FROM THE BOUNDARY
It’s such a beautiful morning. The colours are calling my senses to life. That’s life in its oneness, all creation, every cell in our bodies. And Covid Wimp? Well, the Psalmist tells us (27:14) we’ll have to wait and see what comes with courage. Life’s still a blessing and full of wonder. Yet there are still those who suffer in all sorts of ways. Bless them. There’s the despairing and alone, the fearful and needful. Whatever our own feelings are, we know we can overcome them by helping others to overcome theirs. Jesus ever calls us, here in the world, to reach out. In reaching out to one, we reach out to all humankind. The Divine is within us. We don’t need temples made with hands to experience the Divine Heartbeat. We’re all its living forms. Its song never ceases. It’s the song of Love.
That’s why I’ve never quite understood why some objected to the closing of churches. Are they such holy places that Wimp can’t reach there? Hardly. Is it supposed that the universe only worships there? Well, maybe it worships there but in a squeak not a song. Would that be all we’ve learned from Wimp – that God’s in a box? I wonder.
Will things be the same after Wimp – the same old spiritual life in our life in the Church, in the ways our faith expresses itself, as followers of Jesus? Are some things now less important to us, others more so? Do we still accept everything we previously took for granted? Has Wimp changed us, or left everything the same as if we’d slept? I guess I can only speak for myself.
We’re living in a new age of uncertainty. We’re all potentially Wimp-hits. Maybe it won’t be enough to confess our sins unless we’ve first washed our hands. Yet every morning the sap still rises and we know, or should know, that we’re inseparable from the Divine, and ever reborn from the womb of the earth, at one with all things. For me now, pretty well at the end of my days, the Church, if it’s to have any meaning at all, must recognise that oneness and help our awareness of the Divine’s blessing upon us – the love within as our gift to creation. Wimp can never overcome that. It’s time for the Church to wake to it. Maybe, like Rip van Winkle, it’s slept for too long.
Another thing: we really don’t need temples made with hands to worship the Divine. I say ‘worship’ deliberately. I don’t mean asking for more and more. Maybe what I have now is more than I could ever have expected. And then each of us is a temple, entire, complete, sacred. We’re our own priests celebrating all that’s happened to us. That’ll take courage to understand. Remember, the crowd is always complaining – it wants this, not that – and it kneels and confesses to get it. ‘Sorry… now gimme’. The crowd won’t have your courage, the courage of ‘thank you’, the courage of blessings from hearts of love, in all the twists and turns of every new day.
Remember too that God knows us in our nakedness. We’re the only species that buys clothes to cover ourselves in God’s universe. Why then do some make such a fuss about what others wear at worship? Are we really that small, petty, that for us ‘church clothes’ override loving hearts? Wimp doesn’t distinguish between smart suits and jeans does he, between long and short pants, between Ricci and Rihanna? Do we really think that the God who created this universe would blink at what we wear when we say ‘Jesus I trust in you’? You can’t buy him with clothes.
Well, there’s a start for our life in Jesus post-Wimp. I hope you won’t feel too shocked. Worship is not set in cement, after all, and the Spirit will ever see further than we do from the valleys and the mountain tops, and with every new day.
Go safely, then – until the next time.
Heartfelt, from the boundary: “The day to kindle new longings in the heart has come.” (Osho).