Lent is upon me

I love the way that silence - listening to the heart of silence - illuminates the world of things too, the world of the Real.

I sit in Quaker meeting, listening to the heart of silence. A gull cries overhead, then another, then a group. A cackle of gulls breaking out. I smile.

I wake up in the night at 3 am. I feel rested and not ready to go back to sleep straight away. The night is very soft. Wind is sweeping through the valley. I hear a possum cry. I smile.

When I listen to the heart of silence, I become very centred and still. Centred in what? Whatever word I use is immediately insufficient, is partial. And yet some part of me both desires and knows the beauty and necessity of naming. 

Perhaps the best word is Being. Perhaps the best description for the heart of silence is

Being - Consciousness - Bliss 

(Sat-Chit-Ananda),

an ancient Sanskrit term for ultimate reality.

Being is new and always new again. 

Lent is upon me. Tomorrow, my family and I will begin the day with pancakes, the old Shrove Tuesday tradition. I am a Quaker now, and I will attend the traditional service on Wednesday and receive the ashes of burnt palm crosses on my forehead: Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.

As I say to my Meeting on Sunday, I am a Quaker and I still want to participate in the great stream of Christianity. 

Who or what is Christ?

Who is Jesus?

These are the two simple perennial questions I will be exploring this Lent, or at least begin with.

I will explore them in the direct experiential method of the Quakers: turning within and waiting on the Spirit, the Teacher within, for guidance (however strange) and clarity. 

I will explore them in the explicit method of traditional Christianity: word, sacrament, and the daily round of common prayer.

I wake up in the middle of night at 3 am. I tune in to the heart of silence. Who is Christ?

I hear the wind blowing. I hear a possum cry. I feel the warmth, distinctness, and pleasure of my body.

This is my answer, for now at least. Christ is the Real - the silence and the body of the world.

Who is Jesus?

Something within me quickens. I wait and wait. Nothing distinctive comes. Maybe Jesus can only be known through “the explicit way” - through text, memory, and with others “called by his name”.

Who is Jesus?

I wait and wait. It feels like a vision is about to open in front of me. Then nothing. Eventually, I realize I am straining - pushing to know. I back off. I feel my body again, the warmth of the bed around me, the softness of the night. I feel more easy, more accepting, simple, and content.  

My yoke is light

This lightness is a release from trying to control and be, and of eating “the bread of anxiety” earlier in the day.

If this is a glimpse into “Jesus”, then Jesus seems to be found in living who I particularly am - and who I am living alongside and with - rather than trying to be someone I think I should be.