I decided to bring forward my retreat day by a few days in July so it would coincide with a 20 year work anniversary of a dear colleague and friend at Roffey Park, who had invited a few past and present colleagues to lunch at Roffey Park's renowned Sieff Restaurant.
Roffey Park is where I worked full-time for 15 years as a consultant up until 2019 and still occasionally work as an associate. It's another of those places I experience as a 'thin place' where, at times, the gap between the material and spiritual worlds seems gossamer thin. During my 15 years there, the grounds frequently captivated me and caused me to just stop and wonder, whether it be walking from my car to my office first thing in the morning, on a lunchtime break or on a wind-down walk at the end of the day. The grounds were places I frequently sensed God's presence as he showed me divine beauty in the flora and fauna and the ever-shifting light that illuminated them through the watches of the day and the changing seasons. I found the views across the meadow so captivating that over my 15 years there I turned down the chance of an office that overlooked the grounds several times. I knew I would never get any work done!
And so I drove into the car park and chose a space that overlooked the meadow. The weather, however, was not conducive to meadow wanderings. The forecast for a thoroughly rainy day was proving annoyingly accurate and the rain lashed down on the car as it was rocked gently by the wind sweeping across the landscape. I decided to hunker down, to pray, read and meditate inside the car until either the rain stopped or it was time to join my friends for lunch. Such were my plans as I dedicated the day to God, asking him to tell me 'great and unsearchable things I did not know' (Jeremiah 33:3). But I felt so tired that morning, perhaps encouraged by the gentle rocking of the car, I stopped fighting my drooping eyes and settled in for a snooze. By the time I awoke, it was almost time for lunch. So much for my retreat day, I thought! And yet, even as the thought coalesced in my mind, another thought followed: 'it's what you needed this morning - my yoke is easy and my burden is light' (Matthew 11:30).
Light at the end..
A wonderful few hours of catching up with old friends ensued and it was nearly three o'clock before I managed to tear myself away and back to my time alone with God. By this time the rain had stopped and I ventured out in my wellies on a prayerful walk around the meadow. My walk took me through the hazel coppice that the former landscape gardener, Merv, had planted some 15 years before. I had never seen the coppice so lush and it now formed an initially foreboding dark tunnel of foliage that surrounded and overshadowed the path. It was as I entered the tunnel I started to reflect on the popular saying that there is 'light at the end of the tunnel', often said to encourage someone who is going through a particularly dark and tough time.
Life in the middle...
I reflected on the tunnel that enclosed me now. It was not an inanimate tunnel of brick or concrete, full of dark and foreboding, but a living tunnel, full of photosynthetic activity, that would turn all the solar energy captured and the rain that had just stopped pouring into a rich crop of hazelnuts in a month or two's time.
Life-giving tunnels
I reflected on other 'living tunnels'. On the birth canal that my latest grandchild had passed through on her way into the world just a few week's before. Apparently, the process of my daughter pushing her baby into the world through labour helped squeeze the fluid out of her young lungs and prepared her for her first breath. Babies born this way are also less prone to serious childhood illnesses than those born via Cesarian. Doctors believe this may be connected with the expulsion of fluid from the lungs, but may also be because of the bacteria that are picked up by the newborn on the way out of its mother's womb. There wasn't just light at the end of the birth canal tunnel, but life was given in the passage through it that enhanced our granddaughter's chance of a healthy start in life.
I reflected on some of the most challenging verses in my Bible that encourage a follower of Jesus to make a paradigm shift in their thinking when it comes to their own suffering - to 'consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds' not for some kind of masochistic pleasure but because 'the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking in anything'. (James 1:2-4 NIV). This is not the message you will read in the average self-help book, or if you did, it would not likely top the NY Times bestseller list! I like the promise, but not the means of receiving it!
Daily humiliations
I was reminded of something that Richard Rohr said in his rich and wise book 'Falling Upwards'. He talks about the shiny persona that we build up to protect our ego through the first half of life, that needs to be gradually, and often painfully dismantled if we are to uncover our 'true selves'. He writes: 'I have prayed for years for one good humiliation a day, and then I must watch my reaction to it' (p.128). He believes uch 'daily humiliations' reveal elements of his false self that need to be uncovered and dismantled if he is to grow as a person. He goes on to say: 'The movement to second-half-of-life wisdom has much to do with necessary shadow work and the emergence of healthy self-critical thinking, which alone allows you to see beyond your own shadow and disguise and to find who you are' (p.130).
As I emerged from my hazel tunnel, the meadow grasses, interspersed with vetches, sorrels, thistles and knapweed, danced into life before my eyes once more, animated by the breeze. I sat on my favourite bench on the far side of the meadow and committed myself to looking again at my 'daily humiliations', as well as my more significant trials, to to try to see them in a different light, as life-giving in some way.
As I made my way back to my car for the long drive home, I mused that even though my time alone with God this retreat day was relatively short, perhaps he doesn't always need long to speak and reveal 'great and unsearchable things I do not know', as long as I have 'ears to hear'.
Postscript
If you are going through some kind of dark tunnel right now, may you not only have the grace and strength needed to go through it, and to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I pray you might also be able to discern the life that may be present within the tunnel and the fruit you might receive on the other side. I don't pretend this is easy.
Reference
Rohr, Richard, Falling Upwards - A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (London: SPCK, 2012)
(All photographs taken by the author)
Comments