Vade Mecum: October
Two women who share a name, and individuals from Italy, Spain, El Salvador, France, South Africa, and Northumbria... here are the liturgical and natural invitations of October.
Hi friends,
As usual, it is another bumper month! Make that cup of coffee or tea and settle in to receive the invitations of October.
And that’s the key word: invitations. None of this is a should! Notice what stands out to you as you read, and perhaps pick one or two days this month that you would like to observe in some way. Make a plan now of what that might look like (and if this is new, start small).
Trigger warning: pregnancy and infant loss remembrance day on 15th.
Liturgical Season: Ordinary Time (still! But we’re reaching the end…)
I offer you another poem today as we continue to mark this ordinary time together. This one by David Whyte, whose poetry I love, and I would recommend clicking through where you can listen to him read the poem himself (his way of reading poetry releases the need in me to do poetry “right”- he adds repetitions as he goes, plays with his own words).
The poem is Everything is Waiting For You, and like last month’s poem by Pat Schneider, it takes in the ordinariness of the things around us - the kettle, the stairs, the soap dish.
“Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the / conversation”, Whyte writes.
It reminds me of a passage from the book Church of the Wild by Victoria Loorz, where she shares that perhaps a better translation of logos in John 1 than the familiar “word”, is “conversation”. In the beginning was the conversation. Not static, but unfolding. Not once-said but ongoing.
This feels like the invitation of the whole poem: What might it be to awaken to the constant divine conversation ongoing in the world around you? And perhaps to risk adding your voice?
Key dates in October:
1st: St Therese of Lisieux, 1873-1897
I got to know Therese of Lisieux when I read her writings back in 2016. St Therese had a unique life, entering a Carmelite convent at the early age of 15, and dying in her mid twenties. Throughout her life she had many mystical experiences that deeply informed her faith.
What drew me to her, was her grounding in Love. Because of that grounding, she is able to witness her own shortcomings and weaknesses without shame, and even with gratitude and joy. Her sense of belonging in Christ’s Love is so complete that nothing can take that away:
“I have heard what Jesus said to Mary Magdalene, to the woman taken in adultery, and to the Samaritan woman. No one can make me frightened anymore, because I know what to believe about his mercy and his love; I know that, in the twinkling of an eye, all those thousand sins would be consumed as a drop of water cast into a blazing fire.”
As with all the saints I write about, there is much that is also strange to me. Therese was young, and unworldly, and sometimes her writings have that youthful delight in melodrama to them! And still, every time she wrote about the Divine Love, about how she had been held in it, about how it overcomes fear and shame – this is the faith I seek after.
She also brings the idea of mysticism right down to earth, saying: “I have never heard Jesus speak, and yet I know he is within my soul. Every moment he is guiding and inspiring me, and just at the moment I need them, “lights” till then unseen are granted me. Most often it is not at prayer that they come, but while I go about my daily duties.”
Mysticism then is understood as that vision to see and recognise God in all things and all people, in all the mundane and ordinary moments of our days. It is simply a way of seeing.
4th: St Francis of Assissi, d.1226
For the feast day of this beloved saint, I invite you simply to pray this most famous of Francis’ prayers. Speak it slowly, line my line. Taste the words. Notice how your body and heart respond. Lean in to any invitation you hear Spirit offering to you as you pray.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
5th: World Teacher’s Day
My first teachers of faith were two ladies called Diana and Carol. They were older women, whose own children had left home, and they taught the Sunday school at our village church, which was a simple experience of a bible story, maybe a song, and then colouring pages and word searches.
I remember most their care for us. I felt looked after and noticed in their small circles. I was happy to learn and wonder. I also remember feeling able to disagree (including one clear memory of responding to an invitation to love everyone with the declaration that I did not much feel like loving my little sister - who knows what Jen had done to annoy me that particular Sunday but Carol took it in her stride!)
Who are the faith teachers that have been influential in your life? (You may have some you are grateful for, some who you now see were unhelpful or even harmful).
What makes a good teacher? And if you yourself have faith spaces in which you teach, what is your vision for your work in those spaces?
6th: William Tyndale, d.1536
Tyndale was a Bible scholar who played a key role in the Protestant reformation and was ultimately executed (ask me another time why I feel uncomfortable with the word martyr…).
His translation of the bible is credited with being the first translation in the English language to work directly from Hebrew and Greek texts. I have a lot I could say about the issue of bible translation, but all that aside, my continued wrestling with the Christian scriptures is only possible because they exist in English, because there was a movement to make them more easily available.
Take some time to consider your relationship with the Bible. What do you wrestle with? How do you feel towards its pages? What has liberated, what has harmed? (I’d love to hear your thoughts if you want to share them in the comments or by email)
7th: Birthday of Desmond Tutu, b. 1931
Desmond Tutu is a South African Anglican bishop and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. I appreciate his little book, written with his daughter Mpho Tuto, The Book of Forgiving. In it, they write:
“In my native language, Xhosa, one asks forgiveness by saying, ‘Ndicel’ uxolo’ (I ask for peace). The locution is quite beautiful and deeply perceptive. Forgiveness opens the door to peace between people and opens the space for peace within each person.”
What does forgiveness mean to you? Recall a time you have had to forgive someone. Recall a time you have needed to ask for forgiveness. What did it take? What were the results?
14th: October’s New Moon
I offer you a verse from the poem The Dark Rays of the Moon, by Shefa Gold, published in Celebrating the New Moon: A Rosh Chodesh Anthology:
My flaws are showing all too clear
in the dark rays of the moon.
All my certainties will disappear
in the dark rays of the moon.
I surrender to the shadow’s glare
in the dark rays of the moon.
I am strengthened by the truth I bare
in the dark rays of the moon.
Rachamana d’oney litvirey liba, aneyna, aneyna.
(Compassionate One who answers broken hearts, answer us, answer us)
What is revealed in you “in the dark rays of the moon”? Perhaps a flaw or a truth?
15th: St Teresa of Avila, 1515-1582
Teresa of Avila was a Spanish nun, the architect of the Barefoot Carmelite Order and has been named a Doctor of the Catholic church, meaning one who contributed significantly to the theological understanding of the church. She’s a force of wisdom, wit and compassion, and her writings feel deeply relevant even today.
Soul,
if by chance you forget where I am,
do not rush around here and there.
If you want to find me,
seek me inside yourself.
Soul,
you are my room,
you are my house, you are my dwelling.
If, through your distracted ways,
I ever find your door tightly closed,
do not seek my outside yourself.
To find me,
it will be enough simply to call me,
and I will come quickly.
Seek me inside yourself.
This is taken from Teresa’s The Interior Castle. There, she imagined the interior life as a series of mansions that we move through in search of our Beloved.
How do you react to the idea that God is to be found within you? What helps you to go inward and explore that interior castle?
15th - Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day
I am holding with deep compassion and love all of you who have lost children in pregnancy or infancy. Our first pregnancy ended in miscarriage at the end of the first trimester and it shook my soul. Even many years later, with two healthy pregnancies and births to follow, I wonder who that little one might have been and am grateful that I got to carry them in my body for a little while.
I find ritual to be deeply healing, and so I invite you to consider what you might do today to remember your lost ones. Perhaps simply light a candle and let the light be a reminder. You could also set up a small altar with any physical remembrances you might have (the pregnancy test, hospital armband, the scan picture) or add symbolic elements from outside or around the home. Know you are not alone in your grief and your remembering.
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18
26: St Cedd, 620-664
One of four brothers (the others were Caelin, Cynebil and Chad) educated and trained in the Celtic expression of Christianity at Lindisfarne abbey under Aidan, Cedd travelled south as a missionary, establishing a monastery at St Peter-on-the-Wall at Bradwell on Sea in Essex.
It’s one of my very favourite places in the world, and a thin place for me. We lived on the east edge of London for five years, and would frequently escape the city to explore the beauty of Essex as a family (a hugely underrated county in England!). St Peter-on-the-Wall is now just a tiny chapel in the middle of a field overlooking the vast mudflats. For centuries it was forgotten, used as a barn. Now it’s recognised as one of the oldest chapels remaining in England, founded by Cedd in 653.
So many of the places the Celtic Church was established are now distinctly remote to access - Iona, Lindisfarne, Bradwell-on-Sea. For me, there’s an invitation to return to the wild edges of my faith, and reclaim some of what emerged when the Christian story encountered the stories and faith of this landscape and place.
What might it mean for you to travel to the wild edges of your own faith?
28th: Full Moon (hunter, seed fall moon)
I own a beautiful oracle deck by the artist Danielle Barlow, based on the creatures, landscapes and folk tales of the British Isles. For October, she names the full moon the Hearth Moon, and writes:
“The Hearth Moon is about preparing for dark times ahead, gathering everything you will need and filling your store cupboards, both literally and metaphorically. Now is the time to renew community connections, help others and remember our shared stories.”
Spend some time today journalling and considering how you are preparing for the winter (assuming you are in the northern hemisphere).
Perhaps you could also go foraging through the local hedgerows for berries and nuts and consider the question of how you are filling your spiritual store cupboard. (I have a devotional to help you do that…)
31st: Halloween
OH! So much to say about this much-discussed holiday! For that, you’ll need to wait later in the month, not least because I believe All Hallows Eve should be understood and marked alongside All Hallows Day… (watch this space!)
P.S. A reminder of my event in London next month: SHE - an exploration of the divine feminine in Christian scripture and tradition. You’d be so welcome to join me if the description sparks something in your soul!