Upcoming Events in Nashville, Ottawa and the World Wide Web

I have been asked to do the following talks in the next couple of months. Please to come along and say hello to me if you are able to; I always hope that I might meet some of you, especially anyone with whom I have had the occasional lively exchange in this blog’s comment box!

The first is with the Institute of Catholic Culture, a series of presentations which starts this evening. I have been invited to present the spiritual exercises that were given to me 30 years ago.

Over thirty years ago, by chance, I met a man called David Birtwistle, who asked me this question: are you as happy as you can be? It was an easy one for me to answer: “No!” “Would you like that to change?” “Yes.”  “Let me show you how,” he replied.

This was how I was introduced to a program of prayer, meditation and good works that changed my life. I still practice these exercises today. It is called The Vision for You.

When I met David, I was miserable and depressed about the direction my life was going. He told me that he could show me a way to feel better and have a new direction in life. I wanted to be an artist and live in America, but was getting nowhere; however, the problem ran deeper than that. My relationships were unfulfilling and superficial at best. I just didn’t know what to do to try to be happy, or what I really wanted in life and while others around me seemed to be moving forward with their lives, I had a sense that I was being left behind. 

Several years later, as a result of following David’s simple directions, I became Artist-in-Residence at Thomas More College in New Hampshire. But more than that, it transformed my whole outlook in life. Where I used to be bitter, difficult to get on with and pessimistic, I am now so much more optimistic and happy. This also led to my conversion. David was a Catholic who led me to the Faith and was my sponsor when I was received into the Church in 1993.

David followed this process himself, practicing the program of prayer, meditation, contemplation and good works on a daily basis. It was his happiness that drew me to him, and ever since I have viewed what he gave me as a personal formation for the New Evangelization. When he died, over 600 people came to his funeral in Fulham in southwest London, and most of these were people whom he had passed on this process to. All had acquired or deepened their faith through this contact and a significant proportion of these were, like me, converts to Catholicism.

David died nine years after I met him, but he made me promise, in common with many others who benefitted from his help, to hand on to others what he had given to me. The great discovery made by those of us who benefitted from this process is that we have the freedom to choose. We can choose to be happy or to be miserable almost regardless of circumstances. This is what drove me to write the two books about the process The Vision for You - How to Discover the Life You Were Made For; and a condensed presentation of the same process The Vision for You - A Short Summary of the Spiritual Exercises & A Manual to Accompany Workshops.

The second event is the 42nd Convention of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars in Ottawa, Canada, which takes place from September 27-29th. I will be giving a presentation and be part of a panel discussion on the Sunday. The theme for the three days is intriguing: Beauty, Goodness, and Truth...and the Encounter with Evil; speakers are invited to consider how we can strive for the the transcendent even as we encounter evil.

The third is the National Catholic Singles Conference, which takes place this year in Nashville from October 25-27th. I have been asked to give a presentation on the Vision for You process of the discernment of personal vocation with, as one might expect, particular reference to living life as a single person happily.

I hope to see some of you there!

Monastic Experience Weekend at St Mary’s in Petersham, Mass., May 31 - June 2

Live a Life in L - Liturgy, Lectio, Labor!

The next monastic experience weekend for men at St Mary’s Benedictine Monastery in Petersham, Massachusetts, will take place at the end of the month, May 31 - June 2. It is open to men aged 18-40 years of age. This is now the third year that they have put this on, and each time the response has been positive. The hope is to attract vocations, which has happened in the past, but there are great benefits to both attendees and the community alike, regardless if any ever come back again. There is a poster with contact details below, and as before, Fr Dunstan has recorded one of his slightly off-the-monastic-perimeter-wall videos.

Their rule for discerning vocation is interesting: listen twice, act once. This is very similar to what my icon painting teacher Aidan Hart always says in regard to artistic inspiration: think twice, paint once. The discernment of vocation is, in one sense, looking for inspiration on how to paint the picture of our life for which each of us the artist, so it is not surprising that the two contemplatives, artist and monk might adopt a similar approach.

In his video and in the poster, there is a request for prayers for the community, as they say, people often forget to pray for the pray-ers!

Fr Gregory and the Vocations Team, St Mary’s Monastery:

http://www.stmarysmonastery.org/
https://www.facebook.com/stmarysmonastery/

A New Book On Discerning Your Personal Vocation and How to Make It Happen

In past blog posts, (for example here) I have described part of the story of how, nearly 30 years ago, when I was living in London, I met a man who showed me a series of spiritual exercises which would, he promised, enable me to discern my personal vocation, and then follow the path towards it. I followed his guidance, and it gave me exactly what he promised, along with many more unexpected benefits. Not only did I change my career path completely, so that I became an artist without having any formal qualification in this or any even remotely related field; I was also converted from a bitter and unhappy atheist into a believer whose life was (and still is), generally, happy. Furthermore, this set me on a path that led, about five years later, to my reception into the Catholic Church. I have now written a book (with a forward by Fr Marcelo Navarro, I.V.E.) that tells the story of how this happened and describes in detail how to do these exercises. It is called The Vision for You.

What is remarkable about my contact with him, it seems to me, is not only the process he showed me (which I describe in detail), but also the fact that he was able to entice someone as antagonistic, and indeed, hostile, to the idea of God and to Christianity as I was, into being prepared to commit to a process of deep reflection, prayer, and meditation in the Western tradition. I realize now that the way he presented it to me was a perfect model of evangelization, and so, with the thought that this might be of interest to others too, this is why I tell the whole story of my conversion. 

The man who showed this to me was called David Birtwistle. He was in his mid-60s when I met him, and I was 26. I was introduced to him by a mutual friend, who was already being guided by him. David was a Catholic (and ultimately became my sponsor when I was received into the Church), but he didn’t talk of his Catholicism or of the Christian roots of the process. He just told me what to do in order to have a happy life. This was good judgment in my case; if he had pushed religion onto me at that stage I would not have been interested.

This program of spiritual exercises, while clearly coming from the Christian tradition, was as far as I can tell, unique to David both in the way he had put it together, and in the fact that it contained elements which he had developed himself. It is a program of activity that requires some time and work, rather like Ignatian exercises, but they are not the same as anything coming from St Ignatius that I have read. It involves first a structured daily routine of prayer and meditation, which establishes and maintains a connection with God; second, a period of deep reflection on one’s sins and our need for forgiveness; and finally, of listening to God’s call and following it. 

When the time was right, he did show his hand in regard to his own faith. So, for example, I had known him for three years when I told him that I had decided I was Christian and was shopping around churches of different denominations to see where I fitted in. I was still unaware that he was Catholic. He didn’t even tell me at this point, but he did direct me to “a church in South Kensington” which he thought I might enjoy. “Make sure you go at eleven o’clock,” he had said to me firmly. What I didn’t know was that he was directing me to Solemn Mass at the London Oratory!

I was not the only one he helped. Aside from my friend, in the time I knew him he I saw him show this process to dozens of people upon whom it had the same impact. He died of a heart attack nine years after I met him, and over 600 people came to his funeral in West London, some of whom had flown in from thousands of miles away in order to be there. They were people from a whole range of social backgrounds, from investment bankers to construction workers.

I decided to write this book for a number of reasons. First is my belief that the combination of these exercises (which I still practice daily even now) and the sacramental life of the Church offer the greatest happiness that I can have in this life. I thought that some, both inside and currently outside the Church, might be interested in the gift I was given.

Furthermore, I thought that those who are in the Church and are happy, so that they do need feel any particular need to go through such a process, might nevertheless be interested in David’s method of evangelization so that they can use it themselves. The main weapon, so to speak, that David had was that he was so obviously at peace, and he also knew how to transmit this to others. I describe in some detail, as best as I can remember so many years later, the conversations we had and how he went about convincing me that he had something he could pass it on to me, without my ever feeling I was being manipulated or pushed into something I didn’t want to do.

Finally, the route to happiness that this program gave me was through the discernment of my personal vocation. My belief is that many people who are unhappy in life, whether Catholic or not, are unhappy because they are not doing what they are meant to do. This process, I believe, can offer a new direction that may bring the happiness you are looking for. When I met David, I was so unhappy that I was about to look for a therapist or psychiatrist who could offer counsel - or a prescription - that could change the way I felt. David suggested to me that I might like to wait and see how I felt after the process, because he thought it might solve my depression. I am glad that I followed his advice.

My experience is that this process was able to take me from where I was to where I ought to be. The degree to which this will re-order you life depends, of course, on how far you are from the path that God intends for you. In my case, this was a profound dislocation that didn’t just change the direction of the path I was on, it helicoptered me onto a whole new path. And again, what is remarkable about this, is that once I discovered the degree where it was taking me, I was more than happy to go along with it.

I decided to write it now, so many years after David died, in part because I noticed that the blog posts I referred have had as positive response as any that I have written. Also, I have now had experience of taking several dozen people through this process myself and have seen it work for them too. All of them were given either a new or deeper faith in God, and several have even converted or returned to the Church. This has given me the confidence to believe that I have sufficient experience and understanding of the process to put it writing for, one hopes, the benefit of others.

The Vision for You, How to Discover the Life You Were Made For can be ordered online here.