Easter Monday, April 13
AFTERWARD
A word from RTG: I love stained glass windows in old church buildings. Each window seems to convey a sermon in itself. Today’s message is “I am the Bread of Life.” Perhaps it’s the message for every day (in the sense of ‘give us this day our daily bread’).” Throughout the pandemic baking has increased significantly. Maybe that is because bread is truly a “comfort food.”
This hotel key from a recent stay has our mission summarized into just three words:
Enjoy the afterword– take it to heart– Peace Out!
Afterword by Rowan Williams (104th Archbishop of Canterbury):
My dear Richard,
What your wonderful book says to me is that I’m invited into a shared space; so that it seems most natural to write an afterword as a letter of thanks, not a little essay of some sort. I warmed so much to the basic idea of exploring the ‘with-ness’ of God at so many levels. One of the really strange and fresh things about Christianity is that it says that God is never anything other than ‘with’ – with God’s self in eternity as the interwoven action that is the Trinity; and then, overflowing from that, God’s free act of being with what isn’t God. And because God is completely faithful to God’s own nature and character, this being with what isn’t God is the steady, dependable backdrop to everything in the universe.
You’re inviting us into a style of living that is meant to share and show this steady being-within our own acts, words and plans. You show us a variety of ways in which we might allow ourselves to step back far enough from feverish maintenance work on our own security and worry to be free to see and hear and sense what every encounter with the world gives us. Lots here about seeing and sensing, I thought. And it’s not just about some kind of aesthetic enrichment: you keep bringing us back to the embodied reality of accompaniment, a being-with that really requires us to put our bodies – and hearts – on the line: standing with someone without any defence that will keep the world at bay …
‘Running towards those you love’: what an extraordinary phrase to ponder: God’s own irresistible urge to be as fully with us as can be, and our summons to let that divine urge come alive in us. What you write here about the Eucharist makes me think of receiving Communion in terms of opening up to God’s urgency of longing to be with us, and to be in us, with whoever we are given to meet: the mystery of seeing ‘the peace of Christ carried on his father’s back’, where we have feared to find negation and violence. I was moved by the Eucharistic order you offered, and thought how much we clutter our celebrations to the point where we can’t properly see that promise carried into our midst, into our company.
And then, the silent dance, free from self-consciousness, when we are no longer worried about the impression we make or even the ‘results’ we achieve. Thank you for that, for the memorable image of Molly dancing to the music in her head. Perhaps as we learn to dance like that, we make ourselves at last visible to ourselves and others – or rather, we make visible to ourselves the reality of which we are a part, so that we and those looking at us and reacting to us might pick up something of that music in the head, unheard but imperative, deeply personal but just as deeply connected and connecting.
I realize that all I’m doing is leafing through and picking up bits that have struck and moved and kindled something as I’ve read, and I could go on with this for a very long time indeed. But this is meant to be just a letter of thanks, in which what matters is to say that yes, this is both recognizable and startlingly new. What you’ve given us here is not simply another book on ‘spirituality’ but a workbook for living in and with meaning, Christian meaning, Jesus-shaped meaning. Wherever we are, here and now, is the centre, the ground of the soul, because this here and now is where God has chosen to be and to be with. I hope that all those who are gathered in the Nazareth family of friends, who have chosen to be where they are because God has chosen to be where they are, will become words of hope and affirmation to all who don’t know where they are and don’t yet fully see the God who is with them where they are.
Thanks so much, dear Richard. It has been a privilege to find a way to Nazareth with you in reading this book. I hope this conveys my delight in and gratitude for your book.
With much love as always,
Rowan (TCIMM pages 267-269)
The City Is My Monastery 