Pluscarden Reflections - Part 1

Two weekends ago I went on retreat to Pluscarden Abbey, the only medieval monastery still in use in the UK. It's set in beautiful countryside near the town of Elgin and is home to a community of Benedictine monks. Guests are free to come and go as they please, but are invited to join with the brothers in their times of worship.

After arriving, we joined them for vespers at 5:30 and sat through 45 minutes of ritual, song and prayer that I’m guessing had changed very little in seven centuries. And although I didn't understand the Latin liturgy (and there's still a part of me that balks at ritual), it was a blessing to be there because the experience opened up for me a window into the mystery of God.

Incense hung around us like a cloud as the priest consecrated the bread and wine, and having done so, we kept silence together before God in that great room, for fifteen minutes.

Fifteen minutes of absolute silence. It felt like the whole of heaven was holding its breath. It was an experience of the Numinous.

This Sunday's lectionary readings - Moses on Sinai and Christ's Transfiguration - can feel a bit problematic because of the whole son et lumiere thing. How do we, who have never and probably will never have that kind of experience, relate to what Moses and the disciples went through?

Answer - the very same light and sound is breaking through all the time in little ways if we have eyes to see and ears to hear. Gerard Manley Hopkins was spot on:

“The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out like shining from shook foil”

Slowly to Recover

It's been a better Christmas break than I could hope for. In the weeks before it all kicked off I prayed a very small, but heartfelt prayer that I would get the space I needed to catch my breath, and I'm deeply grateful that it was answered. It's been the quietest Christmas, pastorally, since I came to St Hacket's. We've had some good days together as a family - off to the panto in Aberdeen (3D specs have come a long way since I was a kid!), to the movies and bowling, out for walks and meals, and even a wee mini-break at Granny and Grandpa's. Catering and childcare included in the tarriff!

In a couple of weeks I'm getting a break at Pluscarden Abbey, a Benedictine centre, with some new friends and I'm really looking forward to some space with God to help me find focus for the year. I went away this time last year to the Bield at Blackruthven, and one of the fruits of that time was that I started dabbling in poetry again - something I'd not made time for for ages. This is the piece that kicked it all off - written after a lovely, languid, solo swim in the Bield's pool. What is it with me and slowness.....?!

Slowly To Recover

Just me and the pool.
Water slopping in the drains
and the sonorous hum of machinery doing
exactly what it was meant to do.

Twenty, thirty, forty.
Then one length slowly to recover;
what exactly?
The now.
This gifted moment I am living.

Golden ochre shimmers on the waves’ crests,
dappling the undertow of blues and indigoes
with liquid light.
A thousand swells,
dancing, dying, reborn.
Beyond describing.
Beyond even seeing.
Simply beheld, with sheer gratitude.

Steaming shower,
slowly to recover.
Soothing aches;
kindling limbs, and thankfulness,
to life again.