Taketime

We found out about Taketime through our curate Marion who knows the chap who runs it, a Methodist minister based in Reigate. It's a way of using Ignatian meditation to facilitate an encounter with Jesus in the context of prayer. Ignatian meditation involves imagining yourself into Bible stories, either as one of the characters or an observer, and noting your reactions. Taketime's scripted versions of Gospel narratives shape that imaginary work and at the end you usually 'see Jesus coming towards you. He sits beside you and asks you to tell him whatever's on your mind.' Then you spend some time listening to the answer, whatever form it may come in. Sometimes there isn't very much distinct at all, and sometimes there is. Meditative prayer is like that. A full-works session is supposed to take about 90 minutes but as a prison chaplain Revd Clive has done it very effectively with prisoners in as many seconds.

We wondered whether we might introduce something of this sort at Swanvale Halt to take the place of an existing contemplative event which seems to be dribbling to a halt, and preserving the quiet, contemplative element people appear to value; so on Monday I, Marion and Lillian the Lay Reader went to Reigate to take part in a Taketime training day. It would begin with a sample session. 

And the sample session begins with a relaxation exercise. At this sort of point I usually have running through my mind a dreadful story Il Rettore used to delight in telling, of his wife attending a day for clergy spouses in the Exeter diocese: I will merely write the words 'and let those lemons go!' and leave it there. But I dutifully pictured relaxing warmth flowing up through my toes and so on and tried my best not to be resistant.

And then we got into the story: Jesus's encounter with the first disciples and the miraculous catch of fish. I am not that imaginative a soul and struggled to stay focused. 'Listen as Jesus calls you, by name ... And just tell Jesus whatever may be on your mind and in your heart ... and now just listen to his answer to you, however it may come ...' the calming, measured voice of Revd Clive moved through the room. And so I did. It was something personal I was battling with, something I'm not going to share here let alone with anyone else in that room.

I was caught out by getting an answer. Not a picture or a word as such, but an insight which led me to see the issue I was grappling with in a different and more helpful way. Of course if you're not a believer you're free to see it as the subconscious working away at problems unbeknownst to the waking mind. But that's exactly what makes Taketime a fruitful method for working with people with a variety of religious opinions and none. 

I went and had my lunch in the Castle grounds in Reigate, sitting on a baking hot bench and wondering how so many mussel shells got into the grass a couple of yards away. I felt an unfamiliar sense of lightness and liberty. I had gone along to a training day, and would be taking home a new understanding of myself rather than just a folder with some handouts in it, though I would have that too.