Quiet Space 18th July 2021
What is it that We seek?
Teach me, my God and King,
In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in anything,
To do it as for Thee. George Herbert
It is silence that offers space for our lives
Too big and complex to be explained by any words
It is the silence of God that gives a home
to all the hopes, the fears, the fragments, the layers, the tangents,
the tangles and the tearings
And in the silence God holds us, all of us, and tells us
‘You are mine.’
The light, the dark, the shadow,
the sun, the rain, the wind,
the rainbow and our lives
We seek to discover the silence of our God
at the very centre of all that we are
The living centre
that makes the fullness of our humanity possible
Silence is the only language spacious enough to include
everything. Richard Carter
Silent reflection
Face to face
Here in stillness
Here as you breathe in deeply
Let the presence of God unknot you
And fill your longing
Like the beauty of rain quenching a parched land
Like sunlight’s warming brightness after the dampness of the shadow
Like the tenderness of love’s touch after the brittleness of loneliness
Like a flower opening imperceptibly
Like a bird landing and coming close, unafraid, because in
your stillness you are with him
Like a shower of rain washing away caked dust
Like the discovery of beauty when you thought it had gone away
Like the moon reflecting a luminous light
Like the stars again when you thought they no longer shone
Feel again the flow of God’s life flowing in and out
Untangling you from the inside out
Like love unseen, unheard, undeserved, expanding your heart
Broadening your world
Christ rising in you
The tomb becoming the place of resurrection. Richard Carter
Silent Reflection
See the people you pass
The lives they carry
The stories in their faces
The fragments of conversations you catch
The relationships of those walking together
The pain of some you pass like a cry of longing in your own heart
for the intimacy
And the laughter
And the colour and the youth and the age and their differing
heights ad breadths
Imagine the choosing of the clothes they are wearing
See the person
Notice the beauty of this diversity
the depth and richness and mystery of our humanity
The beauty and uniqueness of each face
Let this humanity also be your prayer
the understandable and the incomprehensible
Each and every person made in the image of God
Each person known by the Creator
Each person loved by the Creator
Be filled with compassion
Look upon creation with the eyes of a loving father or mother
Let this walking be your offering
Let this walking be your prayer.
Each day we need to find space to walk with God
‘Follow me,’ he says
To look, To hear, To touch,
To breathe in, to catch the scent of God’s season Richard Carter
Silent Reflection
Hope
Each day is an opportunity for hope
And hope will often arise from those deemed hopeless
Learn to hope in God even when hope seems impossible and beyond
Learn to hope in God’s grace even when the rules of the world cry out
that your values have no currency
Learn to hope in God’s love
Hope as tender and ephemeral as a new shoot
But which can make the desert bloom and song birds return
Richard Carter
Silent Reflection
Blessing
Blessings on the day
born of night.
Blessings on the earth
wedded to heaven.
Blessings on our bodies
filled with dreams.
Blessings on our hearts
opened by love.
Blessings, blessings, blessings
blessings. John Philip Newell
Silent Reflection
Then to close we share the Grace together
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
The Love of God, and
The fellowship of the Holy Spirit
Be with us all, now and always. Amen
* The Richard Carter readings are from his book: The City is my Monastery