Watchnight: for growth (unknowing)

I clear the surface of my desk and make a pool of light with my lamp.  I go off to fetch matches and light a candle.  One light is steady and sure, the other uncertain and flickering.  I open my notebook and work between these two poles.  On balance, it’s where I prefer to be: somewhere in the middle.  Certainty is a dead space, in which there’s no more room to grow.  Wavering is painful.  I’m glad to be travelling between the two.

Katherine May, Wintering (94)

Keeping Watchnight as a contemplative practice is very like the experience that May describes above. The clear light of faith of Christmas Day put together with the clear light of memories of the past year, can resolve into a type of certainty.  There is no more room for growth, another year is done.  

Except that, as I’ve been writing about for the past month, the Christian calendar for the year is only just beginning, and in the Celtic Calendar the dark year is less than two months old.  So this night, which I feel is nearly as dark as the Winter Solstice in its capacity for mysticism, is one long opportunity for uncertainty, for wavering, for flickering,  

Watchnight is about pausing to (re)commit all time and space that I inhabit back to the Maker.  It is about rendering all I am and hope to be, all the time and space I hope to inhabit, back to the Maker.

Inevitably then, Watchnight is about discernment, vision, enquiry, listening.  And I have to train my soul for its work in the way I train myself as a contemplative photographer.  As Sugandhi Gadadhar, wildlife filmmaker says,

A camera is just an aid in the process of making an image. The best tools are with you, your eyes and your mind. …Begin to explore your own surroundings – your windowsill, your home garden or local green area, or even the bicycle that you left untouched for days. You never know what wild surprises are in store.

Watchnight is about getting serious with the idea of doing the training, so that I recognise a wild surprise when it is disguised as a scum-scratched pool.  Such seriousness is not a resolution, rather it is a contemplative intention to propel me throughout the next year.  It helps me tune into who I want to be and who I think God wants me be. “Setting intentions is powerful when done properly” says AnnaMarie Houlis in How to Set Intentions :

It is more than setting goals – it is about being purposeful in pursuing your desire… an invitation to step into your preferred story especially when your intentions solidly align with your values. …When setting intentions, it is like laying foundations for what you would like to have, feel and experience, providing you with the opportunity to actively participate in your life the way you want to live it.

Desire and participation are two heavyweight words for me.  I desire to participate in God, in God’s doings here on earth.  I desire to live in the mystical heart of God, amongst the unknowing places of Creation.  Such a desire means I will have to live in the wavering places too, for, too often, that is where the God-With-Us is to found – in the depths of those scum-scratched pools.  Or as the gospel of St John has it, 

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

Last week, I recommended an interview with Frank Skinner by the Seen and Unseen website.  One of the interviewers, Belle Tindall, went on to unpack some of the themes of their conversation, and I liked her version of the incarnation – the ‘withness’ of God, (to use Samuel Wells’ term):

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  

That’s the incarnation summed up in ten words. It’s ironic that it would take ten-million words to fully unpack the depth of them, isn’t it? Gosh. John’s such a genius.  

The Word – that’s Jesus – who, as the Prologue goes on to state, is the Son of God, the very source of life itself, and the light of the world. He was present since the beginning, preceding and partaking in the creation of the universe. He, the Word – Jesus – became flesh, and moved into the neighbourhood. And in so doing, he bound together centuries worth of prophecies, predictions, expectations and hopes. The maker squeezed himself into the confines of the made; it is, without a doubt, one of the most outrageous claims that Christianity makes.  

The Word has an accent.  

The Word gets tired.   

The Word burns the roof of his mouth on his food. 

And yet, still God. Always God. The Word of God, with a name and a birthday and a bedtime. Wherever you fall on the whole ‘believing it’ scale, you have to admit, it’s pretty astonishing.  It is a cosmic-sized plot-twist.  

But what if one were to assume that this really happened? If one were to believe that a God who transcends time, space and matter actually made a physical appearance in human history, as Frank Skinner does, then it changes everything. Such a belief leaves nothing untouched, it is utterly un-containable.  

So now I not only need to pay attention to my intention to have eyes open for the wild surprise of the God-Who-Comes, I need to be prepared for the God-With-Us to be uncontainable, to permeate through everything: all I am, all I have, all I desire.  I need to be prepared to accompany God into the wavering places, into all those places where unknowing lies.  But one thing is for certain: when I accompany a God who spills over the edges of any container I might try to put the Holy into, I need to make room for the fact it’s going to get messy, wild and surprising.

Faithful Companion,
In this new year we pray:

to live deeply, with purpose,
to live freely, with detachment,
to live wisely, with humility,
to live justly, with compassion,
to live longingly, with fidelity,
to live mindfully, with awareness,
to live gracefully, with generosity,
to live fully, with enthusiasm.

Help us to hold this vision
and to daily renew it in our hearts,
becoming ever more one with you,
our truest Selves.

Amen.

from Out of the Ordinary, 

Sister Joyce Rupp

Suppose I took out a slender ketch from

under the spokes of Palace pier tonight to

catch a sea going fish for you

or dressed in antique goggles and wings and

flew down through sycamore leaves into the park

or luminescent through some planetary strike

put one delicate flamingo leg over the sill of your lab

Could I surprise you? or would you insist on

keeping a pattern to link every transfiguration?

Listen, I shall have to whisper it 

into your heart directly: we are all

supernatural / every day

we rise new creatures / cannot be predicted

‘

Anniversary’

Elaine Feinstein

scum-scuffed-scratches. (iPhone image)