Saturday of Easter week 2020

Like so many I have had both good and not so good teachers. (It is my personal judgement and others might disagree as to whether Mrs X or Mr Y were good or bad teachers).

I have had both good and less good examples and experiences.

I have behaved in good and less good ways.

As a child I was born into a loving family.

I was privileged to have a remarkable Iraqi nanny.

I went to schools my parents considered to be excellent but there I did find the good and the not so good.

As a baby I was swaddled and fed by others.

I was taught and learned how to feed and dress myself.

Oh, the excitement of being able to do up my own shoelaces and later to knot my own tie.

I had uniforms to wear at school, specific outfits for games and sports. In my teens I began to rebel against my parents' taste in clothes and music and food, even though subconsciously I knew they loved me.

At school I would break some of the rules yet appreciated the framework aimed to educate and nurture physical, spiritual and mental growth.

I learned to question.

I learned the importance of good manners, of courtesy and consideration.

I accepted some dicta but not others of authorities such as parents, police and society.

I was still often bamboozled by fashion and taste, by pressure of peers as well as fads of contemporaries.

Now I try to balance between trusting and doubting. I listen and tempt to assess. There is much beyond my ability to understand and fathom so I accept many of the opinions of experts and I try out suggestions of others.

There is no absolute system in anything that fits all. We are unique and need to adapt what is recommended and commanded in law. I live in a society and need to accept that society's law unless I am prepared, as a matter of conscience, to disobey and take the consequences. As an individual I am also part of the whole. It is a balancing act, a personal acceptance.

In the Preface to his book 'Word into silence' John Main warns against dualism. He sees the central task of life as coming into communion. "It means going beyond all dualism, all dividedness within ourselves and beyond the alienation separating us from others". I agree.

I add the proviso that as unique individuals we bring our own selves, talents, relationships to that whole and communion. 

Methods and teaching and techniques of how to meditate are offered but each of us takes into the techniques our own selves. Main writes " we can say that we first have to find, expand and experience our own capacity for peace, for serenity, and for harmony before we begin to appreciate....the author of all harmony and serenity". This resonates with me.

I recall an old monk, a 'senpecte', telling me to 'pray as you can, not as you can't'. Main goes on the state " the profoundest teaching and the end of all words will be a participation in the creative moment of prayer. It is the silence of monks that is their true eloquence". 

This is an enticing search.

This is a journey into ourselves.

This is a decision we make.

This is for me a time to trust or as the psalmist notes "taste and see".

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