New book may be the answer to your prayers

Lifestyle –  Judy Murphy meets Reverend Gary Hastings whose new book Going Up the Holy Mountain has just been published

The world is coming down with books on spirituality, religion and self-help. So you’d be excused for thinking the last thing we need is a new offering. But Going Up the Holy Mountain, by the Reverend Gary Hastings, stands apart in an overcrowded genre.

The Archdeacon, who is Rector of St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church in Galway City, has written a guide to prayer and meditation that is a breath of fresh air. Going Up the Holy Mountain is clearly written and free of the abstract, airy-fairy language that fills many self-help books. While its aim is to make people more spiritual, it’s practical and sprinkled with dry humour.

The Holy Mountain of the title is Croagh Patrick, located just outside Westport where Gary served as a cleric for 15 years. But it can refer to any mountain or any pilgrimage that someone undertakes – and, maybe more importantly, it’s also designed to assist people on the journey through daily life, helping us to gain a deeper understanding of ourselves, he explains.

Many forms of prayers and contemplation drawn from Christianity to Buddhism are included in the book and while it’s written from a Christian perspective, it’s for anybody who wants to explore spirituality, Gary says. He defines spirituality simply as a way of finding out what life is about – “what it all means in general and what it all means for you personally”.

The Belfast man has been rector of St Nicholas’ since 2009, having moved here from Westport, a town dominated by Ireland’s holy mountain, the site of an annual pilgrimage on the last Sunday of July.

“One day a year, people go up Croagh Patrick and they know why they are doing it,” he observes. “Other days, people go up and don’t have an idea why it’s so special.”

This book explains why it is, and outlines what’s involved in the ‘Reek Sunday’ pilgrimage. It also has a chapter on the reasons why people go on pilgrimages, and a section dealing with why we pray and how to pray effectively. In another chapter, Gary explores meditation, giving the most straightforward account of it you’ll find anywhere.

Then he writes about doing the Stations – which is a way of praying at holy sites, using short, simple prayers. He outlines various Christian stations in Ireland, and explains how the prayers recited in these places are a form of meditation. In a separate chapter entitled ‘Stations of Reality’ he encourages readers to experience the world through their senses and be aware of how they feel in a given moment. This is to make us more aware of our surroundings – our place in the world, as he says.

So, he encourages us to notice things we usually take for granted such as water, air, fire, earth; plants and our fellow animals. The final Station of Reality he visits is death – something we all face, but don’t think about. Fittingly, this is where the book ends.

“We conceptualise the world and we think we know about it,” he observes over a cup of tea in Tí Chóilí’s pub, just across the lane from St Nicholas’ Church. “We name things and then we forget to look at them. Reality is complicated but we get bored with it, we forget to stop and think – this book is about getting people to stop and think.”

The book’s chatty, informal tone reflects its author’s personality. He is laconic and laid back with a droll sense of humour and can discuss abstract notions clearly and precisely.

Gary was ordained a minister in the Church of Ireland in 1993, having discovered his vocation late in life. Before that, he taught Irish studies in the University of Ulster in Coleraine. So, it’s no surprise to hear this East Belfast man, who is also a talented traditional musician, describe himself as “very contrary”. Taking the road less travelled has always been his way.

But, he says, when he found his way into the Church as a minister, all he had was “the beginner’s package”, despite having studied theology.

He points out that most of us come to our Christian religion as young people and what’s given to us then “is only the surface of it”.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.