Visiting the dying

I have been recalling how, when my friend Anne Powell, aged 95, was dying in the cottage hospital in Kington, Herefordshire, I used to go daily to sit with her for two hours. She lay there, eyes closed. I would say nothing but simply hold her hand and sit in total silence. At the end, getting up, I would make the sign of the cross on her forehead, and always at this moment she would open her amazing blue eyes, smile, then close them again.

I mention this as all too often visitors to the dying don’t know how to behave. Some talk in very loud voices as though the person they are visiting is stone deaf – driving everyone else in the ward mad! Or they talk endlessly about themselves. All we need do is to sit quietly and be. If our friend wants to speak, we listen and respond as needed; otherwise we just hold them in the Silence.

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The Kabbalah

The practice of meditation goes back many centuries and is found not only in Buddhism. It is interesting that the Kabbalah, the ancient mystical tradition of Judaism, recognising the conflict between the opposites in each of us, recommends the practice of meditation as a way of integrating them. 

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Letting God in

Once we have overcome our difficulties with the word ‘God’ and learned to let God into our lives, the result can be dramatic. We may be faced with illness, a failure, a setback; but if we wait patiently and allow God to work within us like yeast in a loaf of bread, then the problem is resolved in its own way. We have but to let God in.  

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Greek Gods

When I fall asleep I often imagine myself in the arms of Morpheus, the god of sleep; and then I am joined by Orpheus, the god of dreams. In this sense the Greek gods are personifications of aspects of one’s psyche. Here it is important to remember the role of the god Hermes, who stands at the crossroads and is the messenger of the Gods. When we make the sign of the cross, therefore, we are invoking Hermes to bring us such a message.   

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Crossing

Whenever I sit to meditate I make the sign of the cross, not in the name of the Trinity, but as a symbol of the integration of the opposites within myself. At the end of the meditation I make the sign of the cross: on my forehead that my thoughts may be true; on my lips that my words may be true; on my heart that the flame within may burn steadily; and finally on the area of my sexuality.  This last is important and is so often left out of the spiritual journey, yet it is a very powerful energy and needs harnessing.  Even when, with advanced years, there is no sexual activity or desire, nonetheless it remains psychologically an essential part of one’s being.

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A personal note

When I applied to be ordained as a non-stipendiary priest, I wrote on my form that, as far as I could see anything, I saw my ministry as being a bridge that would unite opposites: it would be less a matter of doing than of simply being. It was my task to be what I had always been – a catalyst.

People pass through a threshold into new territory; it is both a departure and an arrival. A threshold is not necessarily a door, rather it is a frontier which calls for decision and commitment. Do I cross or not?  Each of us is a pilgrim and like all true pilgrims we are here to help each other on the journey. 

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A knowledge beyond knowledge

At intervals the great Teachers descend in our midst as though they have come from on high, as though there were a region above and beyond our known universe. Not the physical heaven as imagined but rather a region of the super-conscious, for, if there is a sub-conscious then we must be able to envisage a super-conscious.

Here on this planet the Masters, the Enlightened Ones, speak to us of the Transcendent. Carl Jung once remarked to my analyst, Dr Franz Elkisch: ‘Each one of us is capable of being a transistor, each of us can tune in to the ‘other’ or ‘more’ dimension of reality, through meditation or prayer – the label doesn’t matter – through a heightened awareness of reality.’

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From beyond

From the dimension of reality that is beyond all verifiable dimensions, from beyond time and space, we receive intimations of meaning that sustain us. It has nothing to do with the imagination or with fantasy; rather, it is another kind of knowing, a received knowledge, intuitive rather than intellectual. Our age so venerates the intellect that it is chary of that which cannot be neatly analysed and catalogued by the intellect.

Each one of us is capable of tuning in to this other dimension of reality through prayer or meditation, through the heightened awareness that comes from an inner listening.  For there is within us all the wisdom we can ever need.

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Notes from the foothills

There are a few who in the practice of meditation climb so high that they can see from the top of the mountain. They are the mystics, to be found in all religions. The rest of us trudge along the foothills, knowing we may never glimpse the summit. And the journey is rarely easy. All who have walked the route to Compostela know how rough the terrain can be, and how on arrival at a hostel one sometimes finds the toilet rolls have run out or one is kept awake by the loud snores of fellow travellers! A pilgrimage makes demands. But we plod on!

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