Signalling Advent: stopping and waiting for the way ahead to become clear

GWR semaphore signal at danger

For the last few weeks in the life of the Church many of us have been thundering along through the lectionary heading at full speed towards last Sunday’s celebration of Christ the King. With the locomotive of our faith roaring at full power and pulling all the glorious weight of the Christian Tradition behind us we have romped along the liturgical tracks, carried forward by the momentum of Easter and Pentecost. Until now. Advent Sunday is ahead and the signal  has fallen to danger. Now we have to stop. The brakes screech on the wheels of the carriages, the locomotive shuts off power, and we begin to decelerate, drawing to a stop right next to the red signal. And we wait. And we wait. And we go on waiting, until speed becomes a memory. And in the waiting there is opened up space to reflect on the question of why we are making the journey at all. What destination have we in mind? In what direction of travel will the points be set? Has the signalman forgotten us? Experience tells us that the signal will be set at clear; that on Christmas Day we will be encouraged to apply the torque of all our expectations and faithfulness to the track once more. Slowly we will gain traction again. But the stopping and waiting are essential to our faith journey. In Advent we take nothing for granted and we rely wholly and solely on God’s promise to be birthed anew in our imaginations, ready for the next phase of our journey in discipleship and mission. So now we pause and come to a stop. Nothing moves. Silence descends. With the clamour of the train ceased, we can hear the soft, quiet sounds of longing all around and beyond us and discern the far-off cries of need echoing across the night sky. It is good to stop and wait. Only then can the way ahead become clear.

Raw Christmas: out of time and out of place

As you read this we are in the dark depths of a British Winter, and the high temperatures, blue skies, white fluffy clouds, warm breezes, buzzing insects and verdant landscapes of Summer seem worlds away now. Recollected on a chilly, dismal, short winter’s day such memories of warmth and light jar in the mind and carry more than a hint of the incredible about them. Was it really possible to wander about in shorts and a T-shirt?

Well it was, and on a hot day in high summer we were enjoying a glorious long walk in the Derbyshire countryside. As we strolled through a farmyard on our way down into one of the magnificent Dales this is what we discovered by the side of the well-trodden path. Christmas in August. It seemed incredible and really jarred in my mind because it was so unexpected and out of place. A natural cleft in the rock had been made into a grotto and there at its heart was a manger scene right out of a school nativity play. The promise of Advent was brought up close, face to face and out of time. It literally stopped me in my tracks. Only the battered metal gate propped across the entrance and held in place by a large rock suggested the inappropriateness of Christmas in August. It was not yet the time to enter in. But looking at the scene it was as though the promise reached out from the depths with a sense of deep longing and invitation to draw close and encounter this out of place and out of time reality.

Christmas truth met in August is a raw experience, stripped of the seasonal protection and numbing familiarity with which our culture wraps it up. It forces you to stop on the path and think. Not least as a Christian it makes me wonder what barriers we need to remove in order for others to discover the shock of God’s deep love for themselves and then enter into its personally gift-tagged truth? Can the Summer warmth of Grace burst unexpectedly into our cold Winter days? Advent prepares us for just this possibility. And on Christmas Day the gate is gone and the barriers are removed. Love is birthed in our midst. All you have to do is walk in and know it for yourself.

Hare raising prospect of Christ the Ineffectual

You get the point. But it does make me wonder how often we do actually misrepresent the life and death of Jesus and the purposeful presence of the Holy Spirit in the world. For every instance of faithful commitment to Christ the King aren't there just bound to be so many more which seem to portray ‘Christ the Ineffectual’ , ‘Christ the Irrelevant’ or "’Christ the small-minded’? Is the picture of God’s love at work in Christ which I have in mind different to yours, and how do these compare to the real deal reality of God? And of course that is the conundrum of faith in a nutshell. Christian history is littered with disputes, disagreements and schisms over this very point, as Diarmaid MacCulloch’s superb new series and book make abundantly clear.

Perhaps in the end it is not so much the detail of our belief which matters, after all Jesus seems to have spent precious little time fretting over doctrine or ecclesiology, as its practice in daily life, which for Jesus meant healing the sick, welcoming outcasts and challenging the powerful. If we are not trying to make our lives ever more Kingdom-of-God centred and Christ-shaped, and seeking  truly to learn what it means for us when Jesus says “follow me”, then I suspect we have lost the plot. To follow Christ is to be to others as Christ is to me. It is a deeply sacrificial journey, a ‘road less travelled’, which takes us beyond ourselves to the needs of others. And of course it is utterly dependant on getting Christ ‘right’ in the first place.  If ‘my Christ’ is essentially Grace-Less, then how can I be Grace-Full when I meet you? A judgmental picture of Jesus could mean that we stay messed up and afraid inside. An undemanding image of Jesus could mean that we stay well within our comfort zone. Neither image is true to the composite text we read in the Gospels. But the inherent danger of faith is that left to ourselves we will get Jesus wrong and so misunderstand what God’s love, present with us now, is all about. It is when we come together that the shards and splinters of truth of our personal faith fit into a greater, more coherent whole. Still incomplete, still partial, always a mystery, but more of a whole, and better able to guide us on the path of the Holy.

Making space to see the essential

Two Piece Reclining Figure: Cut 1979-81, Henry Moore; Yorkshire Sculpture Park

 

 

“You do things in which you eliminate something which is perhaps essential, but to learn how essential it is you leave it out. The space then becomes very significant….If you are doing a reclining figure you just do the head and the legs. You leave space for the body, imagining the other part even though it isn’t there. The space then becomes very expressive and you have to get it just right.”

Henry Moore

 

 

The motif of ‘absence’ in Henry Moore’s striking work teaches us the value of that which is wilfully left out, discarded, eliminated or removed, and forces us to ponder the significance of the empty space which remains. Nowadays a life in which God is deliberately rejected is seen by some to be more complete, not less whole. For atheists it seems that the non-space of God is closed by human autonomy, a sense of freedom from oppressive religion and intellectually belittling faith, and a supposed enhancement of ones dignity and worth as a rational individual. Of course increasingly in British society it is not so much a question of a personal Christian faith which someone has chosen to jettison but of a soul-making God-space which they have never knowingly appreciated in the first place. Nothing is missing and selfhood is complete without recourse to religion, God or faith.

Except that it isn’t. Despite appearances to the contrary faith is remarkably persistent and the human spirit is sculpted to be receptive to the presence of divine love. The soul space is there. A space to be filled with creativity, imagination and the journey of faith. A space made possible by the shape of love which defines it and holds it in being. This is not a non-space to be rid of, but a Grace-Space of gift and blessing. For me as a Christian this divinely human space is shaped and full-filled by the life of Jesus.

How many people go through life imagining what might banish their enduring emptiness and trying to find ways of being fulfilled? Henry Moore’s sculpture defies our desire to understand, classify and recognise the world. It challenges us to accept as real that which does not immediately make sense; to touch and make the seemingly intangible tangible, present and known. His sculpture challenges us to trust to the empty space as that which is essential to the whole composition, welcoming it as invitation rather than seeing such absence as error and mistake.

And faith without space can so easily degenerate into religion without grace. Certainty excludes imagination, and the very act of narrow completion negates the nature of God as that self-emptyingly spacious mystery of love which literally makes space and births creation. Making space to see the essential is at the heart of our calling as disciples. Stepping into the emptiness and void of much of modern life is the vocation of the church. ‘Two Piece Reclining Figure’ is an icon for our times.

rewind 20 years: ministry underfoot recalled

On Wednesday morning I chaired our District Probationers Committee, which is responsible for offering support, encouragement and guidance to those ministers who are in their first two years of ministry prior to ordination. Listening to the stories of these amazing people is always a real privilege: anyone who doubts the existence of God would do well to ponder the evidence of those who have made major and costly life changes in order to follow Jesus and devote themselves to this demanding vocation. 

Twenty years ago I was a probationer minister in my first appointment. We lived in Weymouth on the Dorset coast. With just two ministers on the Circuit Staff I was responsible for six churches and was Methodist Chaplain to The Verne Prison on Portland. Our District Probationers Committee, led by Nigel Collinson, the wise, calm, deeply thoughtful and caring Chair of the Southampton District, was hugely supportive. We were truly encouraged to grow in our ministries as the unique individuals we were, rather than being squashed or squeezed into an inflexible mould labelled ‘Methodist Minister’. This was incredibly releasing and I am still profoundly grateful to Nigel for the way in which his care shaped structures of oversight which nurtured rather than oppressed us. It has informed my own approach ever since.  And the two photographs, scanned ages ago from the original slides which were taken on my trusty black second-hand Olympus OM1 manual SLR, tell the story of what those two years as a ‘Prob’ felt like.

The feet are mine, as are the corduroy trousers (!), and they are deliberately in the frame. Several months separate the two shots, which were taken on the South West Coastal Path at Wyke Regis, about half a mile or so from the manse. I used to walk there often, especially when we got a Border Collie dog. The views were stunning and the coast in all its moods provided a mental canvas upon which I could try to make sense of the demands and delights of becoming a minister. The photographs show the two extremes of my experience. The first shows growth, vitality and flourishing underfoot. The grass is green and fresh, daisies, buttercups and clover are vibrantly in flower. All is well, and ministry is good. I took it to reflect this sense of wellbeing and optimism.

Contrast this with the second shot. The ground is now parched and hard-baked. Nothing grows. Here the grass is worn away and has become nothing but a distant and improbable memory. The image conveys a bleak outlook and tough times. I took this shot to reflect how it felt for me when idealism met reality. And across the years comes the memory of my late mother-in-law speaking right into these feelings. We were walking along the coast path and having listened to what was on my mind she said: “you were not called to be successful, you were called to be faithful.” These words, said with great love and care, transformed my self-understanding and were the most precious gift. As was the love, encouragement and understanding of the people in the churches I served. I hold them in my heart with great affection, for in those crucial formative years we journeyed together exploring the demands and delights of seeking to be faithful to God in the realities of where we were, not where we might have wished or preferred to be (full churches, new growth, obviously making a real difference in our communities etc). And of course these sometimes parched realities were never the whole truth, because always and everywhere there were those moments and times when reality underfoot was very different. Lives were touched and transformed, grace flowed freely, and in so many ways these lovely Methodist people were quietly being an effective Christian presence in their daily lives.

And of course being faithful means we trust to God all that is underfoot. Whatever the circumstances in which we stand, hope is within us, for the one who calls us walks with us always, breathes love and encouragement deep into our being, and calls us friend.

enrich someone’s life: share the wonders you see

Three individuals – quite possibly a family – stand right on the fence line and look out at the seals on the sands at Donna Nook. The young lad is concentrating on the screen of his digital video camera,  recording the scene. Look what happens next. Something catches the attention of the older woman and she raises her hand and points it out to the younger one. Such a simple action, yet also profound by virtue of the quality it signifies: a willingness to share the wonders we see with someone else. Through the act of sharing, new and richer perceptions become possible. The thing seen is not owned, the act of seeing is not possessive, rather this is about imaginative synergy and the power of shared wonderment. For wonder entails appreciation, gratitude even, and it is about valuing the world as gift. And gifts are to be given and received, shared and celebrated. Through the sharing of wonders, life is enriched.

So why should faith-sharing be any different? If we expect to see God's love at work in the world around us, and are on the lookout for signs of God's presence amongst us, there will be wonders to point out to others. Why be reticent about the truths we see and the love we experience?

newborn seals at donna nook: bonding and exclusion

The first three photographs show a newborn grey seal pup and its mother on the foreshore at Donna Nook on the Lincolnshire coast. Both show the evidence of its recent birth. At the time I took these shots the pup was still unable to move by itself. Not long afterwards it proved that it was able to cry out, and then it took its first shuffling movement towards its mother. What you see here represents some of the bonding behaviour that they shared.

Although the majority of the seals were about 20 – 50 metres away from the fenced off viewing path along the edge of the dunes, and most of the photographs you see here had to be taken with a telephoto zoom set at maximum magnification (the equivalent of 450mm on my camera), Sue and I we were close enough to the action to be really moved by what we saw. Watching the behaviour of cows and pups in the first hours of their life together on the beach was an unforgettable experience. Up to yesterday morning about one hundred pups had been born, with many more births expected if this season resembles last year. 

Further along the shore this female displayed obvious maternal instincts with her pup, including nuzzling and stroking it repeatedly with her fore flipper - just beautiful to watch.

Up on the dunes a cow suckled her new offspring.

Nearby a mother rested beside her slightly older pup, before moving swiftly away and leaving it all by itself, behaviour in complete contrast to that on the beach with the newborns. As this mother moved away she encountered another cow and they had a fierce territorial dispute, accompanied by bellowing, gaping and baring of teeth. Clearly her own pup could not find her and eventually it moved back towards the beach, but not before it had been grabbed, shaken and chased away by the same cow, which had a pup of its own. As this drama was unfolding we saw that the mother was sleeping nearby at the edge of the dune. Sometime after her pup had disappeared from view she woke up, realised that it was not close by, and began calling to it.

With so many seals densely packed together the process of bonding between cows and pups was accompanied by frequent displays of exclusion and territoriality. Mothers would chase away intruding bulls, cows and pups as they sought to protect their own offspring.

This type of parental behaviour is clearly a deep-rooted trait throughout the animal kingdom. As a parent I recognise the shape of such evolutionary programming within myself: the instinct to protect and look after the welfare of my own family is a given of my genetic makeup as a human. The seals at Donna Nook show us something which is integral to mammalian behaviour. The exclusive power of familial bonding finds its counterpart in group behaviour too. Wildlife documentaries abound with examples of outsiders being given short shrift by group or pack insiders.

You could be forgiven for thinking that humanity is enslaved by this primal genetic inheritance. As we recall the appalling cost and utter tragedy of conflict and war we could be forgiven for thinking too that such behaviour reflects the primitive side of our nature as a species. Disputes over territory and resources such as food, fuel and raw materials litter human history. Our capacity for violence and destruction is unparalleled. Yet at Donna Nook the seals were not resorting to lethal violence. They protected their space and their own from intrusion, and did this with displays of aggression, blocking moves and with physical force; but the levels of violence were low and injuries few and not life-threatening. This no doubt reflects the nature of this breeding population as an in-group. 

But unlike the seals, we do have the conscious ability to choose to cherish all humans as being our in-group, if we so wish. What if we looked beyond the exclusivities of ethnicity to our common humanity instead and chose to disregard our genetic and cultural programming? What if we were minded to look upon children on the other side of the world with the same care and compassion as we look upon our own? What would that do to our politics? Would we be less safe for doing so? Would we be less well off? The newborn seals really challenged my own thinking. In a shrinking, overcrowded world, we have to find a better way of handling our disputes and of learning to live together peacefully, not least for the sake of newborns everywhere. Look into the eyes of this baby seal and tell me that this isn’t so.

Sculpting our gender awareness

 

Michael Ayrton’s uncompromising work ‘The Arkville Minotaur’ and Sophie Ryder’s fabulous wire sculpture ‘Lady Hare – Sitting’ were for me two of the real highlights of our visit to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. I say this because both pieces challenged me to consider gender awareness and identity as presenting issues in the life of the church and society.

The Minotaur is rendered with all the power and menace of the original half-man, half-bull hybrid depicted in the Greek myth, where its life is spent confined in the depths of a subterranean labyrinth. The sculptor presents us with no place to hide as we are confronted with raw animal power and sexuality, and all the frustrated anger of being trapped and held captive. The guide suggests that Michael Ayrton identified with the trials of the Minotaur, and portrayed him with a degree of sympathy. Rather than slaying the beast as did Theseus with his sword, perhaps the sculptor is inviting us to try to understand the creature, and in so doing explore the disquieting and darker depths of the male psyche. The sculpture certainly opens up the questions for us and provides a means of engaging with the difficult and vexed subject of male identity. This is especially true when one looks at the photo of the Minotaur alongside that of Lady Hare, Sophie Ryder’s exploration of female identity, sexuality and spirituality. The interaction between the two is disturbing and thought-provoking, not least as it calls to mind centuries of male violence  and oppression against women.

Lady Hare is equally as striking as the Arkville Minotaur. Unlike the Minotaur, it seems to convey power without aggression and sexuality without force. In particular, the ‘split down the middle’ portrayal of the female psyche begs so many questions, not least does this represent something imposed or freely chosen? What is its significance? I found the work to be evocative, compelling and somehow deeply ‘authentic’. In its own way it challenged me just as much as did the Minotaur. The woman in the photograph stood quietly contemplating the work for several minutes, and left me wondering what, if any, identification and affirmation had been engendered by her encounter with this sculpture. I also wondered whether it was by accident or design that Lady Hare is surrounded by a fence.

So I offer these two images as starting points for discussion and reflection.

a snapshot of postmodern spirituality

At the time of seeing this shot I remember thinking that the airy, light and modern interior of Longside Gallery at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park looked like a good space in which to do ‘church’. This part of the building enables visitors to sit and reflect upon what they have experienced, read guides and brochures about current exhibitions, or simply to look out at the landscape framed by the picture window. The  wall of glass adjacent to the bounding partition provides ample ambient light.

Thinking this through further and reflecting upon what you see here, it dawned on me that this looked for all the world like a godly activity, so I quickly reached for my camera to record the moment. There was something about the setting of this still spaciousness, with the chairs arranged to encourage encounter and the landscape framed to invite response, that felt ever so familiar. I would go further and say ever so sacred. This awareness, caught in a moment of time, spoke to me of the hospitality of God’s presence: welcoming, calm, still, spacious, enlightening and safely bounding, yet drawing our attention beyond ourselves.

So I offer you a snapshot of postmodern spirituality. Perhaps it can be an icon of encouragement and challenge to today’s church.

Dredging up the past to replenish the present and shape the future

I was reflecting recently on how much I owe to the counselling I had quite early on in my current appointment in the life of the church. From time to time I had become aware of emotional ‘buttons’ being pressed within myself,  and of a sense of energy being expended just keeping things together, which suggested that there were issues deep down which needed to be addressed. Believing and trusting Jesus when he says that he wants us to have ‘life in its fullness’, I decided to do something constructive about this and sought professional help to move towards greater healing and wholeness.

Having explained this to a very wise and skilled counsellor I embarked on a therapeutic journey which took me from the time prior to my birth through to eighteen years of age. Some of the stuff which was dredged up from the depths of my psyche I had expected to see, but there were things which took me by surprise too, awareness's and experiences surfaced which I simply did not know were there. Through the anguish and tears of recollection, revelation and sense-making a whole load of stuff was brought to the surface and put into a good,  godly, healing place. It’s dead-weight was at last released from my being. With all of this hidden emotional material laid out in the calm daylight of grace I was  at last able to truly understand and befriend myself. I really knew what St. Paul meant when he said that there is nothing love cannot face. Through the expert accompaniment of my counsellor I had discovered something of the freedom and fullness which Jesus promises.

This healing process replenished my Spirit and helped me to reshape the landscape of my identity and my vocation. What was dredged up was used to build new and exciting contours of possibility and practice. And still today, understanding how I come to be who I am enables me to be gentler on myself and not to despair when the ‘old psychological demons’ pop up. Now I feel that they are for the most part disempowered and rendered harmless. I have learned to look upon them with kindness. Like the highest of tides, I know that such moments of disquiet and feeling ill-at-ease, rare though they now are, will withdraw and calm will return.

Along the coast of Lincolnshire our beaches need to be periodically replenished. As you can see, when needs be the dredger lifts thousands of tons of sand from the seabed and pumps it ashore. The diggers scoop it up and reshape and remake the beach to better withstand the erosion of the tides. Having experienced the psychological and spiritual equivalent of this for myself I simply want to encourage others to really trust in the promises of Jesus and, through whatever means are appropriate and right for them, to seek freedom and fullness of life for themselves and for those they love. There are some who go through a whole lifetime with their ‘stuff’ still hidden and buried deep. That seems so unbearably sad to contemplate. Others present as remarkably free and light of Spirit anyway. Whatever one’s history and context, the images speak of God’s desire to transform our lives through the power of Grace and the love which can face up to anything. We need not be afraid.

Green promises

Two promises which we in the resource-greedy and carbon-addicted developed world would do well to make, if we have any care for the future of the planet and the rights of the poor.

God, CCTV and the Look of Love

To be living in Britain today is to know that you are being watched. CCTV cameras have sprouted like fungi all over our urban fabric and, like mushrooms, they are the very visible sign of activity hidden below the surface of daily life which goes much deeper. Our surveillance society seems to be all-encompassing. If I drive down the A15 towards Lincoln, automatic numberplate recognition cameras record my journey. If I walk through Brigg, the camera pictured above and others like it will be able to track my movements. You never know who is watching you, or when and why they are. This week  The Guardian has run an expose on some of the more questionable aspects of the way in which the Police monitor the activities of protesters and demonstrators.  CCTV cameras can help cut crime on our streets, make possible a more rapid response to crime as it happens and subsequently assist the prosecution of those responsible, which keeps us all that bit safer.  When surveillance technology is used in a way which infringes our civil liberties, such as to inhibit peaceful protest and legitimate demonstration, it is altogether more worrisome in its Orwellian overtones of ‘1984’ and Big Brother keeping watch in a decidedly sinister fashion.

So the question is whether we can trust the watchers. The same technology can be used  for very different motives. What is their intention in watching us? How do they look at us? Are we seen as innocent citizens or as suspects?

This led me to reflect on what it is like being continually ‘watched over’ by God – not a comfortable thought.  As a youngster from a non-churchgoing background I suppose I thought that God was mightily displeased with what God saw of me; all the ways in which my life was not perfect or up to scratch. God was a judgemental presence ‘up there’ who watched me ‘down here’. Yet over and against this was a conflicting sense too that God wanted the best for me, wanted me to have the ‘light of life’ and not to walk in darkness. It took me a long time to understand and own the truth of 1 John 4:18, that for God the ‘Look of Love’ is exactly how it is. The more I looked into the life of Jesus the clearer this became. Violence, retaliation, threat and coercion – the tools of state and empire – were never his way. In Jesus the meaning of the phrase ‘God is Love’ was embodied, incarnated and fleshed out in public for all to see. There was no need to project onto God the worst aspects of human behaviour. God’s seeing and watching over entail a paradigm wholly about Love. The language of empathy, tears, sadness and regret unpacks its meaning, not that of clenched fists, cruel words and ill-intent. As we see in the crucifixion of Jesus, such love cannot be derided as ‘soft’ or ‘sissy’, as some testosterone-fuelled Christians might have us think, rather it is costly, demanding and radically self-giving. Just imagine the vulnerable agony as God watches what humanity does to Jesus, and Jesus knowingly accepts the consequences of such a way of Love in a world of hatred, violence and cruel self-interest.

Others may look at us with dubious motives, God never does. God’s watching over us in Love is the vision of Grace. It costs God everything. This Divine Look of Love can be trusted with our lives.

Discovering God is like entering a world of colour

 

How might this be true for you too? And for those used to monochrome, who long to leave their greyscale lives behind and enter this godly world of colour, what makes that small bridge in the large photo ‘crossable’ and faith feasible? And for Christians, how can we speak of the colours of faith in such a way that good bridges are put in place?

Abstract thinking: decision wave

An abstract image of a metal bridge offers a metaphor for the way in which God shapes our collective decisions – at least that’s the train of thought which it triggered in my imagination after I took the original shot. So if you are willing to go on such an imaginative flight of fancy, let me suggest that the movement in the image is from right to left, like a wave coming ashore towards you as you stand on a beach. With that in mind let’s get to the metal.

The starting point is a set of bars arranged side by side in regular linear order. Left alone they will remain as they are, unchanging, strong and utterly rigid. Changing the shape of  cold metal requires energy. A lot of energy. Here the temperature of the steel bars has to rise from ambient to red hot in order for the ‘decision wave’ to form. Once excited and energised each rigid bar becomes malleable and responsive to being shaped very differently; viewed along the edge they rise at different moments creating the trailing wave effect of a decision being made. Then the heating ceases and the metal cools into this very different pattern, and the wave becomes permanent, strong and load-bearing.

There is no doubt in my mind that God is pouring vast amounts of divine energy into the steady-state unchanging shape of the church, heating it up from cold to red hot. We are being reformed and refashioned. More and more people are becoming energised and excited, and when they are they become flexible and willing to be shaped and configured into fresh ways of being church together. Before our eyes and in our time a new reformation decision wave is rising up.

Keeping Christ safe and secure behind bars

The uncomfortable truth is that even today we continue to keep Christ locked up and confined behind steel bars of our own making. Sure enough, we like to peer in to the gospels and look into his face, to gaze and see all the divine  love and anguish etched there. We willingly listen to his words of freedom and challenge, and depend on his loving us into life.

But we are too scared to let him out. Better and safer to keep him confined to the pages of a text than actually let him loose in our world, for then we  risk meeting him face to face where he chooses. Just imagine: Christ taps us on the shoulder where and when we least expect it, in that place in our life where we are really unwilling to hear those words we dread: ‘follow me’.

So we keep him confined behind our good intentions and platitudes, our doctrines and disputes, our limited discipleship. He must stay where he is, follow our bidding, be there when we need him, as though he were an exhibit in a faith-zoo.

What a delusion this is. Who is keeping whom safe and secure? It is we who are imprisoned, not Christ. We deny ourselves freedom and life in its fullness. We keep ourselves and our fears locked up; we sentence ourselves to confined lives. We look out at Christ from behind bars of our own making.

And all the time he is looking at us with such love and intention, yearning for us to be truly free.

an instinctive journey back to the beginning

Salmon leaping at ‘The Froth Pot’, River Duddon, Lake District

On a damp, grey day under threatening skies the first of this years returning salmon were nearing their journey’s end in the higher reaches of the River Duddon. After a night of torrential rain the narrow gorge-like waterfalls of The Froth Pot were a formidable barrier to their progress back to the spawning grounds. In dismal light I was rewarded with one tolerably sharp frame of a salmon attempting to leap up the steepest of the falls, caught just as it was about to fall back into the powerful cascade. This fish was driven to try again and again. The instinct to return to the place of its birth was overwhelming.

Perhaps our human journey is little different. We migrate away from our birthing and travel downstream through our lives, free swimming through seemingly limitless ocean’s of possibility and promise. But satisfaction turns out to be illusory and fulfilment always just out of reach, until we change spiritual direction and begin travelling homeward towards that far-distant birthing place of our collective being and meaning in God. Faith turns out to be instinctive and purposeful. In the troublesome, upper reaches of the journey it takes all that we are, and more, to overcome the barriers. Such ‘leaps of faith’ are often against the cultural flow, upward through the torrents of secular certitude and religious scepticism. Such a difficult and demanding journey is the height of bad fashion in a society which is unaccustomed to anything other than ‘going with the flow’.

And there, at journey’s end, in the delightedly fast flowing and crystal clear waters of God’s presence – in that eternal place of beginning – we have come home. Here, with countercultural grace in a world of death and decay, we are called and freed to give of ourselves in bringing new life and hope to birth.  From this ‘in the beginning’ of divine love all else flows, and to it we are instinctively drawn to return.