Truth and the Inner Compass
The contemplative path of the followers of Jesus the Christ is one of Truth and attentiveness to the Inner Compass of the True Self. Simple but not easy.
My new Substack friend Charlie wrote a very detailed comment on my post here from yesterday, Why We are So Disinformed in (nearly) 2026, to which I will be responding at greater length later this post. Thank you, Charlie!
I am a big fan of Ralph Vaughan Williams, as many who know me in the world of music understand. The Call is one of his Five Mystical Songs based on poems of George Herbert from the 17th century, and a favourite for amateur beginner soloists like myself. Not challenging musically but powerful.
Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life;
Such a Way as gives us breath,
Such a Truth as ends all strife,
Such a Life as killeth death.
Such a Truth as ends all strife.
In his comment on my post yesterday, Charlie referenced the Compass Rose of the Anglican Church.
This adaptation of an essay by the Rev. Canon John Gibaut has the image of the Compass Rose:
It speaks of the relationship between Compass Rose and κοινωνία.
The essay was posted in 2015 in the context of one of the big conflicts within the Anglican Church. Perhaps the same conflict over same sex relationships that the Rev. Canon Ian Mobsby references in his post When Silence Wounds?
Gibaut says,
The Church, however, is to be more than a community of similarity; in the New Testament it is a koinonia, a communion in unity, diversity and even disagreement.
Whenever Christians are unable to agree with one another, yet choose communion, refusing to say “I have no need of you” (1 Cor. 12:21), we proclaim that what binds us together is unshakeable.
Costly communion witnesses to the One through whom God was pleased to reconcile all things by making peace through the blood of his cross (Col. 1:20).
To stay in communion with each other is one thing.
But is it consistent with the Truth as ends all strife?
As Ian has rightly pointed out in the above Substack post as well as on other occasions, through the Anglican Church’s waffling on affirming the beauty and good of same sex unions in the sight of God, there has been a massive amount of harm done to LGBTQ+ believers in Jesus the Christ throughout our communion, our κοινωνία,
The collapse of the Church of England’s Living in Love and Faithfulness (LLF) process was driven by those who refuse to accept the integrity of the lives of LGBTQ+ believers, instead condemning them either to deny their sexuality and pretend to be heterosexual, or to live lives devoid of the joys of committed sexual partnership because they believe gay sex is inherently wrong. As well, it was driven by those who have a more nuanced and enlightened understanding, but have resigned themselves to the ‘fact’ that ‘they’ just won’t agree to that.
Such a Truth as ends all strife.
The contemplative path, as Ian in his posts eloquently and beautifully expresses, is the Way leading people into the Truth as ends all strife, not through better and more skilful arguments.
No, contemplative is the Way of entering into the Truth as ends all strife in silence, in humility, knowing as humans our knowledge and understanding are limited, and there are many things we do not understand.
But we can come to know God more deeply, through the inner path of wisdom and discernment.
The Inner Compass.
‘Lemony Snicket’ wrote A Series of Unfortunate Events, a wry collection of children’s books about the many disasters that befall three children who are suddenly orphaned. In it there is a clock that chimes, ‘Wrong, wrong, wrong’ as a warning when the children are following the wrong path.
I see this as another metaphor for the Inner Compass, calling us as a community of faith to a deeper Truth than agreeing to disagree, or complying with lies on the magnitude of what is happening south of our border under the current President. The coopting of churches across the US under an administration such as this is distressingly distant from the Gospel of Jesus the Christ.
Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life;
Such a Way as gives us breath,
Such a Truth as ends all strife,
Such a Life as killeth death.
In contemplation, every breath invites each of us deeper into the presence of God, closer to the Truth as ends all strife, and more vitally into the Life as killeth death.