Ten or 10,000 reasons

Matt Redman's song 10,000 Reasons occasionally becomes a bit of an ear worm for me: singing out words of blessing in response to God's love and goodness. Even on that day when our strength is failing - still our souls sings out ten thousand reasons to worship God's holy name.

Over recent weeks I've been pondering what makes the place where I worship day by day somewhere that speaks of blessing and song, goodness and love. This blog is 'a view from Stag Hill'; a view from a cathedral which looks out over a town; a cathedral on the level with The Mount; a cathedral looked down upon by the Surrey Hills.


It's a place rooted in the rhythm of daily prayer. The architect Sir Edward Maufe's design means that those prayers offered in a place of light and space, without ornamentation. Breath taking and awe inspiring; still generating a 'wow' factor despite the temporary scaffolding (which is itself a beautiful engineering feat!).  It is more than a light space; it is hub of activity. It's a place of prayer which hosts fosters relationship.

In 1963, the then Bishop of Guildford, George Reindorp, gave thanks that the newly consecrated cathedral had been 'prayed alive'; he gave thanks for the dignity, music and beauty of the worship. He also gave thanks because his hope for a cathedral as a lively centre of learning was being fulfilled. He talked about commuters and lectures, organ recitals and small group discussions.

He expressed a deep longing that the cathedral should belong to young and old, ordinand and bishop. He spoke of a mother church that was 'loving, warm, friendly and welcoming'. In the midst of his hopes fulfilled hopes and answered prayers, he spoke of not only human engagement, but also of being moved or touched by the Holy Spirit.

 

So, what of my hopes, prayers and aspiration? What are the things about my work here on Stag Hill which give me ten - or 10000 - reasons to praise God? Where are the blessings which reflect something of the love and goodness of God - both when our hearts are full of joy and when our strength is failing?


One: as a parish priest, I was moved by the way in which we gathered at times of celebration, grief and remembrance. My story was woven into the local stories, all held in the story of God's love for the world. At a cathedral, the same is true - albeit on a different scale. The cathedral is a place of commemoration on occasions such as the  WWI Vigil in 2014 as well as place where transition at achievement is rejoiced in - from university graduations to young enterprise awards.

Two: I am privileged to work with a team of exceptional musicians - our organists are amongst the best in the country - who teach and inspire young people. The choir has a repertoire which include the best of the choral tradition - from Bryd and Tallis to Herbert Howells and Tarik O'Regan.

Three: the cathedral stands next to the A3 - which might be a modern pilgrimage route! For some, it is a tourist destination as coaches turn off on route from London to Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight; visitors enjoy tea, cake (a refreshment break!) and explore the building (and building restoration). For others, its a place of particular heritage interest - textiles, local history, archives and oral history.

Four: it is great fun to welcome hundreds of school children over the course of the year. Some will be taking part in season workshops during Advent/Christmas or Lent/Easter - crafts, prayer and story telling. Others come for Sixth Form Question Time - to hear a panel of experts and leaders respond to their questions about ethics, politics and faith, and, in true QT style, to continue the conversation with their own views.

Five: cathedrals are places of solace; places where we can explore our curiosity. Guildford is no different. It's open every day: candles are lit; prayers offered; messages left. Some might want to sit quietly - valuing the serenity and anonymity; others might want to ask questions of the guides or join in the worship.

 
Six: The view from Stag Hill is a wonderful vantage point; the view from the tower (on a clear day) gives us a glimpse of London!  As I drive up the A31, walk up the hill or step off the train, the cathedral - with its golden angel - is also a marker of returning home. Perhaps I'm not alone in that - appreciating a regional 'marker' and a place of 'belonging'.

Seven:  Since arriving five years ago, the cathedral has embraced the arts. It's hosted an amazing range of concerts: from local choral societies to male voice choirs; orchestral work which has raised the roof;  children taking part in Surrey Get Vocal. The bright space and clear sight lines enables the cathedral to be an unique place to exhibit large scale art exhibitions. Chris Gollon told the story of the incarnation and women in the Bible afresh; or the bold canvases of Catherine Clancy took us on an spiritual journey from the dark night to resurrection hope. Local artists exhibiting their work here is a celebration of human creativity.

 
Eight: Cathedrals contribute to the local economy as an employer and by hosting a range of commercial events. That's true in Guildford too - from festivals to open air cinema, conferences and vintage fayres. It offers opportunities for volunteering as a guide or shop assistant for example. However, its contribution to social capital is also extensive - through a range of civic gatherings involving those of all faiths and beliefs.

Nine: Bishop Reindorp's vision of a cathedral as a place of learning is still true. That does include Lent Talks - this year's series is on 'Creation and New Creation' - but it also involves offering space for debate and learning on a range of issues in the public square. Over recent years, I've had the pleasure of hosting lectures on surveillance, human rights and freedom of speech; sustainable development, ethical decision making and care for farmed animals. 

Ten: The events that take place here whether in the Cathedral or in our marquee (aka 'canvas cathedral'), enable us to extend a welcome to all generations. Those in residential and nursing care come to enjoy a rich programme of coffee concerts; listening to jazz, arias, songs from musicals, classical music or rock choirs. Those who care for younger children enjoy family activity days - such as the forthcoming 'Mothering Saturday' event with the opportunity for crafts and creativity, card making and spiritual reflection. 

 
As the Theos Report Spiritual Capital puts it:

The present and future of English cathedrals lies particularly in their ability to enable and sustain a range of connections – between the tourist and the pilgrim; between people and the traditions from which modern life cuts them off; between the diverse organisations and communities that share the same social and physical space and infrastructure yet never meet; and between a people who may be less Christian than their parents but are no less spiritual, and the God who made, sustains, loves and hopes for them to join Him at His table [p. 62]. 

So, that's my 10 (or 10,000) reasons: what are yours?

© Julie Gittoes 2017 

Have you found a lasting hope?

On the cusp of Holy Week our attention shifts from Annunciation and Nativity to Calvary; from expectancy and birth to suffering and death.  As we make that move, this painting holds birth and death together; it draws invites us to pay attention to an apple. An apple in the hand of Eve is a symbol of temptation, misdirected desires, and our human propensity to mess things up. An apple in the hand of Mary is a sign of redemption, self-giving love, God propensity to forgive and restore.

Chris Gollon: Madonna of the Apple (2012)

That is the overarching narrative of salvation - of a love that gives in perfect freedom with all the risk of hurt and failure that that entails; and a love that will not let us go when we face the reality of human vulnerability.  Steve Summers' articulated this, drawing on Simone Weil’s theology last week.  He identifies the paradox of love – of intimacy and separation.  We cannot insulate ourselves from pain – yet we are called to hope in the midst of it. A hope founded on God and the assurance that all shall be well.  

Eliot writes that history may be servitude; faces and places known and loved to us vanish, or are renewed.  The reality of the human condition is met by grace: Sin is Behovely, but / All shall be well, and / All manner of thing shall be well. All shall be well because our hope is in the faithfulness of God’s love; his yes to humanity. All shall be well because such hope does not disappoint, rather it engenders trust.  In stillness, in waves and sea Eliot describes A condition of complete simplicity / (Costing not less than everything) / And all shall be well and / All manner of thing shall be well / When the tongues of flames are in-folded / Into the crowned knot of fire / And the fire and the rose are one.

Hope demands that we inhabit the Gospel story afresh. As we immerse ourselves in Holy Week,  that invitation to immerse ourselves in this narrative is more acute. It allows space to ask questions about loss and renewal, grief and gift; questions which are more spacious than answers.

This painting is an impossible moment of infancy and death; eternity caught in a span. It is love with us, the source of hope. Not an ending, but a new beginning.  Perhaps we will catch a glimmer of hope and renewal that we come know, with baited breath, like a breaking dawn, as resurrection.  That is perhaps conveyed in ‘A blinding brightness’.

Catherine Clancy: A Blinding Brightness (2014)

 

Denise Inge thinks deeply about this resurrection hope in her book ‘A Tour of Bones’.  She discovers that preparing to live and preparing to die are in the end the same thing.   She writes about the Spirit brooding over us, refining us, rushing through us and drawing us on.  Whispering the assurance: Do not be afraid.  As we face the frailty of our human nature we are invited to rediscover hope by placing God centre stage and responding to an invitation to turn, to follow to set our Christ, setting our eyes on him.  Do not be afraid.  Learning to die well, learning to let go, extends our horizon so that we might live well. 

Denise’s journey takes her to various charnel houses across Europe: each places ‘tells’ her something. At Sedlec she ponders the quest to find a lasting hope and the story of resurrection, and hope amidst doubt.  For her it isn’t about believing the impossible – but leaving room for the improbable… it is the daring act of staking a claim in the unprovable. That is what makes it hope rather than optimism, because it is active. It does more than wait to see what will be; it acts prior to proof. It is audacious.

Such an audacious hope in resurrection is life-enriching; it is an invitation to live without being afraid. She writes: we think we need a dream. We are urged to ‘climb every mountain’ till we find it… but what we really need is hope. Humans cannot life without it… Hope is not the same thing as optimism. Optimism says that things will get better. Hope says that the good we envisage is the good we work towards. Optimism is largely passive: it is about waiting for what is better to come to you. Hope is active: it goes out and does. It falls and fails sometimes, but it is tenacious and unafraid… it will not let go of the notion that the good is real, and that we can find it.

Have you found a lasting hope? Anchor yourself in the eternal abiding (for me this is God). Feed yourself with something stronger than optimism. You are in a constant state of growth and transition, so let change transform you.

Catherine Clancy: Bird of Hope (2014)

If hope in the resurrection is the paradox of continuity and transformation, then we are drawn more deeply into an act of faith: the sensing of light while it is still night.  Perhaps it's an intuition shaped and formed by the Holy Spirit, so often depicted as a bird in flight.  There are powerful hints of faith and hope and love; of a deeper communion beyond the dark cold and empty desolation, beyond the waves and the waters. In ‘Little Gidding’ Eliot writes of a dove descending – an incandescent flaming love redeeming us and freeing us from sin and error.  Perhaps we should also pay attention to his words in ‘Ash Wednesday’ – words of hope, inviting us to put God centre stage, and allowing our cries to come to him:

Although I do not hope to turn again

Although I do not hope

Although I do not hope to turn…

Teach us to sit still

Even among these rocks,

Our peace in His will

And even among these rocks

Sister, mother

And the spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,

Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto thee.

© 2015 Julie Gittoes

Hope - darkness and intensity

We have talked about finding still points in the midst of confusion; of glimpses of assurance.  Such language is reminiscent of T. S. Eliot's 'Four Quartets'.  In 'East Coker', Eliot draws us urgently into a journey through darkness towards a deeper communion. He invites us to pay uncompromising attention to flesh and bone, waves and whispers, houses and fields, to time, rhyme, music and dancing.  This is the stuff of life - we would add our own concerns and joys to that list. 

He urges us to seek the eternal moment amidst the disorder of the natural world; he looks beyond the vacant interstellar spaces, beyond the motives, flaws and pettiness of distinguished human lords. Paradoxically, he writes that We must be still and still moving / Into another intensity.   We are perhaps called to pay attention to what confronts us; to the waves, clouds and storms; yet somehow moving forward into the intense communion of God's love.  

Catherine Clancy: Dark Night of Crucifixion (2014)

Clancy's 'Dark night of crucifixion' captures something of both bearing with and moving on  through what Eliot calls the dark cold and the empty desolation / The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters. In the darkness, there is that scorching flash of colour - a crown of thorns, a shedding of blood.  Might that be a source of hope; of divine love with us, holding us and drawing us onwards?

Catherine Clancy finds in Eliot's verse a wayfarer to explore with us the exhortation, assurance or longing within the phase 'Do not be afraid'.  He knows of light and of reference points; the disturbance of storms and the disorientation of being overwhelmed. Dawn points, and another day / Prepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind / Wrinkles and slides. I am here / Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.  

He writes too of our human fears: fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession, / Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.  In darkness, wind and storm, Clancy confronts us with the fear; yet that radical de-centring allows us to seek after wisdom. Those things are intimately related for The only wisdom we can hope to acquire / Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

Clancy's paintings echo the traces Eliot's journey of assurance in the midst of all that disrupts; hope in the midst of turbulence; and the longing of waiting in silence.  Eliot confronts the intolerable wrestle / with words and meanings in pursuit of wisdom, allowing images to resonate, disturb and delight. Clancy takes us in to density of darkness in such a way as to compel us to attend; to risk stillness amidst movement; allowing our eyes to adjust to see the incremental breaking in of light. 

Clancy describes this as negative capacity leads to surrender and trust; for creativity and renewed perspective.  Amidst the darkness and storm, it is the Spirit that comes like wind that moves across the deep like a flash of violet.  It is the Spirit who gives us life; bringing us to a safe harbour, drawing us to love. It is the Spirit that brings a blinding brightness; evoking in us the depth of reverent praise.

At a human level, our hopes and loves are often thwarted, transient or unfulfilling; we focus on the wrong thing.    Wait without hope / For hope would be hope for the wrong thing, writes Eliot, inviting us to suspend our human inclinations.  This is so hard to do.  We long for trust in our relationships – whether in the intimacy of our personal lives or the pressures of our working life. We might hope for short term satisfaction – believing the advertisers that we just need this experience or product. We might be fearful about our financial security – about our pensions and mortgages. Those concerns occupy our institutional life too – as we face questions about our national vision in the run up to a General Election; as we think about the priorities for mission and ministry within our parishes, diocese and cathedral.  

Do we hope for the wrong thing? So often what we think of as financial or personal issues are in fact spiritual ones. How can we encourage one another to have the assurance to place God centre stage? To fix our eyes on Christ, as Andrew described it last week; to discern where the Spirit might be leading us. Sometimes it does feel as if we are stepping into the darkness – as clouds and waves encompass us. And yet, we abide in the assurance that all hearts to love will come. 

In the risk of stillness we find meaning; the beyond, the transcendent, the eternal breaks in.  A new hope emerges in the face of the turbulence.  So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing writes Eliot, as he grapples with finding faith, hope and love in the waiting.  

 Catherine Clancy: All Hearts to Love Will Come (2014)

This paradox of movement and attention finds its focus in Good Friday. In Jesus Christ, God's love for the world is poured out: Beneath the bleeding hands we feel / The sharp compassion of the healer's art. Clancy expresses this intensity, union and deeper communion in darkness, waves, warm haze and light.

Love is most nearly itself

When here and now cease to matter.

Old men ought to be explorers

Here or there does not matter

We must be still and still moving

Into another intensity

For a further union, a deeper communion

Through the dark cold and the empty desolation

The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters

Of the petrel and the porpoise.  In the beginning is my end.

The sharp compassion of the healer’s art takes us to the depths of human despair; and to the foot of the cross. Where we fear that there is no remedy, God’s love meets us. When we are spent and exhausted, there hope is renewed.  These things are held together in the mystery of the incarnation – from the warmth of the womb to the darkness of the tomb.

© 2015 Julie Gittoes