We all have various ways of understanding the world we find ourselves in and the people with whom we share that world. I am a very visual person; I guess that’s why I enjoy painting pictures and visiting art galleries. I find that if I can conjure up an image of something, be that an idea, a concept, a person, then I am well on the way to understanding its or their significance for me. This personal trait has spilled over into my prayer life. Some years ago I started to construct what I have come to call my “Internal Church”. Church buildings are symbols in stone and brick and as such are solid and static. My internal church is somewhat more fluid than that, it can change shape according to my spiritual needs at any one time. Sometimes it appears empty, silent and peaceful, at other times it seems full of people, busy and bustling. What I am describing is allowing a picture to form in the imagination and then consciously responding to it, using it as a tool for meditation and prayer; what some have called “visualisation”.
This morning my internal church seemed to have various individuals walking about in the nave. At first they were rather shadowy figures without faces so I could not immediately name them. However this got me thinking about all the various individuals who have affected me profoundly over the years, many of whom are still around even if I don’t see them very often these days. This enabled me to remember various incidents which we had enjoyed together which in turn led me to say “thank you” to God for them and for the positive effect they had on me. I could now see their faces clearly, smiling at me, inducing in me a sense of warmth and love.
Then there were other faces that started to come into focus, people who I had experienced in quite a different way. These people had in my experience done me wrong, attacked me in some way, and undermined my sense of who I am. What were they doing in my Internal Church? Did I really want them there? Well, whether I wanted them there or not, there they were. Then the thought came to me that they had also been significant, perhaps in some cases more significant, than the first group. They had forced me to struggle with how to deal with the more negative experiences of life; they had tested my willingness and ability to forgive; they had challenged me to find ways of seeking reconciliation; they had shown me the limits of what I was prepared to put up with; they had drawn out into the open traits within my own personality that I would rather have ignored or even denied existed at all. Again I remembered incidents, reconciliations and sometimes the painful realisation that I could do nothing to bring about a positive result no matter how hard I tried.
Today’s visit to my Internal Church revolved around the nave and the people I met there. Sometime I spend time in other parts of my imaginary place of worship. For example, in the crypt of my Internal Church lie those who are no longer around. They are in a sense static unlike the people who are alive and whose impact on me can and will change. But I still have dealings with them, memories of who they were and how they affected me and for that matter continue to affect me. In that sense they are not dead at all, to me they are very much alive; their effect has been internalised in my inner world.
November with All Souls and Remembrance Sunday is very much a time when our thoughts turn to loved ones no longer with us: those who have died of natural causes and those who died in war. Some memories will be painful, others cause us to smile, but all of the folk we remember have helped to make us what we are today. Our inner world is peopled with a great crowd of witnesses who can enable us to face the realities of life and the ambiguous nature of human relationships.
All the best – Fr Mick