Floodplain of the soul

The River Derwent in East Yorkshire is notorious for flooding, a fact which is all-too obvious from these photographs taken yesterday at Bubwith. As you can see from the second photograph, the whole area of floodplain to the north of the road in the satellite image is currently inundated with water and transformed completely beyond recognition. The embankment resembles an accusing green finger of marooned failure. Fences stand partly submerged like memorials to Canute-like intentions of control and order. Signs prohibiting access and defining exclusive rights are overwhelmed by the trespassing floodwaters.   This is one floodplain which aptly deserves its name.

And if we are to be energised and revitalised by God it seems to me to be imperative that we allow our floodplain of the soul to be just that, an area of our being where we can be overwhelmed by the presence of divine love. This is as much the normal state of our being human as is the Derwent periodically overflowing its banks. A natural and unmodified drainage basin of faith would lead to us experiencing awareness of overflowing grace and being inundated by the presence of God. It is when we seek to divert, engineer and artificially manipulate the flow that we get into difficulties. The storm drains, culverts, canals, barriers and barrages of religion give a false sense of  control and security when it comes to God.

At the same time our covering of the intellectual landscape with vast and continuous built up areas of narrow rationalism disrupts the natural hydrology of grace: these hard, impervious surfaces drastically limit the opportunities for God to seep naturally into our common consciousness.

I think that the mystics understood these tendencies and chose instead to centre themselves in the natural floodplain of the soul. Reading their stories I am struck by how often it is this utter and total overflowing of grace which brings them to life. Far from being something to channel, control or avoid, they are renewed and their faith made fertile by such periodic experiences of godly innundation.  Perhaps the Derwent can teach us a vital lesson about the refreshing of God’s people in the floodplain of the soul.