Foxhill is the house of prayer, study and mission for the Diocese of Chester, a Christian space for retreats, conferences and training. As it re-opens after a lengthy closure, its Director, the Revd Jonathon Green, offers a reflection on finding calm amidst the urgency and business of life.
As we plan our retreats for the autumn and into 2022, the words of the well-known hymn ‘Dear Lord and Father of mankind’ has come to mind, especially the final two verses which are based on 1 Kings 19:
Drop thy still dews of quietness,
till all our strivings cease;
take from our souls the strain and stress,
and let our ordered lives confess the beauty of thy peace.
Breathe through the heats of our desire thy coolness and thy balm;
let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm!
We have felt as though we were living through a time of earthquake, wind, and fire. As we have tried to ‘fix it’, strain and stress have been evident in all areas of life as we have all tried to listen to God.
Joe Simpson’s compelling book, Touching the Void, feels relevant as we grapple with these challenges. It tells of a mountaineering accident, more than 6,000 metres up in the Andes, that involved not only an extraordinary ethical dilemma but a four-day solitary life-and-death struggle without food or water, crawling back to base camp with a badly broken leg. He speaks mystically of his via negativa, the terrible desolation of those lonely days.
What kept him alive was a voice:
‘There was silence and snow, and a clear sky empty of life, and me sitting there. It was as if there were two minds within me arguing. The voice was clean and sharp and commanding. It was always right, and I listened to it when it spoke and acted on its decisions. The other mind rambled out a disconnected series of images and memories and hopes which I attended to in a daydream state... The voice had banished the mad thoughts of my mind. An urgency was creeping over me, and the voice said: “Go on, keep going”...’
This account has spoken to me as we have navigated the past months.
In 1 Kings 19, like the mountaineer, Elijah has reached the end of his resources in the face of Jezebel’s threats. From now on, the Lord is not in the fire, nor in the titanic generalities of a grandstand event. He is in the voice that speaks with minute and specific intent; not the comforting ‘still small voice of calm’ of the hymn, but one requiring urgent obedience, summoning him to do the hard thing, to leave his cave and go back to where ordinary life is lived and where a prophet’s words and actions belong.
As we journey together, we would love to welcome you on retreat at Foxhill, to give you the opportunity to take time out and to hear the still, small voice as we seek the Lord’s direction in our next season.
Revd Jonathon Green,
Director of Foxhill
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