Slow Down with God
Slow Down with God emerged as a collaboration between SEARCH and Nicola Bown at St Mary’s Church in Cottingham, and seeks to support lives of engaged-contemplation, a "school" nurturing deep prayer that leads into transformative action. Our desire is to open up the ancient roots of the Christian contemplative tradition, sharing these hidden gems for a world in crisis.
There are a number of ways in which we seek to help people slow down with God:
CHRISTIAN MEDITATION:
We host a weekly ‘Christian Prayer and Meditation’ session every Wednesday, 1.30-2.30pm at Hull Minster for anyone wanting to practice contemplative prayer alongside others. As always, all are welcome!
SLOW DOWN WITH GOD COURSES:
These are short courses created (between 4-6 weeks, gathering once a week for 1.5 hours) to introduce participants to a number of different prayer practices, including silent prayer, Lectio Divina and open sharing together, so that they might listen to how God may be speaking to them and leading them into loving action for their wider communities and world. The courses also utilise music, art and journaling as ways of praying and discerning.
We adapt the central process of the course to different places and around different themes. So far we have led 'Bring Your Question To God' courses, which invites participants to focus on a question that has been on their heart, 'Praying With Jesus' courses, which focuses on what we can learn from Jesus about prayer and how the Spirit of Jesus might be speaking to us today, and ‘Complines with Celtic Saints’ courses, using evening Compline prayers as a way in to listening to God.
RESTIVALS:
We find ourselves surrounded by a frantically busy world, by restless, toxic systems that never stop, always driving on, tiring out workers, communities and whole ecosystems in the process.
"Busyness is a defence against being still and listening to the cries of the world and the cries of your own heart. The characters in Chinese for busyness translate as “heart killing”. You might see in your own life how busyness is an antidote for feeling deeply".
Christina Feldman, 'Compassion'
In his book 'Sabbath as Resistance', theologian Walter Bruggemann reflects on the importance of rest in the Old Testament, exploring the restful practices of Sabbath and Jubilee (where people and land are given time to rest, re-charge and re-set) and why these are vital for healthy, happy, just, peaceful societies. Bruggemann writes about how rat-race living inevitably generates "destructive fruits", the sour grapes of wrath, violence, envy and death, while the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control naturally arise from the "peaceableness of Sabbath", from restful living.
In the face of such insane busyness, allowing ourselves to be still and to rest is an essential form of resistance, resistance against deadly restlessness. The monk and activist Thomas Merton stressed this when he wrote:
"To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is itself to succumb to the violence of our times."
Our Restivals are festivals of rest, days dedicated to deep, slow, spacious, life-giving rest. Expect lots of time to chat to friends (old and new), to draw, paint and sing, to snooze, to meditate and pray, to drink coffee and eat delicious food, to play games, to watch films and much much more…
"To rest is not self indulgent, to rest is to prepare to give the best of ourselves, and to perhaps, most importantly, arrive at a place where we are able to understand what we have already been given."
David Whyte, 'Consolations'
Let Yourself Rest - by Jeff Foster (youtube.com)