word, I'll admit, but when half term holiday (joyous, work-less, celebratory) falls in Lent (introspective, intense for clergy, penitential) it's very hard to know what mood to adopt. I'd never eaten in Eat. before. The clue is in the name: it was all about the food, full stop. There was soup consisting of little Thai dumplings, noodles, been sprouts, chilli and ginger flavour. Hot and warming on a cool, bright February day. Then I had the most amazing salad I think I've ever tasted from a plastic box: mixed green leaves; shredded beetroot and carrot; bright green bean seeds; thin, soft slices of broccoli sprouts; fennel seeds; pumpkin seeds; mixed rice; dried cranberries; pomegranate seeds; mung beans; feta cheese and a dressing of honey, lime, mint and white wine vinegar. I may have missed out some ingredients.

Tate Modern from the Milleniun Bridge

This altogether surprising lunch acted as filler between two Tates: Tate Britain and Tate Modern. So there were more thoughts about the attraction of the sensory world.....The relationship between spirit and body has always troubled believers. The Gnostics thought the physical body evil and that life's aim must be purely spiritual. Christianity is an embodied religion, though, celebrating at its heart the Incarnation - the becoming flesh of God in the person of Jesus Christ. 

The Incarnation means we can celebrate the stuff of the senses; however the more sensitive amongst believers have often warned against the deification of the sensual world, presumably concerned about the warnings in John's Epistle about 'the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life'. But when does sheer enjoyment of food or art, for instance, tip into this 'carnal' approach? Are appetites God-given?

I found one blog post purporting to offer 'a Biblical World view'  which suggested the five senses all 'report to the carnal mind', and lead to evil. But if God is Creator of all things good, don't 'good' things eventually point back to Him if we are open to His presence everywhere?

Or might there be some art which reveals Him in the 'good' creation of the physical world more than other art? Is there God-hating art? Is modern art another symptom of our abandoning of God in the late 20th/early 21st Century? Is art moral? Does the morality of the artist have a bearing on his/her work? And should Lenten discipline always involve denying one of the five senses?

Lent for Extroverts 5: Imagination fleshed out

Leaky cauldron and other props

I spent the first Sunday of Lent at Harry Potter World. It was not immediately obvious how any of it related to Lent, except that it was all about inner and outer worlds. Everything on show had somehow originated in the inner world of JK Rowling's imagination and had been made external via the books, then the concept artists, prop makers, costume and special effects designers who made the books come to life on screen.

Wig department: Dumbledore's and Sirius Black's amongst them

Why do people say they prefer to read the book before seeing the film? Is it because the inner worlds we create as a result of reading fiction are our own and therefore unique? They lodge in the brain. We don't want to have those initial pictures replaced by someone else's casting ideas in case they don't match up. Once a film is seen, it's almost impossible to create your own pictures in place of the Director's: 'Oh I didn't imagine him like that....!' 

Letting your writing be turned into a film must take a lot of letting go. But even with the subsequent hundreds of creative people on board, there's still an intimate connection between the initial inner creativity and the visible/audible/tactile outworking of it which is now 'out there' for everyone to experience.

Arresting sculpture from The Ministry of Magic

It's a bit like a sacrament: there's something intangible at the core and something tangible which points to it, like new life and the waters of baptism. 

Somewhere on a train between Manchester and London in 1990, the idea for a boy wizard popped into JK Rowling's head, was nurtured by huge imaginative talent and hard work, and now we have 7 books books, 8 films and an entire studio tour grown from that one initial, internal idea. It's like the mustard seed growing out of all proportion to its small beginnings. There's a close tie between inner and outer worlds. In Lenten discipline nothing external changes without inner transformation. Whether introvert or extrovert, we look for harmony between the inner and the outer worlds we live in. Maybe this extrovert/introvert dichotomy can be taken too far after all.

Lent for Extroverts 4: Where's the action?

Sooner or later Lent gets uncomfortable for extroverts as the inner life gets opened up to scrutiny by the Holy Spirit.

Because a possible extrovert fear is that 'the action' is outside; that interaction with people, places and things brings direct experience of God, but that limiting these things for the sake of the inner life, which we feel we should do during Lent, may prove there's in fact a void inside. How shallow am I? When all the fun/stimulating/interesting interaction/conversation ceases, when you put down the book/come off Twitter and Facebook and turn off the radio to look inwards in prayer, what will actually happen? It may even be that churchmanship brings expectations about turning inwards; that it might either be very desirable, or turn out to be nothing more than dangerous navel gazing. I'll leave you to ponder this one...

Someone who did his fair share of navel gazing was St Ignatius of Loyola, a 16th Century Spanish knight and eventual founder of the Jesuits. He was probably (and here's some wild anachronistic speculation) an Introvert with an over developed imagination. I'm also guessing he was more of a 'feeling' type, plus he was organised and systematic in his teachings, so let's call him an INFJ in Myers Briggs terms. 

He dreamt of achieving glory in battle and winning the hand of a beautiful maiden. Unfortunately he was badly wounded in a battle against the French and was taken to Loyola Castle where, during a long and painful recuperation, he longed to read some romance novels to pass the time. There was only a copy of The Life of Christ and a book about the lives of the Saints. Ignatius had a lot of time on his hands so he began to read both of these, whilst continuing to fantasize about romantic conquests and military glory. After a while he began to notice that there were different effects on his spirit from these two different passtimes. After his romantic imaginings he felt drained and dispirited but after reading about Christ and the saints he felt invigorated and inspired.

This led to his conversion to Christ and eventually to his spiritual writings on the 'discernment of spirit's and his 'Spiritual Exercises', still read and practised by thousands today. Discerning the 'movement of spirits', or the movement of the Holy Spirit, is something that can only happen with attentiveness, which really needs silence and (generally) solitude. Attending to the inner moods/inner life can show us where we have been blessed, which otherwise we may miss, and where something is contrary to God's good will for our flourishing. It reveals to us our drives and has a 'modern' Jungian feel to it. Taken to some depth it can reveal the whole direction of someone's life as daily awareness of what gives life and what drains, can point to our ultimate vocation.

So thanks to Inigo of Loyola there's hope for those who think that it's only in the outside world where we find all the action. St Ignatius shows us that there's an awful lot going on inside too. In fact it may even be that in some sense God himself is right on the inside.

Lent for Extroverts 3: Holy Highway Maintenance

Very unusually for me I went for a pre-breakfast walk on day 3 of Lent, and Lenten thoughts were stimulated, in extrovert fashion, by seeing a highway maintenance truck refilling the water hydrants on the side of the road.

It's perhaps more an Advent image, but the holy highway of the prophet Isaiah can also be a picture of how we 'make way' for God in our own lives. Lent is nothing if not about this clearing of the highway, which tends to get clogged with all sorts of things that get in the way; the pot holes of omission and the confusion of fading lines of divine communication. I'm still grappling with what highway maintenance means for people like me who are energised by the exterior world of people, places and things. Sooner or later, whether we like it or not, there needs to be some withdrawal from all the stimulation, into something solitary and quiet. 

Personally I can't imagine good highway maintenance, for the ordained at least, without effective spiritual direction. I had a spiritual director once who was a bit short on empathy but hot on pithy comment. I was moaning one time that I had no one to talk to about what God was doing in my life and she suggested I consider Mary, the mother of Jesus. After the momentous appearance of the shepherds to the manger side in Bethlehem, after the strange and mystifying words that have been uttered about her baby, it says in Luke 'but Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart'; not 'and she went home and told everyone she could about it.' This has stuck in my mind ever since. 

Lenten 'highway maintenance' for extroverts may involve not doing something that comes naturally in order to go deeper into God. The irony is that you may need to find someone older and wiser to talk to about not talking to all and sundry about what God is talking to you about. Now there's a Lenten paradox.

Lent for extroverts 2: Ash, then Love

To peruse the table of dates for Ash Wednesday and Easter Day in the front of Common Worship is to watch your life slipping by, year on year, ending abruptly in 2030. From time to time Valentine's Day falls in Lent, for instance, 2002; 2005; 2008; this year and in 2016. 

In 2018, 2024 and 2029, Ash Wednesday will fall on 14th February itself, occasioning an interesting liturgical/cultural dilemma for church-going couples: those giving up chocolate and other delicious things for the sake of their spiritual life will be unable to eat the Valentine's gifts brought by their devoted partners to celebrate romantic love. Observant C of E partners will no doubt go straight from the sombre evening's Ash Wednesday service of ashing to their romantic candlelit meal, not knowing whether to feel spiritually chastened or celebratory/sexy.

There's always a cultural/spiritual mix of things going on at Lent. Plenty of non-Church-goers seem to want to deny themselves things for some reason not clearly specified, but which is possibly a mixture of any of the following: hoping to lose weight; introduce some self discipline into their lives; save money; save the environment; think about others who have less, make up for not having been to church for years and prepare for major chocolate gorging at Easter. Conversely there seems to be a trend in church circles to take up something for Lent - are there suddenly more extroverts in the church who want get a positive spin on what they fear will be an otherwise mean-spirited and spiritually un-focussed spirit of 'No' pervasive through Lent?

I like that Valentine's is in Lent this year. Self discipline without love is surely 'a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal'. The spirit of mean rule keeping that characterised the Pharisees was not upheld by Christ, who routinely broke the Sabbath to bring healing and wholeness to people. Doesn't denial through Lent need to be in order to contemplate Love more clearly?

At a very low point in my life, which roughly coincided with Valentine's Day 1999, a family member sent a Valentine's card to our house. On opening it, a host of small red and purple paper hearts spilled out in a shower from the envelope to the floor, making us laugh and cry at the same time. In the true spirit of St Valentine, whose life was marked by sacrificial love of Christ and his church, we felt and knew we were divinely held and loved even in the saddest time.

Ash one day, love the next. A propitious calendar combination.

Lent for extroverts 1: Go easy on the olive oil

Lent. That's giving up stuff, right? Sensory deprivation and all that. Denying yourself everything that brings a smile to your face, in the manner of monks. As an extrovert I've never taken naturally to Lent. My challenge this Lent will be to explore ways in which people like me might be able to engage with the fundamentals. How making room for God this Lent might lead to a truer engagement with the things of the Spirit. The last thing I need Lent to be is mean and pinching. Where can God be found? And what happens when you find Him in unusual places?

Take olive oil, that glorious, oozing, unctuous, green liquid so beloved of chefs. You can hardly cook anything without it these days, since the extrovert Jamie Oliver started slugging it around everywhere gleefully. It's almost a religion with him...What's going on there? It also happens to be a wonderful biblical image suggesting the Spirit, consecration, peace and healing.

So last year I was delighted to learn that the priestly preparation for leading an Ash Wednesday service included making up the ash for putting on foreheads by mixing it with olive oil.

There was no obvious ecclesiastical recipe for this, so feeling creative AND holy (am priestly pre-parer of actual ingredients for Lenten worship, just look at me) that afternoon I weighed in with my ash in a little pot, adding the oil joyfully and liberally, as per the enthusiastic Mr Oliver, and pretty soon it looked ready to be 'imposed' upon the foreheads of the penitent.


In the small Victorian church the congregation came forward to kneel at the altar rail. I dipped my finger in and made the first cross: 'Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.' The mark was not as black as one would expect black ash to be.

I did the next one - you could hardly see it. It was rather wet  and slippery. Maybe people would go home pleased the ashing hadn't left a dirty black mark on their foreheads. But maybe they'd feel Lenten-ly short changed. It didn't look at all 'ash-y'.

After about number four or five I noticed drips appearing on noses. Translucent black drips were sliding off foreheads and on to noses, even chins. I tried gouging out with my finger more sediment from the ash/oil mixture at the bottom of the pot. It didn't make any difference. There was just too much oil. Sadly there was no alternative liturgy for receiving an oily drop on your nose, instead of a cross on your forehead.

Was this yet more evidence that I just don't 'get' Lent?

I hope not. Here we are a year later, and I am attempting each day to ponder the mystery of God in all the things that give life - experience; friends; love; creation; books; ideas; music; even sadness - all that fascinating stuff extroverts thrive on. Meanwhile, if you're making preparation for ashing people any time soon, go easy on the olive oil.

From glory to glory

2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2

Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside. 

Luke 9: 28-36 The Transfiguration

Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. 

What are the main ingredients of being Church?

What is the main driving force, the point of it all?

If we were to ask this question of each other, we might get many different answers.

The Westminster Catechism puts it like this:

Question: ‘What is the chief end of man?’

Answer: ‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.’

That’s an even broader question than ‘what is the point of the church?’

The question in the Catechism applies to all people: what is the point of man?

And this is still a question being debated by non religious people, as well as religious, you might be pleased to know.

A recent debate at Cambridge University Union had Richard Dawkins and others on both sides of the belief divide discussing: ‘Does religion still have a place in 21^st Century Britain?’

Despite the much touted 'new atheism', and Dawkins having not a good word to say for any religions at all, the answer was a resounding ‘yes’.

If you had to answer the question ‘what is the point of the church?’ from today’s readings I wonder what you’d say…

It’s Transfiguration Sunday, a Sunday about GLORY.

That’s why we began with the Catechism: The chief end of man, it says, is to glorify God…

So our question today is how do we glorify God?

And can we even look upon that glory ourselves? Isn't it just too bright for normal human sight?

Because we can be sure that if we do come up against the glory of God, in the person of Jesus Christ, we will not remain unchanged.

That is why if we met a church goer who had remained unchanged over years and years of being in church, who had not grown closer to God or learned more about him or herself in the process, we might wonder if they really had beheld the glory of God…

Can you only glorify God when you are in church, saying prayers and singing hymns, or can your whole life bring glory to Him?

The word ‘glory’ in Greek is doxa, from where we get our word ‘doxology’, the ‘Glory to the Father’ refrain said after psalms are chanted or sung.

‘Glory’ in the OT was a big concept and the rabbis coined a special word to describe it: Shekinah.

The Shekinah of God was His holy presence in a residing located place.

When God dwelt amongst his people for a protracted period of time, it was said that his glory, his Shekinah, dwelt amongst his people.

His Shekinah inhabited the Temple; crucially when His presence left the Temple this coincided with Israel’s apostasy and their Exile.

It was said that when Moses came the Mountain after receiving the 10 commandments from God, his face shone with glory, the glory of having been in the presence of  a holy God.

The glory shining in his face was so bright he had to put a veil over his face when he talked with the people; otherwise they could not bear to look at him.

Paul, in our first reading, uses this idea of the veil as a metaphor for his contemporary Israelites not understanding that the Jesus of the New Covenant was indeed their awaited Messiah.

Paul claims that whenever they read their Law, and fail to see the Messiah, Jesus, the veil is still over their faces.

In contrast, we who have the Spirit of God have unveiled faces because we have beheld Jesus the Saviour.

Paul even claims we are being transformed from one degree of glory to another (verse 18).

We have a high calling to live up to then: are we reflecting God’s glory with unveiled faces?

Is it our chief end to glorify God?

How are our lives, our priorities, set up to bring glory to God?

What things could we be putting in the way, things that act effectively like veils today?

Busy-ness, apathy, material comfort, distance from God, pride: perhaps all these and more can act like veils today.

Lent is a good time to consider what is veiling our walk with God.

We have a chance to focus on what we do as church in our Lent Course ‘Lost for Words’, starting on 20^th Feb.

Do come along.

It’s sometimes said of those who walk very closely with Christ that you can see something of God in their faces…

I wonder if you can think of anyone…

It’ll be someone who has walked daily with God; someone whose expression is peaceful but perhaps who’s suffered and come through; someone whose obedience and joy have been so much a part of their lives that their very face reflects God’s glory.

Our gospel reading is about Christ revealed in glory on the Mount of Transfiguration.

He has taken his closest three friends along, and it says he took them up the mountain to pray.

Can you imagine going up a mountain to be present whilst Jesus prayed?

While he was praying the appearance of his face changed and suddenly his clothes became dazzling white.

Now strange things can happen on the top of a mountain.

There are clouds swirling around up there; the weather might be more violent; the atmosphere might be a bit rarefied; you might be worn out from the climb…

The mountain top is also a metaphor for a spiritual experience.

We say ‘I had a mountain top experience.’

We are usually elated during a mountain top experience; everything seems real and exhilarating.

At the top of the Mount of Transfiguration It was as if Jesus was revealed for a few moments in all his divinity.

Yes, he was still the man they knew and talked with but now they saw ‘beyond the veil’ as it were…

There’s a scene from the Harry Potter movies where Harry sees his godfather die in a battle against the force of evil.

In the film the sequence is slowed; in slow motion you see a killing curse fall on Harry's godfather, Sirius; you see him fall forward and a curtain appears; he appears to fall through it and onto the other side, wherever that is...

Jesus is suddenly seen as if he has gone beyond the veil and is in another dimension...

On one side of him stands Moses, law giver: on the other Elijah, representing all the prophets.

The Law and the Prophets…

What are they doing there with Jesus?

They’re speaking of his departure – his death, which, the text says ‘He was about to accomplish…’

Jesus had been speaking about his death and resurrection just before the account in Luke begins: he’s trying to get through to his disciples, but, understandably they are not able yet to equate his coming death with salvation glory.

It’s as though the glory they see before them on the mountain top is too much for Peter, James and John: they feel immensely sleepy; but manage just about to keep awake....thankfully: otherwise we wouldn't know about this episode at all!

So here’s Jesus in all his glory…and the disciples are bamboozled by it…

Peter gabbles some nonsense about putting up shelters.

But you cannot box this experience in the hope of loving off it for ever.

What is the point of the church?

To glorify God…

To do that we need to be exposed to Jesus too, on a daily basis.

Lent offers us a time to reflect on our lives and our spiritual well.

Has it run dry? Does it need stirring up?

What daily disciplines of prayer and bible reading do you have in place?

Are you able regularly to share your thoughts on Christian growth with others in the church?

Sharing is a Christian discipline too: ‘confess your sins to one another and pray for each other, that you may be healed.’

As approach Lent and think about Jesus' Transfiguration today, we pray that our faces may be unveiled to behold his glory, and that we may reflect this glory to the world in which we live and the community we serve.

Amen.