Stillness
Sunday 23th February 2025, led by Penelope Turton
Gathering
Let us start by settling and stilling our bodies centring ourselves in this place and this moment Becoming aware of the sounds around us … and the scents and movements of the garden even as we recognise the noise and smell of the traffic Sensing the ground beneath our feet, the air on our faces , the presence of each other. Remembering that, like everything that lives, we are part of and never apart from the same Source that is God. We are never alone; our souls and bodies are at home in, and intimately connected with the rhythm and matter of the universe. We focus our attention on three slow, deep breaths remembering the Psalmist: Be still, and know that I am God.
We will take a few moments silence between each reading.
Readings
We thank you God for the gift of this time together in this sacred place with all the human and more than human selves who are with us and around us. May we honour it all with the same love that you have bestowed on all your Creation.
From the writing of Thomas Keating (1923 2018) Trappist monk
Our true nature is stillness,
The Source from which we come.
The deep listening of pure contemplation
Is the path to stillness.
All words disappear into It,
And all creation awakens to the delight of
Just Being.
From Burnt Norton in The Four Quartets, by T S Eliot
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
Meditation (15 minutes)
If you are online , give your attention to a plant or the view from a window if you can. Those of us in the garden, simply walk or sit until something draws your attention. Gaze, as if at a beloved. If thoughts arise, acknowledge them and let them go, like passing clouds. Simply keep coming back to what drew your attention, for its own sake only.
Regathering
If you would like to, please share any particular response you have had.
From The Thought of Something Else by Wendell Berry
A Spring wind
blowing the smell of the ground
through the intersections of traffic,
the mind turns, seeks a new
nativity another place,
simpler, less weighted
by what has already been…
- A place where thought
can take its shape
as quietly in the mind
as water in a pitcher,
or a man can be
safely without thought
- see the day begin
and lean back,
a simple wakefulness filling
perfectly
the spaces among the leaves.
Spring Haiku by Chigetsu , female poet in the Basho d. 1708
the songbird’s song -
it stops what I am doing
at the sink.
Prayer
Oh God, in whom the dance Oh God, in whom the dance and the stillness are one,
help us we pray that we may give time to be still,
to contemplate your gifts,
to gaze in wonder,
to practice wakefulness,
to listen in silence,
to be fully attentive,
that with a faithful heart we might come to learn the fullness of your Being
each and every day
Amen
Blessing
O God: Source, Sustainer, Home, Way and eternal End of all that is and lives and has its being, may your blessing be upon us and all your Creation, now and always.
Amen
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