December 2009

The Reverend Philip Banks writes:

The Spiritual path

 “You don’t have to be peculiar to find God”. So wrote Evelyn Underhill when she was living at Pleshey¹. A great Christian contemplative of the early part of the twentieth century, Evelyn Underhill was well known and much sought out as someone who had a great inner depth, and as someone who could give wise counsel. She was known to be a Godly person of prayer.

Christians pray. That is what we do; it is what marks us out. Indeed it is what marks out all religious people, even if it is known by another name – it is the ‘spiritual path’. We may seek to live good lives, or strive to help others, or to live humbly or ethically, but admirable as all that is it won’t necessarily be a path which will connect us with our deep inner selves or with the God whose voice seeks us out in love.

For ‘spirituality’ is about relationship: not (in the first instance) about relationship with other people, rather a relationship with the source of everything, from which all things come and to which all things ultimately return. As Christians, we call this great mystery ‘God’. And, although many religions speak of God, we have a particular understanding of this relationship. “It is deeply personal, as a child relates to an utterly loving parent” ². The God of our unique Christian experience is never remote or impersonal or judgmental because of the person of Jesus. Jesus, in whom earth and heaven meet. Jesus, who experienced all there is of human pain and human joy, who was fully human. It is Jesus who makes it possible for us to have our relationship with God because, although fully human, he is also fully divine.

This is the truth which we celebrate at Christmas. We call it ‘the incarnation’ (God becoming human). But it is not just for Christmas. It is something which we can live and breathe at all times. And because of this truth, however much a mystery it will always remain, in our moments of stillness for prayer, we can talk to God freely, knowing that, through Jesus, he understands well our human condition. We can share freely with God our story: our guilt, desires, hopes, fears, remorse, requests and thanks. Tears, joy, despair and anger can be directed to God. God is our greatest friend, to whom anything can be said.

As we find peace and a new perspective in talking to God, we also nurture in ourselves the ability to listen. For in any relationship we have to listen as well as to talk. Too easily we can mistake our own voice for the wisdom of God! So we need to develop the art of listening to God – this can be an inner experience or through other people or through our experience of life and the created world around us.

“The secret of Christmas is this: your own heart is the manger in which the birth of Christ takes place³." This Christmas and beyond, may we try to be better at finding God and at nurturing in ourselves that inner awareness of him in our hearts, leading us to live lives of humility, love and service which will shine out to others.

With my prayers and every blessing to you this coming Christmastide.

Fr Philip

¹Christopher Armstrong Evelyn Underhil 1975

²Simon Small From the Bottom of the Pond 2007

³Puran Bair www.appliedmeditation.org

"The secret of Christmas: your own heart is the manger in which the birth of Christ takes place." - Puran Bair - image from www.appliedmeditation.org

"The secret of Christmas: your own heart is the manger in which the birth of Christ takes place."