Sacred Space at Linne Bheag - News

The Enneagram and Prayer

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 09:22:20 +0700

Saturday 23rd August

Next week I am planning a day’s retreat on the Enneagram and Prayer. Now I really thought that hundreds of people would be rushing to the door, banging to get in. But not so, apparently. We offered this day in the spring and it is the only time we have had to pull the plug and postpone. And yet so many love the Enneagram and want to use it further in their lives.
I am really keen that this time we go ahead. The Enneagram gives us such penetrating glimpses into our spirituality and can inform our prayer and our inner journeys. On a personal level, I really, really want to share this day with as many as possible. So if you are planning to sit in an armchair and read a novel next Saturday, do please reconsider and come to Anstruther!
We would love to see you!

The Bield at Blackruthven

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 09:19:30 +0700

Yesterday I, along with a couple of hundred other people, had a lovely day at The Bield at Blackruthven. They were celebrating their 10th anniversary of being a place apart for retreat and healing.

The weather forecast was wrong and we enjoyed beautiful sunshine all day allowing us to picnic in the garden, walk the labyrinth, chase treasure – or was that only for the children? – and spend idle hours catching up with friends or making new ones.

I was there to do two ‘bite-sized’ workshops on the Enneagram and Spirituality. Both sessions were full of curious ‘spiritual seekers’ who gave me a very easy run and made the day such fun, and also a great pleasure. I count myself fortunate to have the Moderator of the General Assembly in the first workshop and the Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane in the second. They endured me very well!!!

The Bield is a very special place. If you haven’t yet spent time there then I thoroughly recommend it. It is a ‘thin’ place where Heaven and earth seem to blend and the presence of God is so real. The place to go and pray when there are decisions to be made. Or to enter a ‘desert’ place for a time of refreshment. Or even just for a rest. The food is good, the people are nice and the beds have really good quality pillows that just seem to induce deep, deep rest. Zzzzzzzzzz……….

Introduction to the Enneagram

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 04:00:01 +0700

Another introductory course for those of you who can't make it to Callander on 6th September. Using the Enneagram as a tool, discover the person God created you to be, with all your challenges and gifts. Explore your motivation for living. How do you want others to see you? How do you defend yourself from the opinions of others? What makes you unique?
This course will be facilitated by Dorothy Neilson. Lunch and snacks will be included in the price of £40. A bookstall will be available. No previous knowledge of the Enneagram is necessary. Email for a booking form.
Hope you can come!

Our very best self.

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:18:47 +0700

"Do not ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive".

Someone gave me this quotation recently. No idea who originally said it, but it is quite a statement! I see so many people who have some idea of the kind of person they most admire and set out to become just like them. Nothing wrong in copying goodness, of course. But at the day of judgement God won't be asking me why I didn't become a world famous, ground-breaking entimologist (whatever that is) but he will ask me why I didn't become a better me with my own finely honed skills. I am to work hard to become the best I can be with the skills and personality He gave me at birth.

Sometimes we become attached to mourning what we can't be. Better to rejoice in what we can be. And then get out there and be the very best we can be. God sees that person already. This is the person He watched grow in my mother's womb all these years ago. Now He really wants to see me (us) flourish and become whole.

Quite a thought!

Post Title.

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:04:19 +0700

The Enneagram and prayer.

Saturday 23rd August
10am - 4pm

For any who already know their Enneagram type.
This day’s retreat will be around finding your own way of praying according to your Type.

Don’t worry that you will be sitting in a holy huddle praying all day! You won't!

We will talk a lot, teach a bit, share occasionally,
have lots of individual space to walk, sit, nod off, whatever you need.
Oh, and pray, of course! – but always on your own!

Just as our personalities are all different, so are our spiritual temperaments. Some ways of prayer just come naturally to us while others make us bored or restless and just seem plain old boring. This course could revive your prayer life. Or, at the very least, prove interesting!

As well as presenting the ideas and concepts, there will be plenty time for you to just enjoy a day of quiet where you will have the chance to just 'be'. A day to quieten, see your life in perspective and have time to share it with God.
·
We would love to welcome you to Sacred Space at Linne Bheag in Anstruther.

Dorothy Neilson .

Please email if you are interested in joining us.

Because of holiday times replies might be late!

Cost is £40. This includes lunch, snacks and materials.

We will send you directions if you need them.

I have returned!

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:29:35 +0700

Hello again! Remember me? I hope you have missed me this last few weeks.
I have been gone for much too long. A few days working in the big city, a few days holidaying with my sister and our elderly, frail Mum, another few days working away……..that’s how the time slips past, un-noticed.

Yes, I know, laptops travel. But this time I decided to leave it at home, risking the wrath of my email correspondents world-wide. And, of course, I came home to an avalanche of emails – mainly from Mr Tesco and Messrs Amazon and Co. And I did actually miss the old computer.

I hadn’t realised how much we rely upon our emails and blogs to keep in touch with what is going on in the world. At least, I missed it. Maybe you would disagree. But I like to know that you are all out there. I like to know what you are up to, what your life is like, what’s the talk of the ‘steamie’, your opinions on all things great and small.

So keep in touch. Bloggers, keep on blogging. I may not comment very often, preferring to be a fly on your ceiling, but I do enjoy knowing you in cyber-space. And I promise to keep you up-to-date with my current opinions and thoughts. That assumes a lot, however. When did I last have an opinion worth airing??!!??

I will return to Winnie the Pooh’s Thinking Spot! Hmmmmm. Think. Think. Think.

A wee gem.

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 05:11:27 +0700

Again I am preparing our Celtic liturgy for Saturday. I came across this wee gem of a prayer which Sister Barbara used at The Orchard a few months ago. Just reading it makes me feel stronger. I hope you like it. It makes for a great start to the morning!

I arise with the light of morning,
Called to journey where I may;
Here as witness to the birthing
Of this new and wondrous day.

I arise and face the sunrise
With the wind upon my face;
Know God’s breath divine within me
Grounded in this sacred place.

I arise with the cloak of healing
Tempered by my time of rest;
Called to journey with the Spirit
On this sacred, healing quest.

Rain!

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 10:51:30 +0700

Rain!!!

We have a very nice garden here at Linne Bheag – thanks to many years of tender loving care by someone else. We take no credit for it.

We have also had such a long, dry, beautiful spell of weather.

And all this time we have been threatening to buy a garden bench to replace the ancient, broken one on our little terrace. This week I went on-line and ordered a ‘glider’ - not just any old bench, you understand. It arrived while I was on a baby-sitting mission to Edinburgh and remained in its box till this morning when Peter and I felt strong enough to face the multiplicity of arms, legs, screws, nuts and various bits of plastic all of which needed to be assembled in the correct order. The sun was shining.

Everything boded well. We identified the right number of everything. And hey presto! Bad temper took over, fingers became thumbs, screws jumped out of hands and got lost in the grass…… and I phoned Gareth. God bless Gareth! Son-in-law number 2, living here in Anstruther, ‘comer-to-the-rescue’ in all things practical. I heard (or maybe just imagined I heard) him grumping down the line as I explained our predicament to Jane and she agreed to come – or rather to come with Gareth, because Jane herself would have been no use whatsoever.

But it was Saturday. They were just up. They would be there eventually. We went back to our accursed ‘glider’ and …..well, cursed, I suppose. At least I did. I did remark to Peter that it was just as well he didn’t know any bad words, or he would have been using them too!

But, in spite of all the trauma, we got there. And by the time Gareth and Jane appeared with the biggest toolbox I have ever encountered, the last screw was ‘gliding’ into place. Jane and I drank our morning tea whilst sunbathing and ‘gliding’ in the morning sun.

Then they left, Peter went off to Glasgow. I got my book out and another cup of tea. Great. A day to myself on the terrace on a beautiful sunny day.

You know the rest, don’t you????!!! But I console myself in the knowledge that the fish ponds desperately needed some rain to top them up. So do the roses. And our glider will still be there next week when we return to balmy summer days!

Sacred Pathways

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:43:54 +0700

We had the pleasure of making new friends this afternoon. Barry and Sandy live in Atlanta and are on holiday in Scotland and wanted to meet us because we are in the same ‘business’. It was so lovely to meet kindred spirits.

Barry told us about a course in Spiritual Formation that he is running which includes material from a book called Sacred Pathways by Gary L. Thomas. It sounded so interesting that the minute Barry and Sandy went out the gate, I was ‘googling’ Sacred Pathways and doing their on-line to test to discover my spiritual temperament.

Try it. You might be surprised at the result. Typically, I came out as having four top scores. (I never could come down on one side of an argument!) But I seemingly am a mixture of a Sensate, a Naturalist (hope that’s different from a Naturist), a Contemplative and an Ascetic (although that one sounds a bit painful). Strangely, I did not score highly on the Intellectual!

I can see that all that is true. Nothing I didn’t know before, but it does help to explain a few pet hates. I have never sat comfortably through very long sermons and that had nothing to do with Church of Scotland pews. I know I learn best by ‘doing’ or ‘seeing’ rather than ‘hearing’. And I knew that I liked natural, quiet worship on my own. So it all fits into the categories that the questionnaire explored.

I will now order the book and try out the ‘intellectual’ thing by reading it. Watch out. I will run a course on it in the autumn!

You know, that was a joke. But now I think about it, it’s a very good idea! Any takers?

Nesting.

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:20:43 +0700

Today I started preparing for a Celtic Retreat day which we are giving at the end of the month. In the days of the Celts, Scotland was a densely wooded country and the population tended to live on the fringes, close to the sea. So, of course, they also were more likely to travel by sea than by land. So I suppose it’s only natural that the Celtic prayers are so often taking water or the sea as a theme. I love this modern prayer, in the Celtic style, written by Ray Simpson of Lindisfarne. I am sure this one will be used on the 28th June.

Lord, you are my island,
your bosom is my nest.
You are the calm of the sea,
in that peace I rest.
You are the waves
on the shore’s glistening stones,
Their sound is my hymn.

You are the sound of the birds,
their tune I sing.
You are the sea breaking on rocks,
I praise you with the swell.
You are the ocean who laps my being,
in you I dwell.

Have you been watching Springwatch on BBC2, I wonder. I love it so much that I have the web cam open all day and can pop in to watch the nests and activities around the river bank.

I just loved the Wren’s nest. That tiny wee bird had nine chicks in her tiny wee nest. How could a bird the size of a wren actually lay nine eggs! That is just incredible. Even more incredible is the fact that all nine of these wee squawking beings fledged successfully at the end if the day.

What amused me most was the squabbling that went on amongst them all, especially as they grew bigger and space became extremely limited in the miniscule ball of nest. Frequently one or another was scrabbling back into the safety of the nest from its outer margins where it had landed when it lost a fight. How none actually landed on the ground to be devoured by a predator was a miracle.

So if I am praying Ray’s Celtic prayer, I had better hang on in that nest in God’s bosom. I’m not much of a swimmer!