Tag Archives: wisdom

Ecumenical Saturday sessions in Divine Wisdom and Practical Mysticism

As many of you are aware I will be running a series of monthly sessions on Divine Wisdom and Practical Mysticism at Prinknash Abbey.

There will be three sessions this year as follows:

21st October, 11th November and 9th December. All sessions will be in the meeting room at Prinknash Abbey which is next to the Abbey Cafe, if you are struggling to find it just ask a member of staff in the Cafe. The sessions will begin at 10.30 and will finish as 12.00 noon latest.

These first three will be introductory where we will be getting to know the territory” such as how the sessions will be structured, the range of topics that will be covering, the tools we will be developing and suggested reading. From January 2024 all sessions will be on the 1st Saturday of the month.

We will follow the stream of Divine Wisdom through a variety of faiths and in particular explore our own encounter with the Wisdom Tradition from the perspective of Christian Mysticism. These are practical sessions where we will focus on the contemplative ‘tools’ that will help us to engage with this tradition.

This is an ecumenical venture, all are welcome.

Reverend Jayne E. Webb Obl. OSB, Methodist Minister – Gloucestershire Circuit, Spiritual Mentor

The Silent Encounter


Learning to be silent is an important part of experiencing the subtle movement of God in the soul, or of listening for the ‘still small voice’ we might say (metaphorically speaking). Inner silence helps us to develop an interior ability to perceive, intuit or experience God in the depths of our being. This ability does not derive from the faculties we normally use to navigate the external world. Such faculties are more to do with the earthly aspect of ourselves rather than the deepest part of the soul which, according to Meister Eckhart, is where our ground and God’s ground is one.

Our union with God then is already a present reality within us all – there is no separation, but we are generally not awake to this in our ‘fallen’ state. Our faculties of will, intellect and senses are so geared towards the noise of the external world, grasping after that which would make us whole, we have failed to see that there is nothing missing in the first place.

Theresa of Avia would have us understand that we cannot think our way to enlightenment (union). Reason has its place of course but to enter into the bliss which is God’s ground within the soul we must learn to recollect our faculties, bringing them to stillness. From here we can begin to discover a silence that draws us into the pure presence of God where even a moment of merging with such bliss will bring us to a wholeness we never could have deemed possible. Truly a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.

Erroneously we have been taught that such encounter with God is not possible on this side of the curtain which divides life from death. The mystics would tell us otherwise and advise that to taste this for ourselves we should let go of our rational, cerebral search for knowledge of God and give the intellect a rest; none of this will take us to the direct encounter. Develop a practice of inner silence and stillness and in this you will find the portal to awakening to an encounter with the God who was there all along.

Such an encounter will change you, in some ways beyond recognition and will almost certainly, in time call you to service, activism and work in the world that previously you may not even have imagined would be yours to do (contemplation and activism are two sides of the same coin) – and yes, this can be the scary part of such encounter. Yet that direct touch, no matter how brief, emboldens and carries us through whatever the path ahead might hold.

To discover more about developing the practice of inner silence please get in touch through our contact page.

Blessings, Jayne

Contemplating Nature

For me, days off are definitely days to immerse oneself in nature. Indeed my earliest ‘mystic’ experiences came to me in the stunning surroundings of remotest Forest of Dean where I have spent a good deal of my life from around the age of 4 years. All these years on I remain very connected with ‘the forest’ in my work and I am very fortunate that it is a mere stones throw from my home.

So, having learnt to be still in nature and to find myself refreshed and renewed just about anywhere that forests and streams co exist, well, such places are oases for me in my work as a busy minister.

Most devastating to me is our attitude towards nature. We misinterpret scripture which tells us that we were given dominion over creation to mean that we must subdue, control and use it for our own benefit. We have long since put paid to pre-Christian and indigenous wisdom that respected creation, understood it to be enspirited and understood that human survival depended on our good guardianship of this great gift. Sadly the developing institutional church saw such animism as a great threat and ensured that the god made in the image of the human ego was remote from nature rather than immanent and in so doing opened the portal to the abuse of creation.

As we grow in our contemplative practice so does our awareness of the immanence of God flowing through all things, this is why mystics are passionate nature lovers and activists. Consider this quote from Thomas Merton

“Every plant that stands in the light of the sun is a saint and an outlaw. Every tree that brings forth blossoms without the command of man is powerful in the sight of God. Every star that man has not counted is a world of sanity and perfection. Every blade of grass is an angel singing in a shower of glory.” ~ Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable

So yes I am a lover of the divine which I sense in all nature, I am a fierce guardian and make no apologies for the relationship I share with animals and plants of all varieties.

Anyway, to return to my day off which was today; I spent most of it in this well hidden, secret oasis which I discovered when curiosity got the better of me and I simply had to explore what lay behind this secluded and seemingly forgotten gate.