By Marie O’Flaherty

I have explored several forms of meditation in the past and attended a WCCM group every week for some time. After a bit of a gap, I have returned to a regular meditation practice. I am currently taking one of your online courses, and a course on teaching meditation to others. I also plan to take the WCCM courses on the mystics. I am very keen to spread the word on how wonderful Christian meditation is! I also follow the twelve step programme and take step 11 daily.

The pandemic has been a time of stillness and relief for me. It has simplified my life enormously, and allowed me time to look inward, and decide how I would like to move outward in times to come. As I live in a Franciscan community/retreat centre, I hope to have opportunities in the future to introduce meditation to others. I am currently meditating with the children who live in our community.

This is a poem I wrote after attending the Bonnevaux/Mark Burrows online retreat recently.

They said

They said ’empty yourself’,
empty yourself of your denials and dishonesties.
Purge yourself of your need to be in control,
of everything.

Spill out your self-centeredness
your pride and your prejudice,
your envy, greed and licentiousness,
your anger and self-righteousness.

Let go of your resentments, fears and lack of trust,
pour forth your apologies on all you have harmed,
and let forgiveness ooze out from your very pores.

Then wait
in silence,
in this strange and barren, you.
A you devoid of all you once held true.

And they said
‘New truths will come, and you will know,
that it is not a painful sacrifice to let yourself go.
For this emptying of self will make a space,
for God to fill you
with His love,
His mercy
and His grace’

Then they said
‘When you are filled with this gift divine,
pour it out on others, remembering always
it is God within,
not you
that shines’

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The ‘they’ I refer to are Julian of Norwich, Meister Eckhart and Bill Wilson, founder of Alcoholics Anonymous!