Quiet Space 23rd August 2020
Welcome to Quiet Space - A meditation for late summer.
Stilling
Take a moment to dim the lights and to sit still with your breathing in the silence.
Praising
Come ye thankful people come
Raise the song of Harvest-home:
All is safely gathered in,
Ere the winter storms begin;
God our Maker, doth provide
For our wants to be supplied
Reading
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God… We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8:18-19, 22-25)
Silence
Meditation 1: Approaching the Equinox
As we approach the end of August and the month of September we begin to notice the approach of the equinox, ‘when day and night are of equal length all over the world. It happens around September 21st and is opposite the spring equinox around March 21st. Both are months of transformation when one season clearly moves into another. There is thanksgiving for all the earth’s abundance but there is also a letting go of the summer… The balance of the equinox celebrates the wholeness of light and shadow, the seen and unseen, the known and unknown, death and re-birth, creation and destruction. Spiritually, if we are to make space for the new, we need to embrace rest and renewal, almost like brushing the fallen leaves of the soul to clear a path for what will come. We plan to plant bulbs soon and keep them in the dark until they are nourished and ready to come up into the light later, changed and transformed by their time beneath the surface.’
(The Celtic Wheel of the Year, Tess Ward)
Silence
Meditation 2:
Not conscious
that you have been seeking
suddenly
you come upon it
the village in the Welsh hills
dust free
with no road out
but the one you came in by.
A bird chimes
from a green tree
the hour that is no hour
you know. The river dawdles
to hold a mirror for you
where you may see yourself
as you are, a traveller
with the moon’s halo
above him, who has arrived
after long journeying where he
began, catching this
one truth by surprise
that there is everything to look forward to.
(Arrival by R S Thomas, Later Poems 1983, Copyright)
Prayer
Creator God you gave us one life and dreams to fly,
Surround and sustain me where I lie down this night.
As the birds around me moult and cannot fly until new feathers come,
Be with me as I stop for awhile and shed my skin of the year.
And when I prepare to take off again,
Give me wisdom to know what to let fall and what to take with me.
Be with all I think of now who need your care.
Bring us comfort as we lie down to sleep.
Replenish me as I rest this night and make me ready to greet the day.
Sources: Tess Ward, The Celtic Wheel of the Year, Jim Cotter, Etched by Silence, R S Thomas, Later Poems, Lorraine Cavanagh, The Really Useful Meditation Book