The Swing – spirituality during
liminal seasons
Picture with me for a moment a swing. Notice the further back it goes, the further
forward it travels. It is the same with
spirituality, the further back we go into intimacy with God, the more able we
are at joining His mission, the reconciliation of all things. The swing.
We need to live the swing if we are going to survive liminal
seasons. In fact we need to live the
swing for any season, if we are serious about God’s mission. One of the requirements when I took on the
role of missional listener was to retreat monthly, to find that place of
stillness, to meet with God – yet if I am honest – I have largely failed in
this task. As I interview other pioneers
and church leaders about their spiritual habits, they also seem to fail at
living the swing. The average minister
prays for two minutes a day. Why is
this? I wonder if it is due to a
misunderstanding of what intimacy of God is about? We seem to equate spirituality with Elijah,
collapsed by a broom tree, begging God to take his life. But if we saw retreat as more than that, and
see Elijah in the cave, hearing God in the stillness and receiving not only
healing from the broom tree but also the call to work with Elisha for the
kingdom of God. The swing – further back
into intimacy, the more able to join in the threefold mission of love of self,
neighbour and of God. History tends to
show its need…
By the end of the fourth century,
church and society had become one. General toleration of Christianity, the
numbers swelled by Constantine making it the faith of the empire, and a
seemingly lowering of the standards expected of believers, led to some
believing that deep communion with God unattainable in existing churches. The
first monks were individuals who retreated to the desert in Syria and Egypt. The desert Christians understood the church as
an ‘alien community no longer caught up in the anxious, self-interested
preservation of the world-as-it-is’.[1] Retreat was not about finding an uninterrupted quiet time but a call to
live out the double commandment to love God and neighbour. Athanasius tells the
story of Antony whom he portrays as the first monk.[2] Antony visited a church whilst
reflecting on how the apostles left all to follow their Lord, there he heard
Jesus words to the rich man. This encouraged him to sell all his
possessions and depart for the tombs where he would retreat in solitude. Antony practiced solitude for nearly twenty
years before going on to heal many who were ill, cast out evil spirits, speak
comfort to the sorrowful, reconcile arguments and exhort all to remember God’s
love shown in Jesus Christ. Antony encouraged many to let go of the desire of
possessions and to gain those everlasting gifts of ‘prudence, justice,
temperance, courage, understanding, love, kindness to the poor, faith in
Christ, freedom from wrath and hospitality’. Basil the great, bishop and an
ascetic, built on this learning and helped future monasteries become more
outward looking by providing medical care for the sick, relief for the poor and
education. Rowen Williams writes;
what is learned in the desert is clearly not some individual technique
for communing with the divine, but the business of becoming a means of
reconciliation and healing for the neighbour.
You ‘flee’ to the desert not to escape neighbours but to grasp more
fully what the neighbour is… (and how we join in) connecting them with God.[3]
We can see the swing outlived through
Benedictine monasteries and in Celtic spirituality, but for our purposes let’s
look at Ignatian spirituality. Ignatius’ career as a soldier was cut short
with a leg wound in 1521, reading about the lives of Christ and the saints he
resolved to become Christ’s soldier. He waited on God to know what he should
do, taking a year to pray and then to go onto study.[4] Having written his book entitled The Spiritual Exercises, he gathered a
small group of young men, the Jesuits
were founded, their purpose to propagate the faith by every means at their
disposal. The growth of the order was rapid as their
work centred on three main tasks of education, counteracting the protestants
and missionary enlargement to new parts of the world. Dulles lists ten shining features of the
Jesuits.[5] One of which he quotes Jerome
Nadal, who said of Jesuit practice,
seeking a perfection in prayer and spiritual exercises in order to help
our neighbour, and by means of that help of neighbour acquiring yet more
perfection in prayer, in order to help our neighbour even more.
Bonhoeffer proclaimed that,
the renewal of the church will come about through a new type of
monasticism which only has in common with the old an uncompromising allegiance
to the sermon on the mount.[6]
Heuertz and Prince attempt to live
out this new type of monasticism in San Francisco today.[7] They describe this as a life
compelled by intimacy with Jesus, engaging neighbourhoods and neighbours with
zeal and enthusiasm and looking for transformation that comes when Christ’s
kingdom is present. They conclude that
they have nothing to offer without the riches delved in contemplation. Roy and Joshua Searle continue our thread by
stating, that the call to be missional is a call to live in the reality of the
presence of the kingdom of God that is now at hand, adopting practices and
spiritual discipline, for the benefit and the transformation of this world.[8]
We can see a thread throughout the
centuries of the practice of retreat being about love of God and love of
neighbour. The image is that of a
swing. The further we go into God’s
intimacy experienced through spiritual disciplines the
further we can understand who our neighbour is and how we can join God in the
transformation of all things.
Perhaps, as we live out the swing, we
can say with Jesus, ‘I only do that I see my Father doing’.
If we are serious about remaining in liminal space and if we are serious about Gods mission – let us do what the Saints of old have always done – and live the swing. The further back into intimacy with God, the more able we are to join in the reconciliation of all things.
[1] Haeurwas and Willimon. (1992). p. 93. Resident Aliens Nashville: Abingdon Press.
[2] Lane. (2004). p. 59. The Lion Christian collection. Oxford: Lion Hudson.
[3] Williams. (2003). p. 38. Silence and Honey Cakes: The wisdom of the desert. Oxford: Lion books.
[4] Linder. (1990). p. 418. The Catholic Reformation in Dowley,
Dr T., Briggs, J.H.Y., Lindner, R and
Wright, D.F. (eds). The
History of Christianity. Oxford: Lion Hudson
[5] Dulles. (200). p. 22.
What
distinguishes the Jesuits? In America 1/15/2007, Vol. 196
Issue 2
[6] Searle and Searle. (2013). Monastic
practices and the missio Dei: Towards a socially
transformative
understanding of missional practice from the perspective of the
Northumberland
community. Journal of missional practice
[7] Heuertz and Prince. (2010). pp. 104-128.
Devotional. In Bessenecker, S.A. (Editor). (2010). Living
mission: The vision and
voices of new friars. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press
[8] Searle and Searle. (2013).