Another Kind of Light

We are in our winter of listening; of attending inwardly despite all the temptations to focus on the outer noise:the carnage of a failing empire will always be a vexatious distraction - its interesting isn’t it when language catches up with behaviour; last week I was doing something, and then this week I discovered there …

Winter-light finding sacred time: a meditation on John Donne’s A Nocturnal upon St Lucy’s Day

After hearing this poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44122/a-nocturnal-upon-st-lucys-day We listened to this extraordinary rendition of an epiphany carol Slava Rozhdennomu by Natalka Polovynka https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5DQv2nIDlA&feature=youtu.be "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." Gospel of John 1:5 Earlier we heard John Donne’s great poem A Nocturnal on St Lucy’s day. Perhaps this great metaphysical …

New Years Day – (a short meeting to catch up and tune in)

Happy New Year ListeningIn The winter of Listening David Whyte says..."What is preciousinside us does notcare to be knownby the mindin ways that diminishits presence."... So as we begin to listen, listen to our deepest selves; which is to say we pray, I ask in words of Pema Chodron: “…what frees you and helps you …

Turn around, turn around, turn around (metanoia in a time of meta-crisis)

This service was given on June 28th 2020 during lockdown restrictions for Covid19: Today we heard a track from I'm New Here by Gil Scott Heron - "...this the closest thing I have to a voice of reason..."Gil Scott Heron was one of the heroes of my youth, a genuine cross-over artist who introduced punks …

‘As time goes by’ : re-enchantment in time of crisis…

Our services of contemplative, spiritual worship here at Mill Hill Chapel are acts of resistance to the prevailing culture; We stand between the worlds of finance and retail here in Leeds and offer an alternative narrative to both. Our services are acts of resistance to the prevailing culture because they intentionally acknowledge and centre the …

My ghost/your ghost

A few weeks ago I noticed how every year the changing of the hour does something weird to all of us; because we see reality slip just slightly, we see that the time is constructed by all of us and when we change it we all have to agree to a reality shift.I once visited …

The Over Soul of All Souls

“We wouldn’t treat people the way we do if they had souls”… In an interview recently https://youtu.be/C-mJnYmdVmQ?t=2379 the psychologist Gabor Mate said: “For this society to function it has to separate the soul from the body - because we wouldn’t treat people the way we do if [we believed] they had souls. Post-enlightenment rationalism means …

The world prays within you

This world of blissful surprise,of ecstatic imaginings ofbaby cry and lover’s sighand cloud roll into thunderheadand rain falling on the tongue (and the lips and the teeth)This world prays within you -and turns your blood vivid blue as it oxygenatespulses and electrifies neuronsthrough synapsesand then releases blood-red rushingin your ears and your nose, temple bells …

Shooting Star – a duet of this Bob Dylan song with Aletia Upstairs

Aletia is an incredible singer her stuff can be found here  and here (so as you see she's a doctor of archival performance really and not a cabaret singer. Or not only a cabaret singer). We met on sthe street at Mill Hill and she invited me up into a cardboard box. She later performed …

Revisiting a service on Prayer in a time of pandemic

Before re-posting this service on Prayer which reflects some of the things I was thinking about nearly ten years ago when it was first written, here's some recent research from May this year: A quarter of adults in the UK have watched or listened to a religious service since the coronavirus lockdown began, and one …