energy

Good Friday 2024 – the erosion of spiritual energy in the CofE

Good Friday 2024 – the erosion of spiritual energy in the CofE

The mood, the environment, the culture of the Church of England in the decade from my teenage years (the nineteen sixties, by when I’d known I was gay for five years) to the nineteen nineties, was a good place in which to be gay. The whole of my being, my intuitive, experiential, feeling, creative, idealistic, introverted self, discovered that I was in a gay friendly environment despite that me also knowing that homosexuality was taboo and disapproved of by God. I now live in a spiritually depleted, hostile environment of endless battles, reports, reboots and ‘process’.

The cosmos, planet earth, consciousness, and energy – life’s spiritual adventure

The cosmos, planet earth, consciousness, and energy – life’s spiritual adventure

We, homo sapiens, matter. We, us, me, our souls and bodies, feelings and energy, our consciousness and self consciousness, our self-awareness and our breathing, the well-being and health of our body systems equally with our environment, all this matters, and contemporary culture encourages addictions rather than awareness of just how much we matter.

Orgone Energy, Orgasms and Christian Suppression

Orgone Energy, Orgasms and Christian Suppression

Wilhelm Reich, the renegade disciple of Sigmund Freud, was driven to try and understand why his patients might want to escape or subdue their bodies and emotions and why, despite that, the body remains a naked source of power. An article about Reich provoked me to realise that although the Changing Attitude England campaign for equality in ministry and relationships is driven to reject biblical fundamentalist homophobic teaching, it also has to become a campaign against the abuse of LGBTIQ+ people by the Christian Church in general and the Church of England House of Bishops in particular. The House of Bishops, supported by various conservative movements and a toxic reading of the Bible, seek to maintain teachings that prohibit intimacy and sexual activity for clergy and licenced lay people, suppressing our bodies, emotions and life energies.

Releasing the feral essence of God to flow in our beings

Releasing the feral essence of God to flow in our beings

My daily faith experience is woven around the always elusive presence in which silence, attention, presence, self-giving, experience, quality, emotions, the unconditional, uncertainty, goodness are ingredients and essences, everywhere. Trusting deeply in what I can’t prove but know is my core, my essence, deep within, touched by, feeling it. The Church faces me with many images of God – homophobic, misogynistic, white bearded, authoritarian, judging, cruel, partisan, rejecting. The disconnect the Church maintains, between an imaginable God for the twenty-first century, and the God of co-dependency, abuse, depression, anxiety, and neurosis, is unsustainable.

Prayer and the body

Prayer and the body

It’s time to write as honestly and openly as I can about my prayer life as I promised in a recent blog. In the blog I mentioned that I have ideas about how to begin worship in ways that can take people into their bodies, help them ground themselves and connect with their feelings. The ability to become more aware of our bodies, to be grounded and connected with our feelings is for me equally essential when it comes to my personal prayer life. Nurturing interior body awareness has helped me to deepen my confidence that I really am created in the image of God and that God dwells in the core of my being as much as I dwell in the beauty of God’s creation.

The Vision - a new paradigm

In my experience, a paradigm change is taking place in the Church of England, difficult though it is to discern if you look at the central structures of the Church. Change is happening at parish level and in the many friends I have and networks I am part of. Many of my friends have abandoned attendance at or involvement with the Church, despairing of its teaching, worship and leadership and finding it no longer fit for purpose.