The picture shows the wonderful seagull sculpture adjacent to the main entrance of 1 City Square in Leeds. I am grateful to Liz Smith, Chair of the Leeds Methodist District, for introducing me to it. As dusk fell I managed to get a useable shot on my little Fuji Z35, but made a mental note to return with the D90 to make the most of its far superior definition and capabilities. For now though this will do.
My imagination was captivated by the juxtaposition of the bold red ‘To Let’ sign advertising office space for rent and the soaring succession of individual seagulls. It was as though the two were linked by an unseen, unspoken promise: come inside and commit to this space and your spirit will soar. Which is precisely what I believe about the Christian Faith.
And this is exactly the sense I get from the gospel set for this Sunday too. Now it was as someone unmistakably and unquestionably “filled with the Holy Spirit’s power” that his contemporaries first experienced Jesus (Luke 4:14). The transformative vision he sets out in his home synagogue at Nazareth is one of our spirits soaring when we enter into the freeing space of God’s energising presence. Quoting from the Isaiah tradition he challenges those present to truly get inside and inhabit God’s spacious and gracious promises by letting the Holy Spirit indwell their soulspace.
What spaces have we ‘to let’ God into?
I am interested in the shadow on the underside of the sculpture, we may soar but out dark/ shadow side is always a part of us... perhaps this is the space that we need to give attention to, we forget that God takes us as we are, and invites us into his presence with our faults and flaws.. the dark side holds huge potential if we allow it to be for rent, and not boarded up and hidden....
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely right Sally; thank you for reminding us of the dark side realities.
ReplyDeleteOn earth, we have the underbellies of shadows and darkness, even when we soar high above the heights with the Holy SPIRIT. So when i see these birds soaring, i want to soar like these birds... upward and out! i experience brief glimpses of this kind of BEing, yet it's so oftentimes illusive, and not sustainable because of my own old nature still grasping and clawing, trying to hold me back from soaring away.
ReplyDeleteDoes this mean i'll have to die first to truly soar above all tHiS!?!
Yes, I think we can all experience those intense and precious moments of soaring when we get to see and be from a very different viewpoint.I suppose the point is then about coming back down to earth in order to transform the shadow-world in which we live?
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