No Cover-ups In 'the Aidan Way' Mag

The front cover of  The Aidan Way, the quarterly magazine of The Comunity of Aidan and Hilda, has a dreadful picture of me draped in what looks like a carpet while broadcasting a YouTube meditation on 'Weaving Together God-given Threads'. For each meditation I dressed in something that makes visual the theme. In this case, I used a  beautiful multi-thread, multi-colour shawl woven by the talented Maureen Simpson. On You-Tube the colours show: in black and white print it just looks silly. There are no cover-ups in this Way of Life! That truth leads me from the ridiculous to the sublime. Here  are quotes from articles by two of our guardians:

Guardian Simon writes of the Desert Fathers' "deep understanding and even deeper compassion for human weakness and brokenness. They teach that healing begins by being honest with our unjudging soul friend about all that is broken in our lives, an honesty which disarms shame, guilt and self-hatred and opens us to healing..."

Guardian Penny writes of a beautiful ikon of Aidan and Hilda (given to us by Haege Aasmundtveit): "Both stand with their feet planted squarely on the ground, and they both gaze to their Lord. They are not empty handed, but they carry only what Christ has given them to carry. They cannot boast of their abilities or their mission success because what they carry is God."  Penny describes how Aidan carries a flame: by letting death to sin be at work in our bodies we allow the light of Christ to shine instead of our own ego light. Hilda carries a church - that is, all the pain and joy, the struggle and blessing of the body of Christ.

After 24 hours of prayer at our annual UK and Ireland Voyagers' Retreat it became clear to the guardians that God is not giving grandiose promotions to the community (they would be yet one more form of cover-up) , not the "wisdom of this age, but the foolishness of God".  It is in this way, Penny concludes, that we are called to be prophetic to the church and the world,  Why not meditate on these things during Lent?

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