Untroubling the Heart by Patrick Wallas
Last week I had the great good fortune to be invited, along with other Heads of Anglican Schools in Queensland, to a retreat organised and conducted by our new archbishop, the Right Reverend Jeremy Greaves. His Grace managed, almost miraculously, to encourage a group of individuals who arrived with hearts troubled by our various concerns, to gradually surrender whatever it was that burdened us and to reach inwards through the vehicle of our common faith to a gently liberating stillness.
It was a particularly poignant time for me, not just because it was the last time I would share such an experience with valued colleagues, but also because it occurred to me that when I first started at All Saints and nervously attended my first such retreat, we had a new archbishop then too!
In both cases, fine and decent men undertook a vocation which saw them immediately embroiled in complex and demanding challenges which were not of their own making. Phillip walked into the Peter Hollingworth crisis which eventually led to the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse, and Jeremy found himself propelled into a crisis in one of our Anglican schools which immediately put a target on his back. Fortunately for them and for us, they are both remarkable human beings – incredibly courageous, sustained by their faith and humble enough to rely on the support all around them.
I still remember as if it were yesterday my very first retreat with Phillip Aspinall. Through the course of four distinct yet subtly intertwined devotions, we were given permission to leave for a while the competing demands of our daily lives – work and family, our personal and professional obligations, to concentrate instead on our relationship with God. There was something both childlike and poignant about the rawness that emerged from our meditations. Stripped of our normal preoccupations and pretensions, we discovered a closeness, perhaps a little awkwardly at first, based upon our shared longing for a glimpse of that ‘sense of peace which passes all understanding.’ It is a longing that in many ways defines the human condition.
Phillip introduced into one of our devotions Jesus’ words that begin John, Chapter 14:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”
Phillip invited us to personalise Jesus’ words, to insert our own names into the passage, to imagine in our minds and hearts that Jesus is talking directly to us.
“Patrick, do not let your heart be troubled. Trust in me.
Patrick, I am the way and the truth and the life.”
It occurs to me that having a ‘troubled heart’ is a depressingly common affliction in modern times. The focus on individualism, together with the breakdown of traditional support structures such as the family and the local community, leaves us feeling isolated and alone at times. It is a condition not to be endured, so we can easily be seduced into constructing unhelpful, even destructive goals and practices, the former to develop a sense of purpose, the latter to disguise the truth that in our hearts we know our chosen path will never lead us home.
The passage from John reminds us that we are never alone. Its truth is simple; the reassurance it offers is absolute. If you feel burdened in some way, try to find some time and space in your life to listen to these words from John and take them into your heart. We are not meant to live with anxiety and stress and guilt; it is not our natural state. We have to choose these things, or at least by not actively choosing peace, we allow these hallmarks of post-modern life to choose us. We need at times to actively seek the space we need to remind ourselves of the alternatives. I am grateful to the Anglican church for encouraging me last week to find the space I needed for quiet contemplation. I am grateful too that we did the same for 30 of our students last weekend in Happening! If you don’t know what Happening! is, just ask Mother Ann. (Happening! is a spiritual experience weekend for senior school students).
I hope that those reading this article might have someone in your lives who will encourage you to find the space we all need to untrouble our hearts.
Patrick Wallas (Headmaster All Saints Anglican School)
(First published in the All Saints Anglican School newsletter Week 5, Term 1 2024 – republished with permission)