ARCYB 2002

© Anglican Religious Communities 2002

Retreating - or Deflecting in Place

by Penny Jamieson, Bishop of Dunedin

Most of us think of a retreat as a time away in a quiet place. But can we also retreat as part of our ordinary routine as well? Bishop Penny Jamieson reflects on both the need and the practice of integrating ‘withdrawal’ and ‘silence’ into daily life.

The custom of organising retreats and quiet days is, I believe, a significant indicator of the health of the church. I have had some experience of these. I spent my ordination retreat with the Sisters of the Love of God at Fairacres, and they now have a very small community at St Isaac's on the Hokianga in the far North of New Zealand. I have spent some good times there. I always appreciate being where the rhythm of prayer is well-established and I can just slip into it. But the Hokianga is a very long way from Dunedin. In practice, there are few opportunities for such retreats in New Zealand.
So, in recent years, since I have been exercising episcopal ministry, I have found myself supporting these events more for others than I have for myself. Yes, I have taken a number of opportunities to leave business behind and reach into the heart of the God whom I love so well. Rest and good prayer time would work their
healing - but afterwards it seemed to be back onto the same downward slope again.
I began thinking about this when I was arranging ordination retreats for those I was about to ordain. The practice I inherited was the one I experienced when I was ordained nearly twenty years ago - a three- or four-day, largely silent retreat, from which we emerged to hear the bishop's charge to us, to sign the necessary
documents, and receive the laying on hands. The strong if unstated assumption was that it was downhill all the way from there on, and that then we were on our own.
I became more interested in arranging instead a time that ensured ordinands of a chance to stop, pause and place themselves trustingly into God's hands in a context that overtly enabled them to receive and appreciate the priestly ministry of a
colleague. Retreats that initiate relationships of care and prayer within the
community of the ordained have done more to build collegiality than much else I can think of.
And, for myself, I have been searching for a more even-keeled spirituality, in which my spiritual health is promoted steadily day by day, rather than by
occasional withdrawals to recuperate. The traditional retreat seems to imply some sort of feast-famine routine that is essentially unhealthy, rather like an annual trip to a health farm to rapidly lose, in a pampered environment, all traces of the past year's excesses. I am reminded of the common experience of dieting - that the last stage is worse than the first - and I am wary.
Another aspect of the conventional retreat format which presents problems for me is silence - for eight days. I have done that, and thoroughly enjoyed it. God was surely there, and much was discovered. But back in the hurly-burly of my life that time seemed golden - and, like the golden age, over and done with. Yes, the glow lasted a while; but I soon began to pine for the next retreat.
It was a very uneven spiritual life. It felt like the swings of childhood, between Good Child and Bad Child. Life was either idyllic, or busy; and that is no
spirituality on which to run a God-centred ministry. I quickly made it my business to structure my life so that I had never again to feel the urgent need of a retreat. I do not want to live with a 'carrot-and-stick' faith.
God is not only in the still small voice, the silent point. God is in all things and at all times. When I was younger I remember being told about arrow prayers - but these are kind of little pricks of prayer. So the question became for me: what does it mean to pray continuously?
I now think of this as leading a sort of double life, letting the interior life run
parallel and matching to the exterior life so that they inform and enrich each other, and produce insight that serves them both. This is not dualism, but rather an
integration process - looking for the integrity, the wholeness of being that comes when exterior and interior match. The image that I am feeling for is not so much that of a well, which reaches deep but which necessitates a special journey. Rather it is the image of an irrigation channel running through paddocks, enabling water to get to every part. There are lots of these in this part of the world.
For some years now I have developed the practice of selective silence. That is, when I really want to make sure that what I am doing or what I plan to do is being done in partnership with God, then I make my inquiries, I get all the information, I take it to my prayer, and then I stop talking about it. I wait and listen and, sure enough, that voice of healing and help is there, running in a deep straight channel through all the business of each day.
This is deflecting in place: a tangential moving aside spiritually from the routines of life to allow a significant question to take root in my spirit. It is not retreating; it is connecting. It is reading the faces and hearts of others involved, as well as my own heart. It is being spare with talk. It is accompanying each moment with prayer, with that inner sense of alertness to how God is looking at the matter in hand.
Above all, I am searching for incarnational prayer, for a prayer of engagement. I am increasingly less interested in the God who rules, and more in the God who
participates; less interested in the God who decrees, and more in the one who is known as a loving and validating presence. I am less interested in the superficial and momentary wellness and strength that old-style retreats provided for me than in the ongoing engagement of God with the questions I face. My rôle in my
dealings as a bishop is not to either be controlled by God or to control others in the name of God, episcopacy notwithstanding. My rôle is to participate, as God
participates with me.
I look for a rhythm of balance, in body, mind and spirit; of even-handed and
continuous engagement with God. I am not disappointed. �