Ray's Blog: November 2010
See Amid The Winter Snow
For the first time in my sixteen years on Holy Island heavy snow has cut off roads in November. Buses and events are cancelled. Our Retreat House expected a full house for the Advent Retreat, entitled 'Make Space for Something to Happen'. Half the UK retreatants cancelled. However, one from...
Universal Child, Universal Church
Spiritual seekers may not be interested in the church, but here's an interesting question: how do we create community? Is there something common to us all, part of the human grain, which we need to enter into if community is to grow? In the Christmas song Universal...
Rap Around The Cross
Mearns lives in Northern Ireland. A charity project brought him to Whitby, on the NE Yorkshire coast of England, where Saint Hilda led a great faith community in the seventh century, from which Captain Cook sailed to so-called 'new worlds', and to which Goths and Dracula fans flock. Mearns is...
Have An Advent Retreat - Make Space For Something To Happen
I am preparing a retreat at The Open Gate, Lindisfarne, November 29 - December 3 on the theme Making Space for Something to Happen. We shall explore how Old Testament witnesses to Christ did this, sometimes only reluctanty, as moved by God. We shall explore how Mary made space...
A Question At Greenbelt
As I drove back from Llangollen in the dark I listened to an MP3 of talks on new monasticism given at the last Greenbelt Festival. A question to one speaker went something like this: What has new monasticism for people who are not in an intentional local community? There...
Wales - Land Of Saints And Scholars?
November 9, in 'Saints of the Isles '(Celtic Prayer Book Volume 2) is for All Saints of Wales. On that day I shall lead a half day for the Church in Wales' St. Asaph Diocese Spirituality and Healing Group at Dean's Library, St. Asaph on 'Gathering Threads: Renewing the parish...
Druids, Nature And God
At Halloween the main UK TV news featured Druid, but not Christian celebrations. For the first time since Christendom the Charity Commissioners have recognised a Druid Order as a beneficial religion by assuming that its devotion to Nature is equivalent to devotion to God. A Druid spokesperson said...