URBANarmy

"In many ways, at least in the Western world, the church is in the desert, in a dark night, lost, being pruned, undergoing a purifying alchemy." ( Ron Rolheiser) Rolheiser goes on to  point out, "We have our good seasons, but we have seasons too where we lose relationships, lose health, lose friends, lose spouses, lose children, lose jobs, lose prestige, lose our grip, lose our dreams, lose our meaning, and end up humbled, alone, and lonely. But that’s a place too, a valid and an important one. Inside that place, our souls are being shaped in ways we cannot understand but in ways that will stretch and widen them for a deeper love and happiness in the future." Rolheiser draws a parallel with the same place of stretching and widening in  " our greying and emptying churches" where "w e’re aging, unsure of ourselves, lacking in vocation". He suggests it is  a good place to be, where humbled and insecure, we can again become church. From being  lost, ...

A useful reminder today from Ricky Rohr! "The word dialectic originally referred to the Greek art of debate. A dialectic (different than our political debates) does not move forward by either/or thinking. It’s when you play the two off of one another and then come to a tertium quid, a third something, what the inner wisdom traditions sometimes call “Third Force.” It is the process of overcoming seeming opposites by uncovering a reconciling third that is bigger than both of the parts and doesn’t exclude either of them. Such truth moves you and the conversation to a different level. "  Seems to me that there is a lot of talking that goes on without listening in all areas of life, discovering something bigger than the sum of partisan parts seems creative and exciting to me?

Lovely quote shared by the Mother of the Groom yesterday... "Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your root was so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. that is just being in love, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two" (Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres) A perfect link with the quote I shared. “Often we speak about love as if it is a feeling. But if we wait for a feeling of love before lo...

Top Moments (in no particular order) Being surprised by Kate and Eryn together with the Pirie clan as we returned through Kingston - Gordy! The last 50km all the way back from Box Hill - the best cycling I have experienced. Seeing Ashley flying along at our rendezvous at Tower Hill - I'm not stopping! Being cheered on by Adrian and Gill in Dorking Getting to the top of Leith Hill and having someone thank me for getting him up - cheers fella! Phil Wall's monumental fist pumping encouragement with Raynes Park SA Sharing all 100 miles with nephew Adam, including my worst Arriving at the top of Box Hill to be greeted by Neil, Ashley and Mark - chased them down at last Turning into the Mall being cheered through by Juster's, knowing we had made it in time - just! Cycling out through empty London Streets Cyclist banter Getting told off by Adam for being irresponsible going down a roller on A25 -  Low Moments  Unfortunate accidents and the congestion aftermath ...

Read this today, I love her idea of inventing new ways for love... "Our challenge today is to trust the power of love at the heart of life, to let ourselves be seized by love, to create and invent ways for love to evolve into a global wholeness of unity, compassion, justice, and peacemaking." Ilia Delio Ilia Delio,  The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love  (Orbis Books: 2013), xxv.

I've been really appreciative of Ron Roheiser's thoughts recently, here he is talking about how easy it is to lose perspective ... "When perspective is lost, the world turns upside down; contentment gives way to restlessness, humility to ambition, and patience to a hopeless pursuit of a consummation, renown and immortality that this life can never give. I know. It's happened to me, countless times; in fact it happens to me most all of the time. In my life, forever it seems, I keep losing perspective and becoming obsessed with a love l cannot have, with hurts that I cannot let go of, and with an ambition that leaves me too preoccupied, too self-absorbed and too hurried to fully notice what's around me. Like most everyone else, I spend too many hours waiting for a special phone call that doesn't come, for a special letter that doesn't arrive, for a special glance of affection that isn't given and for a special daydream to turn into reality. I spend ...

Richard Rohr highlights Dante's insight to faith development:- "In "The Inferno: Canto 1," The Divine Comedy, Dante describes the human experience: "In the middle of life, I found myself in a dark wood." If you're letting life happen to you, you will be led to the dark wood where you have to ask: "What does it all mean? Why am I doing this? Why don't I feel fully alive or that my life has meaning? What am I doing wrong?" Most of us have bouts of immense self-doubt..." Other insights and advice include... "It is only by a foundational trust in the midst of suffering, some ability to bear darkness and uncertainty, and learning to be comfortable with paradox and mystery, that you move from the first half of life to the second half." "If you don't have at least one good friend, or if you have not developed a prayer life where you know how to find yourself in God instead of in your own feelings, you will simply r...