CHRISTIANS

AWAKENING

Christians

Awakening

to new

Awareness

(CANA)

CANA is a network of people exploring the emergence of humanity’s next evolutionary step for which Jesus has paved the way. This requires us to risk living co-creatively through attunement to the ONE.

CANA offers people nurture and companionship in their process of awakening and the opportunity to find a commonality with others on a similar continuing journey.

Our collective journey has no set goal. The reality of our unity may be seen to develop. But the essential nature of our journey is one of continuing exploration.

Everyone’s contribution is a valued part of the whole and none is dispensable. As we leave behind the language and interpretations of the past, we are challenged to find new expressions of the emerging vision.

CANA recognizes that we are all one through that of God within us from whatever background we come.

CANA is a group where risk becomes safe through trust and where exploration is key.

SPRING NEWSLETTER 2016 Volume 5 Issue 1

C O N T E N T S ARTICLE by Page no. Editorial Don McGregor 2 Richard Rohr : Cynthia Bourgeault 3 Imagery and our Understanding of God Iain McKillop 4 A Space for Living Spirituality Janet Lake 5 From the CANA Core Group 6 A Penalty of Love Judy Hanmer 7 Death/Rebirth and the Evolution of Consciousness Harry Underhill 8 Faith in Our Time/The Power of Small Groups Clare Freeman/Denise Moll 9 “What is it you have Faith in on the inner plane?” 10 One Spirit Alliance . Retreat at Pershore Janice Dolley 11 Back Page 12

photograph by Janet Lake

"The tender words we say to one another are stored in the secret

heart of heaven:

One day like rain, they will fall and spread, and our mystery will grow

green over the world."

Rumi

2

Editorial In December 2015, a number of us in the

Core Group met over 3 days to think through the different but connected strands that have been developing within CANA over the last year. It emerged from the meeting that the ‘hub’ or central role of CANA was to help others on the path of transformation to wholeness, which is one of the central messages of Jesus in the gospels. As a result, we are including in any new publicity the strapline:

CANA - Water into Wine - the Way of Transformation

This picks up the symbolism from the first sign in John’s gospel, the abundant transformation of water into wine during the wedding at Cana. We expressed our intention as:

“A living spirituality emerging anew from its roots in the mystical heart of all faith traditions, but reawakened and revitalised to be accessible and relevant in this day and age.”

This encouraged us to identify some of the

values and ethos we want to see built into any future steps for humanity, which, in the Christian tradition would be called building the kingdom of God. We identified some of these as inclusiveness, gratitude, forgiveness, compassion, empathy, trust, love, self-emptying, service, non-dual consciousness, co-creation and many others.

From the foundational concept that we are on a journey of transformation, we are beginning to develop a programme of events which will aid us all in that quest. We realised that we are part of the ‘New Story’ of humanity, looking to formulate a New Story of Christianity. There are two aspects to this, the first being to deepen our experience and the second to develop our understanding of how Christianity can be reinterpreted for the 21st century.

To deepen our experience, we are starting a Wisdom School, the first of which will be a 4 day retreat “Silence by the Sea” at the Othona Community in Dorset from 26-29 September 2016. We are also launching a series of events

called “Digging Deeper” which will be experiential workshops helping us to embody those essential ethics and values.

To develop and inform the New Story for Christianity, we hope to start a series of “Spiritual Exploration Days” to bring out some of the more hidden or esoteric teachings, looking at the work of people like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Rudolph Steiner, Sir George Trevelyan and various others, starting with a day in Oxford on May 11 2016 with William Meader, entitled “Exploring the Interface between Christianity and Perennial Philosophy”.

For details of all these events, see later in the newsletter, or on our website. And also on the website you will find a huge resource of back-copies of these newsletters plus many other resources and study booklets.

We are all very excited about these new developments and the new energy that seems to be pouring in to our small but dedicated organisation. We hope, as a CANA contributor, you can join us in our explorations and journey.

With Light, Love and Hope that ‘all shall be

well’ for this troubled world,

Don MacGregor

“The decisive question for man is: is he

related to something infinite or not? That is

the telling question of his life. Only if we

know that the thing which truly matters is

the infinite can we avoid fixing our interests

upon futilities, and upon all kinds of goals

which are not of real importance…If we

understand and feel that here in this life we

already have a link with the infinite, desires

and attitudes change. In the final analysis

we could count for something only because

of the essential we embody, and if we do not

embody that life is wasted.” (source not

given) C G Jung

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“We don‟t think ourselves into a new way

of living; we live ourselves into a new way of

thinking.”

RICHARD ROHR, OFM Richard Rohr, O.F.M. (born 1943) is

a Franciscan friar ordained to the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church in 1970. He is an internationally known inspirational speaker and has published numerous recorded talks and books, most recently Yes, And...: Daily Meditations, Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See, and Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi.

Richard Rohr says: “This Richard self,

this little thing that appears to be visible here

and takes itself too seriously, is a relative

identity, but it‟s not my absolute identity that

will exist forever.”

“Compassion and patience are the

absolutely unique characteristics of true

spiritual authority”

“The compassionate holding of something

meaningless or tragedy, as Jesus does in

hanging on the Cross, is the final and

triumphant resolution of all dualisms and

dichotomies”

Richard Rohr offers free daily meditations, via e-mail: www.cac.org/category/daily-meditations

Support@cac.org Or write to: PO Box 12464, Albuquerque, New

Mexico, 87195, USA

Modern day mystic, Episcopal priest, writer, and internationally known retreat leader, Cynthia Bourgeault divides her time between solitude at her seaside hermitage in Maine, and a demanding schedule traveling globally to teach and spread the recovery of the Christian contemplative and Wisdom path. She has been a long-time advocate of the meditative practice of Centering Prayer and has worked closely with fellow teachers and colleagues including Thomas Keating, Bruno Barnhart, and Richard Rohr.

“There is

nothing to

prove and

nothing to

protect.

I am who

I am and

it‟s

enough”

CYNTHIA BOURGEAULT

Cynthia Bourgeault is passionately committed to the recovery of the Christian contemplative path and has worked closely with many other contemporary leaders in this tradition. She is also deeply committed to working with leaders of other faiths. Books written include: The Wisdom Jesus, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, Chanting the Psalms, Mystical Hope, The Wisdom Way of Knowing, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening and Love is Stronger Than Death.

“The language

of spiritual

transformation

is already

written deeply

within our

bodies; when we

get the hang of

the gesture, we

discover the

spiritual truth

it illumines."

A Tragic Case of Mistaken Identity: “Like

most of the great spiritual masters of our

universe, Jesus taught from the conviction that

we human beings are victims of a tragic case of

mistaken identity. The person I normally take

myself to be: that busy, anxious little “I” so

preoccupied with its goals, fears, desires, and

issues—is never even remotely the whole of who

I am, and to seek the fulfilment of my life at

this level means to miss out on the bigger life.

This is why, according to his (Jesus) teaching,

the one who tries to keep his „life‟ (ie, the small

one) will lose it, and the one who is willing to

lose it will find the real thing”. from Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening

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IMAGERY AND OUR UNDERSTANDING OF GOD Douglas Adams talked of people’s capacity to do or believe “six impossible things before breakfast”. Christians trust in what, to some, seem ‘impossible things’. We aim to know and follow the invisible God *John17:3+. Scripture suggests that God intends and helps people to find and relate to him yet we accept that, being infinite, God remains incomprehensible. Part of the Church’s mission is to uncover and promote what is true and try to make the incomprehensible comprehensible to as many people as possible. 1John1:1 assures us that in Jesus his followers had “seen and touched” divine reality; after Christ’s Resurrection Thomas saw and believed. Yet Jesus called us “blessed who have not seen and yet believe”*Jn.20:28-9+. Moses is described as close to God: “who the Lord knew and spoke to face to face as to a friend” *Ex.33:11; Deut.34:10+. Yet Moses taught his people to accept that God ‘is’, rather than having a ‘name’ that might make God appear comprehensible. Names and titles we use for God tentatively label but cannot define or explain infinite qualities. The title ‘YHWH’/’I am who I am’/’I will be what I will be’ *Ex.3:14+ suggests that we do not ‘understand’ God but that in and through God we encounter ‘truth’ and ‘reality’. ‘I AM’ is constantly with us, guides us and confronts us with the reality of who we are, our sins and limitations but also our potential, our gifts and how we should live. Christians grow to understand fragmentary aspects of the invisible God and build a relationship with him through various means. Theology teaches that we approach comprehension of God through ‘Scripture, Tradition, Reason & Experience’. St Paul suggests that aspects of the Creator are revealed through the physical world *Rom.1:20+. Most physically we recognise God through Jesus’ life, character, actions and teaching. Jesus loved, healed, reproved, forgave, strengthened, led, taught and guided in ways that modelled and revealed God’s nature. His followers saw truths in him, which convinced them that he was “the Way, the Truth & the Life”*Jn.14:16+. Jesus’ teaching ‘unveiled’ the invisible God by training us to understand and relate to God through allusively rich images and metaphors: ‘Father’, ‘shepherd’, ‘spirit’, ‘master’, Lord, ‘ landlord’ etc.. The parables teach that God ‘loves’, ‘judges’, ‘cares’, ‘owns’, ‘longs for our restoration’, making parallels between our human qualities & God’s nature. Christian theology has built on such revelations. But we should always recognise the limitations of metaphors, not take them too literally. If we interpret such characteristics too literally or imagine God to be too like a human being we are in danger of heresy, idolatry or limiting God. Thinking too concretely

can make Christians over-dogmatic: much of faith is intended to remain as mystery or be tentatively understood. If we interpret Apocalyptic monsters too literally or fearfully we can lose sight of the intention of the whole Revelation vision, which was to prove that Christ is more important, active, protective of his faithful followers and powerful than any possible opposition to God or the advance of Salvation. For centuries God was identified as male, vindictively judgemental, interested only in Salvation through the Church, because believers interpreted the power described in scripture with human limitations. Christians interpreted God’s law with pharisaic literalism, despite St Paul’s insistence that Christ has freed us from legalism. ‘The Trinity’ is confusing if we attempt too literal understanding of physically how ‘one’ can be ‘three’. God’s infinite spiritual being is presumably much greater than humanly limited concepts of a Trinity of ‘persons’: ‘Trinity’ is a way of explaining scripture’s teaching that God is a unity yet has self-revealed by acting in three particular ways. The human mind has great capacity to explore and hold mysteries creatively if we train our imaginations correctly, as contemplation seeks to do. In fiction, our minds can enjoy fantasy literature and films about unearthly creatures and powers without needing to believe they are physically real. In the spiritual dimension we can explore the potential within a spiritual image while recognising that only aspects of truth are being revealed: the image is not the concrete reality. We can appreciate and discover truths within a good religious picture without believing the saints actually looked like that. Religious imagery doesn’t ‘represent’ God, it sensitises one’s mind or feelings to become aware of metaphysical truths. One day, we’re assured, we will see more clearly, perhaps even, like Moses, ‘face to face’ *1Cor.13:12+ but while we wait, faith can come alive through well-chosen metaphors, which allusively teach us to reach towards God. Christian sermons, liturgy and literature are fertile with them. We can enhance and enlighten faith by creating suggestion-rich imagery, which might engage people’s imaginations and lead to insights, revelations, even epiphanies. Good teachers don’t just pass on the information they know; we seek to help people develop greater knowledge, imagination, insight, skills & discipleship than ourselves. To be continued

Iain McKillop Iain McKillop is a Surrey priest, painter & art-historian who has been researching traditions of using art in prayer. His exhibitions regularly tour British cathedrals. Website: mckillop.weebly.com

5

A SPACE FOR LIVING

SPIRITUALITY

An Exciting Local Initiative

I want to tell you about this initiative the Quakers

in Bridport have embraced, making

available their 1652 Meeting House the second

Saturday each month as the venue.

Here’s an adapted outline of the original proposal to set up a centre for deepening our

own spiritual life, with a programme participatory

in nature and open to all.

What is Living Spirituality?

It is about “increasing our capacity for spiritual

perception.....not so much about

knowing more but about more of ourselves

knowing.....to awaken the heart which is

the organ of spiritual perception” (Quotes from

Cynthia Bourgeault's Wisdom School)

It’s learning how to be more deeply receptive to

that wisdom which comes from the

divine/spiritual dimension.....having access to the

kind of knowing which is not limited to the ego

and all its personal agendas and concerns, but

about a wider vision. It’s about the way of

transformation.....accessing a non-dual way of

being in the world and truly loving our neighbour

as ourselves as though we are one.

Why Now?

We are living in a world dominated, certainly in

the West, by self-interest, greed and fear, and

with a dualistic way of thinking and being that

fosters polarisation and conflict. Increasingly 'my'

or 'our' safety, security and standard of living are

threatened by the different other. So it's my (or

our) self-interest as opposed to yours, me or

you.....rather than me and you, as part of the one

whole body of humanity. Our relationship to the

earth and to one another has to change for the

future life of our species on this beautiful planet

earth.....and it won't come about by counter-

action as that fuels the dualistic way of being: ie.

of us versus them. There has to be a shift in

consciousness/awareness from being trapped in

the heavy energies of living from a dualistic

perspective alone, to that life-giving and lighter

energy of cooperation with the unseen realms.....

ie to those spiritual dimensions.

So the exploration of a living spirituality is vital in our times if we are to meet the challenges of the day from a creative and unifying place, rather than a destructive and divisive one. A shift in spiritual consciousness by enough of us soon enough is desperately needed to creatively confront the huge issues of our day. There is a real hunger for an authentic and living spirituality emerging anew from its roots in the mystical heart of all the faith traditions, but reawakened and revitalised to be accessible and relevant in this day and age. So we started on March 12th with the First series of 4 monthly Saturdays entitled “Being Human And Of God” with 28 people turning up.....most encouraging! In the Autumn there will be a series on “Spiritual Practice”; and next year, on themes such as “Healing and Spirituality” and “Meditating with Sacred Texts”. Facilitators are from different faith traditions and each day is a unit, so attendance at all sessions in a series is not necessary. (For more information about these days please contact me on iona16@hotmail.co.uk)

Janet Lake

“I have come to recognise that it is not my duty

to struggle with the world, nor to condemn this

or that, but first and foremost to know myself,

since every conflict begins within ourselves.

That does not mean that I am indifferent, but

if someone wants to change the world, then he

must begin with himself. I am absolutely

convinced of this. If one does not begin with

oneself, every step towards the world will be

nothing but a big lie and at the same time an

attack, and this aggressiveness tends to go on

spreading. How to do this is quite a different

story, but if one starts off with this idea

everything else appears in a new light. And so I

set off in search of new sounds. In this way

the path itself becomes the source of

inspiration. The path no longer turns outwards

from us, but inwards, to the core from which

everything springs. That is what all my actions

have come to mean: building and not destroying”.

Arvo Pârt in Conversation

6

From the CANA Core Group:-

Website Resources On our website there is a resources page from

which you can download past newsletters, booklists and reviews, and study booklets on:

Christ in us Today

Exploring Ways Forward for Christians into

the Twenty First Century

Living in a more spiritual way

The Christ

Christians Today opening to a New Awareness

Christian Reincarnation?

The Lost Kingdom of God

Christ Consciousness

Religion & Spirituality

Why is the Church Not Facing up to the

Spirituality Revolution?

Why not pay a visit to www.christiansawakening.org

A Contemporary Christianity On the website is an article entitled ‘A

Contemporary Christianity – What to Ditch?’ in which Gillian Paschkes-Bell and Don MacGregor give their opinion on what areas of doctrine need overhauling in order to move forward. We invite your comments, and here is a shortened version of it for the newsletter.

Many of us struggle with the Christianity that is laid out before us in the Church (whichever denomination). Some of the concepts and doctrine comes from a world view which is far from our own. For example, the picture of God as ‘our Heavenly Father’ which we find in much of the liturgy, hymns and prayers that we use does not express how many of us think about God now. But ‘why change’, some say. Why should we ditch two-thousand-year-old concepts? The simple answer is that we understand so much more about the universe, our physiological and psychological make-up, and also about some of the ancient wisdom that had been lost, that many of the familiar ways of understanding no longer fit the purpose. And the purpose is to help us to awaken to the spiritual reality of the world we inhabit and are part of. Traditional Christianity has become a large square peg trying to fit into a round hole. In order to make it fit, the corners have to be taken off – we have to ditch some parts and revisit others with fresh eyes – and add some new insights.

From this standpoint, we may find that there are beliefs and doctrines in mainstream Christianity that are not life-affirming, and ways of interpreting the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth that likewise we do not find to be helpful to the human spirit or the well-being of the planet as a whole.

What was the process of the development of Christianity as it has been handed down to us? It all started with the Jesus event, the person of Jesus of Nazareth. But the only accounts we have of his life are in gospel texts written 40-70 years after his death, which have been hugely influenced by the Hebrew scriptures that were written down 100-600 years before his life. In fact you could say the gospel writers raided the Hebrew scriptures to fill out the account of his life to make it fit in with their thought-world of the time. This was further added to by the writers of the letters, bearing in mind that all of Paul’s letters were written before any of the gospels, so the concepts and ideas he developed were to some extent fleshed out in the gospel stories. Paul was an ex-Pharisee, steeped in the Hebrew scriptures and with a turn of mind that was mystically inspired at times, controlling at others, and sometimes confused.

Later came the early theologians of the church, who gradually decided what should be included in both scripture and doctrine, and, more pointedly, what should be eradicated as ‘heresy’. Much of this was arguably inspired more politically than spiritually, and the resulting ‘lost Christianities’ were all the ways of thinking that had flourished in the early centuries of Christianity. Some of these have recently been rediscovered through research and archaeological finds; others have continued to be practiced quietly in out-of-the-way places.

Gradually, over the first 700 years, Christianity hardened into a commanding body of doctrine and dogma. It was a long process. To challenge it meant accusations of blasphemy and heresy, and often death by unpleasant means, all of which is a long way from the call of the founder to ‘love your neighbour as yourself.’

So there are questions we have to ask.

1. What accretions have gathered during this process that are not helpful and life-affirming? Can we ditch them? Here are some examples that we feel need to be revisited:

Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God.

The inheritance of the idea from temple worship that God demands a sacrifice.

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The wrath of God.

Salvation as a promise for the future afterlife rather than a path of wholeness for now.

Male patriarchy and language derived from it.

The virgin birth and the nativity story as literal, not metaphorical.

2. What omissions are there? What has been squashed or eradicated in the process? For example:

Jesus as a wisdom teacher of the path of transformation. This path has a long lineage in other indigenous and Mystery traditions.

The lost Christianities that were gradually quashed in the early centuries.

The other scriptures that were left out of the canon of the New Testament, such as the recently rediscovered Gospels of Thomas, Philip and Mary Magdalene.

The lost doctrine of reincarnation or rebirth.

3. What needs to be added from our current understanding? For example:

New insights from areas of physics, biology, sociology, psychology and systems theory

Insights from other faiths.

The core group of CANA are embarking on a project to flesh out all these areas in courses, retreats and experiential opportunities to begin to develop a resource bank. As the CANA strap-line indicates, we are in a process of transformation, from water to wine. The fermentation process has started.

Don MacGregor

The publicity for the first Wisdom School is now out on the Othona community website and our own at http://www.christiansawakening.org/events/event/silence-by-the-sea-a-uk-wisdom-school

I discovered this poem in an inspiring Lent course produced by the Norwich Diocese called ’Mapping Lent’. It resonated with me because once one embarks on what the psychologist Carl Jung called the individuation journey, there is no turning back, however uncomfortable the process becomes.

Poem: A Penalty of Love If Love should count you worthy, and should deign one day to seek your door and be your guest, pause, ere you draw the bolt and bid him rest, if in your old content you would remain. For not alone he enters, in his train are angels of the mists, the lonely quest, dreams of the unfulfilled and un-possessed, and sorrow, and life’s immemorial pain. He wakes desires you never will forget, he shows you stars you never saw before. He makes you share with him for evermore the burden of the world’s divine regret. How wise to open not! And yet, how poor if you should turn him from the door. S. R. Lysaght 1853- 1941 And Jung suggests a way of tackling this process without succumbing to despair: ‘If you want to go your individual way it is the way you make for yourself, which is never prescribed, which you do not know in advance and which simply comes into being of itself when you put one foot in front of the other. If you always do the next thing that needs to be done, you will go most safely and surefootedly along the path prescribed by your unconscious’. (C.G. Jung Letters Volume 1, Bollingen Series; Princeton University Press 1972) Each of us probably has a different image of what we mean by God, love, the unconscious, but perhaps they will ultimately prove to be the same thing?

Judy Hanmer

“When a moment knocks on the

door of your life, it is often no

louder than the beating of your

heart, and it is very easy to miss

it” Boris Pasternak

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Death/Rebirth and the Evolution

of Consciousness

The editorial by Janice Dolley in our Spring 2015 issue gave us an insight into the changes taking place in humanity as "part of our evolutionary destiny". Here we offer a supportive view linking evolution with the Easter message of the death of the old leading to the birth of the new. Our awareness of ourselves and the world around us comes through two separate but connected channels in the brain, and each has a special form of knowledge – the left hemisphere with rational knowledge and the right hemisphere with intuitive knowing. For healthy functioning we need a harmony between the two, but throughout human history this balance has not often been attained, in individual people or collectively in society. For the past few centuries our western civilization has been off balance by giving dominance to the left hemisphere, with its concern for exploitation of the material world to the detriment of intuitional knowledge of the mental/spiritual world. As a result of this imbalance we are destroying the material world around us and endangering life on this planet; and the collapse of our civilization is already on the horizon. However there is convincing evidence that Life exists on other levels beyond the physical, and is characterized by an evolutionary pattern of birth, maturity, old age and death, leading back to new birth. With this understanding we may see the present time in history as a natural process when one civilization has run its course, and is therefore closing down through collapse, but bearing within it the seeds of a new birth. The form that a spiritual rebirth will take is unclear to us in our present mind-set. But it seems that it may come at the cost of much suffering as we are drawn into a cosmic struggle between "Good" and "Evil".

In the personal death/rebirth process we can expect to continue with our same identities but in an environment made up of mental/spiritual rather than material realities, where bricks, mortar and money are replaced by meaning, purpose, emotions and intentions. We can prepare for this now before death by increasing openness to the vision and spiritual guidance available in the present moment. We may also discover that we are not alone, for as we let go of our egocentricity we enter into communion with higher powers and likeminded people both here and beyond in service to the Greater Whole. Summary: * We are already at home in two worlds, the material world and that of mind/spirit. * Our present society is out of balance with the true nature of Reality, valuing material wealth more than the spiritual virtues. This is likely to lead to the destruction of our civilization as we know it, in a cosmic struggle between Good and Evil. * We are already involved in this struggle, in which we human beings have a critical part to play. * We need to recognize that Life evolves through a death/rebirth process. * This means that our personal lives on this earth continue into the next world after the death of the physical body, and these two worlds merge into one Greater Wholeness. * So our task now is to pursue the spiritual virtues which lead to this Wholeness, in our individual lives here and now, and in companionship with all Life around us, in this world and the next.

Harry Underhill

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Faith in our Time I run this small group CANA outreach group in Gloucestershire which was originally inspired by the writings of the late Adrian Smith, a Catholic missionary priest, and leading member of CANA until his death in 2012. Many of you will of course remember Adrian and the significant role he played in CANA. Some of you may know of the retreats he used to run based on the theme of honouring our changing personal perspectives of the ultimate mystery of faith. In his book on this same theme titled ‘The God Shift’ he offered a new initiative for Christians who had lost their conviction for some aspects of traditional religion. Here he encouraged a reflection of personal integrity, open to discussion, but not subjugation. Thus this book reaches out to those who think in more contemporary Christian terms of personal growth, and welcome an exploration of an emerging awareness of the divine including a sense of personal responsibility for inner discernment. In the three years since its inception this little group has covered a lot of ground. As well as reading two of Adrian Smith’s books this group has read ‘Blue Sky God’ by another leading CANA member, Rev Don MacGregor, and several other thoughtful emerging Christian writings. In the group all are free to explore and express and discuss, their thoughts, ideas and beliefs. All listen to others with empathy, without dissent and honour the unspoken confidentiality of the group. In the beginning we did not know each other well and now there is a real bond created by honest discussion, understanding and friendship. The group members enjoy being able to evolve their faith and remain true to the divine within. It is a privilege to be a part of this group and I would encourage others to form similar ones.

Clare Freeman

THE POWER OF SMALL GROUPS

Setting up a local group The way I set up a fortnightly afternoon Meditation group in West Byfleet, was by advertising both through the church and notices on public Notice Boards, plus one or two recommendations from spiritual friends. I had hoped it might turn into a Centering Prayer group, but that was not wanted, so I was guided by the group. We have a half-hour of silence, then a different person each time offers a short reading, and this is followed by anything that someone wants to share—it has been going for about 18 months.

Circle Gatherings These were started by Jean Shinoda-Bolen, from California, in the 1990s. With chairs in a circle, and probably a candle and flowers in the middle, a space is offered for silence and sharing. Each picks up a “talking stick” (perhaps a crystal or smooth stone or anything else appropriate to hold in your hand) when ready. After an initial agreed time of silence, whoever is ready to pick up the object begins. The space belongs entirely to them whilst holding it, with no response until everyone has had a turn with the talking stick who wants to. Then the circle opens up for responses or whatever comes, and often there is a shared meal. I have found this a powerful tool for sharing from the heart. The beauty of small groups are the opportunities to share on a level not really possible in larger groups– and for a sense of intimacy and growth towards deeper spiritual understandings. It seems to me that in this technological age of electronic communications, face-to-face groups are even more significant for daily living. If anyone would like to tell us about small groups you belong to, that would be most welcome.

Denise Moll

The German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke

wrote to a young friend, begging him

to “have patience with everything

that remains unsolved in your heart.

Try to love the questions themselves,

like locked rooms and like books

written in a foreign language. Do not

now look for the answers. They

cannot now be given to you because

you could not live them. It is a

question of experiencing everything.

At present you need to live the

question. Perhaps you will gradually,

without even noticing it, find yourself

experiencing the answer, some

distant day.”

10

When the CANA Core Group met last November, they each gave answers to the following question:

“What is it you have faith in on the inner plane?”

I have faith in an essence, a living source of all being that is always with me and within everything that exists. That said, it is up to me how much I am aware of or in touch with this essence. With ease I can carry on with all life without referral to or awareness of this being. It is my free will that allows connection with that which traditionally I have called God. Since first learning to meditate whilst at Findhorn and their additional method of attunement to every job they do, I have found amazing things happen. Without some constant awareness of that spirit within, it cannot help us. It is as simple as that. Om/God/Spirit. And in my I AM/soul/higher self. Am working at having faith in my angels. I think the phrase ‘an unconditional trust in something or someone beyond oneself’ sums it up for me. It is something that has been with me since childhood – I don’t remember having ever been without it. It is more like an instinct or an intuition than a thought or feeling; sometimes it lies semi-dormant; at others it bubbles up to the surface and invests my life with energy, hope and gratitude. L*O*V*E The practice…..The path (as in the 4th noble truth) ‘on which no traveller may be found’ I have faith in the deep soul centre within me that is in connection with and listening to the guiding inner voice. That there is One Life, One Source, and I am part of it. And that Love is the evolutionary driver of that One Life. In the whole/holy Goodness and Love/God within me, although I am not God. In the fact of Love winning ultimately over evil. In the proofs I have had over the years of God’s Love, care and promises – all this sustains me. This is not really part of my vocabulary ‘inner plane’. This may be a hangover from Judaism, which is primarily unclear to me except I understand that within it life is taken up as whole and not dissected into inner and outer or body and spirit. Essentially they are part of a whole. I cannot be sure if God is part of that whole but increasingly I think God is. You may properly ask why I am not more like God in that case. So I have faith in God illuminating my present. Likewise I have faith that God has been with me in my past. I trust God will be manifest in my future both in this world and beyond it.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

If you feel moved to also answer this question, please send it to the Editor for publication next time.

THE CONVERSATION Founded by Sue Howard some years ago, it stopped for a while, but has been revived by Judy Hanmer. Five of us met at Amba Hotel, on Charing Cross station, London, on 11th March, and shared concerns and joys on our hearts—the next meeting has been arranged for Friday 17th June, at 2.30 pm-4.00 pm. Please let Judy know if you would like to come along. Judy Hanmer: 01223 813884

11

ONE SPIRIT ALLIANCE "That you may be one even as the Father and I are one"

If we are to respond to this prayer of Jesus then we needs must find ourselves on a transformational path in which all that our personality holds dear in terms of belief, practice and identity expands its edges of awareness away from fixity towards the potential for embracing a higher soul level in which the fixity of the old falls away. We may find a new stream of understanding or a new group with whom we can share our deeper selves and hear the call to new forms of serving the whole. At the same time we need to guard against our ego thinking: 'Ah now I have found the way'! When Jesus the Christ declared: 'I am the way the truth and the life' he was not intending to convey that I, Jesus, a man living in a certain time and place am the way but that the Life within him was the divine power itself, the source of all which lights everyone who comes into the world. As we are gradually filled with this awareness and live by its inner power so we find that this same light, this same power is within others who may be on a different religious path or stream of spirituality. It is then natural that we begin to see the oneness in all and long for everyone to realise and live by this guiding light. It was with this insight to being and longing that the One Spirit Alliance was formed and held a first conference event in June 2013 'Spirituality at a Time of World Crisis'. In the Essex Unitarian Church in Notting Hill a room of 100 people chimed with a higher energy. The room felt electric and there was a unified call for a flexible framework, not an organisation, that would enable individuals and groups to link together. Slowly organisations and groupings linked as co-creators or contributors. A second event was held in June 2014 at Colet House, the Study Society's London centre. This 'Spirit in Action' day took us a little further and groupings were able to display their own portion of the 'great work' and began to see how their own endeavours fitted into a larger whole and that possible ways of collaboration might be worth exploring. CANA had a table at this event. Interestingly one of the founding strands of the Study Society was the teachings of Gurdjieff on the ‘fourth way’ which I see as learning to live and work in awareness of the fourth dimension, an inner level of life that permeates our third dimensional reality and which we access in meditation, dreams, intuition etc. As we touch this level of innerness so a sense of our essential inter-connectedness dawns and we find ourselves realising that this is 'new', not perhaps to

the mystics and saints but to more ordinary folk like us it is new. In the autumn of 2012 a gathering of Fellows of the Findhorn Foundation began to explore this. During this weekend a proposal to hold a conference on 'Co-creating the New Story' emerged. Phew. A group was immediately formed of those willing to organise this and the new story stream started to flow. We quickly realised that we were not the only ones awakening to the new story and we changed the calling title to the New Story Summit to be held in autumn 2104. When the planning got underway we immediately found ourselves having to live the new even as we worked. A challenge by Charles Eisenstein, author of 'The More Beautiful World our Hearts know is Possible' to hold it as a gifting event was accepted with some trepidation. And then gifts flowed. We designed the flier for this and had it printed. By the time I was handed a bunch of fliers I was told: 'Please do not send any out, all 335 places are taken and there are already one hundred on the waiting list'! These 335 included 50 indigenous elders from all continents and 50 young people enabled by the funds gifted for the purpose. News had already spread around the world via the internet like a fireball of energy. The new story was seeding everywhere. Now the new story stream is converging with One Spirit Alliance for a One Spirit Summit to be held at Brahma Kumaris, Global Co-operation House, 65-69 Pound Lane, London NW10, on Saturday, 17 September, 10.30-5.15 pm. The theme is: 'New Story, New Era: Responding Together to the Call of Spirit’. There are 200 places and you are warmly invited to apply for a place via www.onespiritalliance.net or a flier will be circulated to you soon. The event is free and OSA is inviting donations to help us with the organisational costs. Our inspiration is that this event will be one more stepping stone on the road to responding to the call that: 'You may be one even as the Father and I are

one'. Janice Dolley janice.dolley@btinternet.com

6-8 September 2016: In place of the originally planned Retreat at Holland House, Pershore, Worcestershire, there will now be a small group there on these dates, to explore helping others to shift from the old state of orthodoxies towards a new understanding of Christianity from the perspective of a higher plane of reality. If you feel drawn to join this group to work towards this in a meditative atmosphere at Holland House, please contact either Janice (above) or Kate Porteus: katemporteus@gmail.com or ring Kate on 01736 761870.

12

SPRING

2016

Christians

Awakening

to new Awareness

(CANA)

Copy for next

Newsletter to:

Denise Moll, Editor 21 Fleetwood Court

Madeira Road

West Byfleet KT14 6BE

E-mail: denise.newleaf@

phonecoop.coop

by mid-July 2016

Membership &

Administration

Martin Paine

Royston Farm, Talewater,

Exeter, Devon EX5 2RR

Tel: 01404 851476 E-mail: mrpaine@gn.apc.org

We are on the Web:

http://www.

christiansawakening.org

Cana Core Group:

Janice Dolley Clare Freeman

Judy Hanmer

Janet Lake

Don MacGregor

Denise Moll

Heather-Jane Ozanne

Martin Paine

Celia Storey David Storey

Jane Upchurch

D I A R Y D A T E S

CANA Wednesday 11 May 2016 : “Exploring the Interface between Christianity and Perennial Philosophy” with William Meader at Friends Meeting House, 42

St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW oxfordquakers.org: 10 for 10.30am until 5pm Cost: £35 Refreshments provided. Please bring lunch or purchase nearby. For more information, tel. 01404 851476

6-8 September—Retreat at Pershore (see p.11) 17 September—One Spirit Alliance (see p.11) 26-29 September—Silence by the Sea at Othona Community, Dorset (see p. 7)

From Janet Lake: A SPACE for LIVING SPIRITUALITY (see p.5) at The Quaker Meeting House95, South Street, Bridport. DT6 3NZ. Event 3: Saturday May 14th. 2016. 10.00 - 4.00. “All Real Living Is Meeting” (Martin Buber) led by Rabbi Howard Cooper: The divine is present in ourselves, in others, and in the world around us - and it is our individual responsibility to attend to this divinity through relationships we make with ourselves and others and the everyday world we encounter. Event 4: Saturday June 11th. 2016. 10.00 - 4.00. “Meditations on the Nature of Creativity”led by Sue Langley and Denise Rowe:A quiet day of enquiry and making. Guided meditations will follow through theday between which there will be creative exercises relating to our perceptions and the space that is opened up by letting go. Spaces limited so booking is required. Donations £5-£30 per day: bring-and-share lunch. Contact: Janet Lake’s email, iona16@hotmail.co.uk

www.livingspirit.org.uk/events in order to see the full range of events that we have compiled, including all CANA events there. 14 May – Marcus Borg: Finding God in the World - a Spiritual Revolution. Speaker: Diana Butler Bass. Birmingham. Hosted by Free to Believe, Modern Church, PCN Britain and St Marks CRC. www.freetobelieve.org.uk/conferences.html Diana Butler Bass has been described by Marcus Borg as ‘one of our foremost commentators on twenty first century Christianity’. Her clearly worded, powerful, and probing book Christianity After Religion is required reading for anyone with an interest in the future of Christianity. Faith is no longer a matter of mountaintop experience or institutional practice; instead, people are connecting with God through the environment in which we live. A day not to be missed! A day to honour Marcus Borg, to meet with like-minded searchers and to take forward the transformation in how people understand and experience God, away from the conventions of traditional religion.

CHRISTIANS AWAKENING Newsletter