Looking back (5)

‘Once the hand is laid on the plough, no one who looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’
(Luke 9:62) .

In the verses of Luke’s gospel preceding these words, a willingness to follow Jesus and to help in the spreading of His message is shown to be only part of His call to us. When Jesus says “Follow me”, He asks us to commit to Him at once, having no regard for the interruption of other concerns and relationships. We all have something that would keep us back from the fullness of that response: something resulting in a form of ‘Just let me finish this first’. The above words of Jesus were spoken in response to the, “first let me go and say good-bye to my people at home”, of one apparently willing follower.
It is a matter of priorities. Looking back to whatever may divert us from this priority is a sure sign of a lack of real commitment, but looking back to the cause of an inner heaviness which makes our committed following feel like an assault course, may be necessary to enable us to grasp the plough more firmly. And that firm grasp is essential if the plough is to turn the soil and not skid lightly over the surface of the stony and sun-baked ground. As soon as our hand is laid on the plough we are expected to hold firm; even the strongest team of oxen, the best tackle, and the sharpest and heaviest of ploughshares will not plough the furrows without the strength and the focussed commitment of the one who walks behind: the one whose hands control the team and the blade.

If that which we seek to follow is Truth and Light, and if our awareness and comprehension of it barely touches the surface of its fullness, then we must expect to be blinded, at the very least momentarily, by attempting to look directly at the source of the light. In seeking to follow we constantly turn towards that light, struggling to find and recognize some form in the brilliance before us. Thus, inevitably, we are blinded. But this is the route we are called to take; this is what faith is all about. Do we really imagine that we can clearly see, interpret, and correctly comprehend that which does not merely generate the light but is that Light?
Whenever we look directly ahead, the light is far too bright for us to see that which we hope to approach, but so long as we continue on our path toward the light’s source we are advancing toward the fulfilment of our deepest desire, and gradually distancing ourselves from the more easily recognized and more immediately satiable desires of the world in which we find ourselves.

In looking back we see our past in the full light of that which blazes ahead of us, and our sight recovers from the blinding. We may recognize this, and speak of it, as seeing our past in the light of experience and more recently acquired wisdom, but the danger is that in the process we remain unaware that we have turned away from our goal. The greatest perceptible illumination is when looking back. We have all wished we could have had the benefits brought by hindsight before we had made some decision, or acted, or spoken, but thoughtful reflection on past events can bring a deeper and more significant understanding of our lives and of our relationship with others.

While the greatest illumination is found when looking back, the greatest clarity in our living of each day is found in looking sideways. In this way we can see the nature of our desires and distractions more clearly as they are defined by the contrast of light and shade: the shadows cast by the light of truth falling upon them enable us to see their true form more easily, even at a distance. In this way we can see those things we refuse to carry with us but which return time and again to drain our faith, our hope and our self-belief of all vitality: the hurts and troubles, the faults and failures, the lies, deceptions, malice and pride; all that we block out or pretend not to notice; all that gives rise to conflict within ourselves and a constantly tormented conscience; all that contributes to the inner heaviness we must try to dispel. These all travel a parallel path, not pulling us off course but always there, enticing us to bring them closer: tempting us to pick them up and carry them once more. Their presence keeps us from walking as we should, though we do not lose our sense of direction by looking towards them or dwelling on them as they always travel in the same direction as ourselves. They are still with us in this way for one reason only: because we keep them there. We have not left them behind.

If we walk towards the light we are walking right, but the struggles we try to hold at bay remain as part of us, and, as such, keep pace with us as we walk, travelling parallel to our own route. Their continued presence gives them an unrelenting power in our lives, and it is this power that makes our progress so difficult. We stumble, as it were, through the heather, the tussocks and mossy humps, slipping into peat hags and constantly struggling to move ahead. We tire easily, we twist ankles and wrench our knees, our backs ache and our hands are scratched and sore from trying to stay upright on such un-trodden ground. For that is exactly what it is.
Our various faults and hang-ups from the past do not shadow us as we walk along our path; rather, we have been driven to take a course parallel to our intended path in an attempt to avoid the baggage we have been unable to shed completely. We still face towards the light but we have to fight every step of the way. Our baggage is on the path we should be treading; un-shouldered but still fixed in our minds as unavoidable and unforgettable. We have stepped off the path in a futile attempt to escape from it.

The path we should be on, however narrow, steep, or precariously perched across peaks and ridges, is a clearly defined path, and however much it may appear to be cluttered and overgrown because of our own inner stumbling-blocks, it will be an easier journey if we rejoin it instead of battling through the undergrowth to the side of it. We have to return to our memories of past failures, claim them as our own, and then, rather than attempt to leave them behind by our own strength, hand them over to God Himself that He may completely separate us from them.

Always, the call is to keep our sight and our every inclination directed towards the light, however little we may comprehend that which lies before us. Every turning away from the light is a form of turning back, but there are times when we cannot unburden ourselves completely without turning round to sever the links with aspects of our past.

‘Every day we decide whether or not to risk searching for the person God created, and the dream with which that person was imbued. Our monsters are whoever or whatever attempts to dissuade us from this course. ... They are the faces and circumstances which say that the dream will never be. – And whether or not to trust and pursue the dream is the soul’s dilemma.’ (Paula D’Arcy. Where The Wind Begins.)

Looking back (4)

However odd the idea may seem, re-reading some of the passages produced here since starting to record my thoughts in this way, has told me much that I did not really know even when writing those words. Much about myself, that is: about my own thinking, beliefs, hopes and fears, my potential (where it does exist) and my lack of it (where it does not), my ongoing journey, my sense of direction, and about the gifts I have received. It has also helped to clarify some of the things which hold me back and which perpetuate my recurring sense of marking time; not of being isolated, lost or stranded, as I have no sense of being left behind, but drifting along with the rest of the world without any certainty as to where I am meant to be within it, and pausing whenever I find those things for which, I believe, all the world should pause. It is the failure of the rest of the world to pause with me which generates the illusion of marking time. And it is my reasons for pausing, and the thoughts arising from those reasons, which provide most of the words that eventually find a home among these pages.

When the words that stand as the title for this blog –‘Soliloquy at The Very Edge’ – first settled into place, I knew that I would be talking to myself in the sense that I would be pondering and weighing my thoughts as I sought to make some sort of sense on the page, but I had not anticipated talking to myself in a way that would make me both student of the teacher, and that same teacher of myself as the student. That this has occurred has provided me with further food for thought, and, while writing this, yet another unanticipated moment when I must pause to consider the implications of that fact.

‘Soliloquy’. It had never struck me before that it is a beautiful word; a word that I should have been ranking with one of my already mentioned favourite words – ‘perplexity’. I have always appreciated it; it has always lodged in my mind as something applicable to me: something with which I am comfortable and from which I am unlikely ever to separate myself, but suddenly there is a new way of interpreting or understanding the idea of talking to oneself. It is not simply giving some form of utterance to one’s thoughts, but teaching oneself. At this moment I am not writing because of something that has already happened, however recent; this is taking shape within me as I write and is driving me toward the suggestion that my reason for being here is not quite as I have thought until now.
Soliloquy is not only a form of talking specifically to oneself, but of speaking without addressing any one else. Inevitably, much of what I have written, while being born of words uttered within myself, has been directed to you the reader; it has been spoken to no particular or specified person but has nevertheless been spoken directly to you, whoever you may be. Without an intention to speak to you in some way I would never have begun to write here at all, but the thoughts into which I now find myself led suggest that perhaps that is not the main aim of the prompting that brought me here.
Could it be that it is the real Teacher within me, the Holy Spirit of God, who, being unable to get through to me in more direct ways, prompts my willingness to go through a more laborious unravelling of thoughts and words? Does the Spirit lead me through this process, not so much that my thoughts may aid or support others, but rather that the process may clarify for me the identity of their source – differentiating between The Spirit and my own wayward ideas – thus more effectively enabling me to recognize His leading, and more meaningfully to reach out to those same others in the future?

Once again I have been drawn completely away from whatever I had been thinking to write about in this post, but failure to go with the leading, wherever it may take me, would undermine all that I have tried to do here. I had set out to continue with the theme of 'looking back', and have been shown that such a theme can indeed have beneficial effects in our future. Anything lacking such effects is mere futility.
Perhaps the important message I need to convey is that looking back, to the right things and in the right way, can enlighten each of us in our search for the path into our future by revealing aspects of our past as having been parts of that same path. It is not the words I write here that have any worth; it is the places to which they may prompt you to go, and which will speak to you as an individual and unique child of God.

‘Do you hear?

Long ago I prepared this,

from days of old I actually planned it,

now I carry it out:’

(Isaiah 37:26)

It seems that ‘looking back’, as a theme, will now run to five posts. I had not anticipated that, but then that is a large part of our world-bound problem; we think we can plot our course into the future when we should be casting ourselves completely on the guidance of the Spirit, sent by God through the reality of Jesus Christ for precisely that purpose. I can have no idea what the Spirit may say to you or where He might lead you, but may He speak loud and clear to you, and may you hear, understand, and respond to His presence in your life.
.

Looking back (3)

‘But wretched are they, with their hopes set on dead things,
... useless stone, carved by some hand long ago.’
(Wisdom 13:10)

Years ago, on a quiet summer evening I walked along the beach in the west of Ireland where I was to experience what would begin making sense of what had been happening to me; something about which I have already written.
I had already walked to the far end of the strand, and had spent a while pondering my behaviour with regard to a stone which I had once picked up there, had made my own, and had then given away. That stone turned into something more than it should have been. It always remained the stone that it was, but in my mind it became a special stone: a stone among stones. Of course I did not worship it or pray to it; I placed no hope in it, and I still saw it only as a stone, but I became attached to it, and the attachment came about as a result of my having worked on it.
I had ground it flat, cut a cross in it, and put notches around the edge for the stations of the cross. It was done quickly and roughly; in no way was it a work of art. Perhaps in one sense it was, but it was not fashioned in a way that resulted in pride, or even a particular pleasure with the result. It was not made to be shown to others, and, in fact, was not made for any reason other than that the natural shape of the stone lent itself to it. The idea came, and I acted on it. But once I had seen it in its new form I thought I could wear it around my neck, and having drilled though it for that purpose, that is what I did for a while when in Ireland. One of the old people there said I should have the priest bless it when he next came to the village, but that thought reminded me that it was in fact nothing but a stone. And why would I want a priest to bless it, if not to assist me in turning it into something else? Into what? Something with which to become familiar and comfortable? To grow fond of? Because it had been blessed, something to be relied on and to be prayed with? Into what, if not an idol?

Because it only existed in that form through the work of my own hands, I could not accept that the stone could become anything more than it was, and yet, that same stone still meant enough to me to become a gift given when I felt that a very real thank you was needed. With hindsight, I think I worked on it and wore it as a way of expressing the fact that something had changed: that I had somehow allowed Jesus to make His home in me, and, though unable to break out of my natural reserve, I needed to make that fact known to the world around me. It was for this same reason that I had an icthus, fish symbol on my car for the next few years.
It seemed as though the stone, even when I first picked it up, was meant to become that gift; to become a symbol, the changes and movements of which would mark out the path for the removal of the stones within me. It became significant because of what was going on within me at that time, and giving it away was my way of trying to tell the person I most needed to tell: the person whose friendship had given rise to my awareness that it would be much harder to let go of friendship once found, than it would be to throw the stone back into the sea.

Almost as soon as I had parted with it I missed it dreadfully. (Looking back at it now, the whole episode seems more like a form of madness than anything else.) That sense of need – which had not existed at all before – resulted in my making myself a similar but much smaller stone from another piece gathered from the same spot; the same dark green marble, ground flat, cut with a cross and twelve notches round the rim. I carried this everywhere with me for weeks, holding it in my hand in my pocket or inside my glove when the winter days were particularly cold, somehow finding it an aid to prayer and a link with the person to whom I had given the first stone. I felt so utterly low and empty at that time that I continually needed that person's support, and I always felt that it was there even though we rarely met or spoke at all.
Some months later, while in the Abbey Church at Douai, I decided to finally break away from this substitute stone I had been carrying. In doing so I knew that I would also be leaving behind its connection with the first stone with all the associated confusions, as well as my reliance on that one particular friend and my felt need for continued support.
I had been praying at the side altar where the Blessed Sacrament was kept, (a place in which I had never rested before), and when I left I placed the stone on the altar. I worried a little that its presence there might offend whoever found it, but I also hoped that maybe that person would keep it, and one day learn how and why it had come to be there. As soon as I had done this I became aware of just how worthless a gift the first stone had been. It was a nothing upon which my mind had placed some sort of non-existent value, and for that reason, and because I was becoming increasingly embarrassed by the fact that I had given it, I began to want its return. I asked for it once but was told, with a smile, that I could not have it back. I have never seen it again.

I wanted it returned, not for myself to keep, but to take it to the place from whence it came: to throw it back to the sea at the far end of that beach. Realising at last that this too was placing a foolish significance on the stone, I asked a mutual friend to try to obtain it, and to take it to West Cork with her when she went, there to throw it into the sea for me. A long way from the place where it had been found, but it was Ireland, and at least it would have been dealt with. That did not happen either.
And all this had been forgotten until I first began writing about my visits to that beach.

I still pick up stones, and I may shape others in the future, but their simple reality will not be confused; they will remain what they are, just as all the useless things with which we surround ourselves remain forever useless.

They will be merely ‘useless stone, carved by some hand long ago.’
This was a time since when the words of Ecclesiastes 3:5 have never been the same.

'A time for throwing stones away, a time for gathering them;'
.

Looking back (2)

‘Central to study is the acquisition of a memory. Yet this is not so that we may know many facts. We study the past so as to discover the seeds of an unimaginable future.' (Timothy Radcliffe OP. Sing a New Song.)

It is not only the bad occurrences that need experiencing only once to create their lifelong effects; our lives can be, and should be, changed utterly by the influence of God’s presence in receptive hearts, all forms of which are aspects of His making His home within us. Through His look, His touch, His word, His light, His strength, His protection, His direction, His forgiveness; through the fulfilment of every need we may have, He calls us to become wholly His. When His provision includes specific forms of human support, the experience is made more than a purely personal spiritual milestone by being firmly anchored in the physical realities of our lives. It leaves us with the knowledge – however incompletely we may interpret it – that whatever has happened within us is not meant to wholly separate us from the world in which we live, but has a bearing on our willingness to contribute to the conforming of mankind to God’s will, and on our ability to influence the workings of our world in some way.

I do not look back as frequently as once I did, and I no longer make any conscious decision to do so, but parts of my experience over a relatively short period, while having receded from their prominent position in my mind, still live as meaningful turning points in my life. They will not release me from the grip in which they first held me in spite of all peripheral attachments and emotions having been laid to rest years ago. Their continued prominence in my life, coupled with the ever increasing certainty that all that has resulted from blessings received at that time did, and still does, move me forward in the direction God wills for me, has not only made the marker into a milestone, but has turned the milestone into something even more significant. It has almost become a monument: one of the rocks upon which I have been rebuilt. Using the idea of a monument – even the mere use of the word – at once brings to mind the unwanted suggestion of misplaced significance, and even hints at a form of idolatry, but there is nothing to be doubted in what I experienced, in what I recall, and in the power still emanating from the memories of that time. Even the thoughts involved in my writing about it now are somehow part of my present rather than of my past; I have not called them up by looking back and searching for them. They have brought themselves forward with the passage of time, maintaining their undiluted presence within my day-to-day life and continually merging more completely with the awareness of God’s presence in my life, which began with those now rather distant events.
The milestone had been something I could locate and return to whenever I wished; something in the past; it became a monument when it was no longer necessary to look back and reflect to link it to the present day, but became part of the present, clearly visible without having to even glance back in time. Dwelling on such ever-present and maturing realities will not immobilize and confine us, nor leave us indifferent and unconcerned if we judge their source aright. They will teach us, enable us, and play a confirming role in our quest for freedom.

The freedom we seek includes being freed from the grip of all unreal, unwanted and unholy memories and their associated distractions and attachments: from all that can be discerned as not having come from God. Quite unlike the memories some people have of their ‘worst of times’, but also not of God, are some of those peripheral happenings which become entwined with an awareness of the central Truth and Power of Goodness in our lives, and then embedded in the remembered feeling of the experience. These can be unrecognizable and inseparable from the underlying truth during their manifestation, and even after some considerable time, when their lack of worth has been recognized, they can remain as part of the experience from which we are just not willing to break away. In time, and with perseverance, our recognition becomes acknowledgement of their true place in the mosaic of memories, and our ability to refine our assessment and memory of events grows in keeping with our increasing spiritual maturity.

After my own spiritual awakening, it was a long time before I could fully separate the fruit of my experience from the superficial and superfluous blanket with which I had unwittingly cloaked it. I have been reminded of the stages in that process by a recent visit to Douai Abbey.
It is some time since I last called in there; the place where I spent my last five years of schooling, and the monastery from which had come the Benedictine monks who had served as my parish priests for so long; (though the last in that Benedictine provision was a much loved member of the Downside community).
The opportunity arose when driving home alone from London, and now that Stanbrook has moved out of easy reach to Yorkshire, the thought that Douai may provide me with a focussed space for prayer and the quiet pondering of questions, brought me to the Abbey doors once more. There was also the chance that I may have seen the monk who had been my parish priest during that immensely important stage of my journey, and whose words had set the whole process in motion.

The small amount of looking back I did while there was a quiet flicking through pages that formed much of that worthless blanket under which I had half-hidden the wonderful reality of what had happened to me, and the whole train of thought was begun when I wondered what may have happened to something I had left there years ago. Had someone found it? If so, was it one of the monks? - a lay parishoner who may have been cleaning the church? – a visitor? And having found it, had they retained it or had they thrown it away? What happened to it does not matter; the important thing is that it is gone from my life, but I felt that if the finder had kept it, or had at least wondered where it had come from and why it was there, I would like him or her to hear the story behind it.
But, in thinking that, as in my writing about it now, I also wonder whether I am once more making both the object and the story behind it significant in ways that will draw me away from the truth and the grace received at that time. The one way to negate these potential distractions must be to lay them open for all to see. It would be so easy for some people to simply ask about it, but I continue to hold back in so many ways. What I can do however, is briefly tell the story here. Something may come of it, though it will not matter one way or the other, as the distraction will probably fade into oblivion with the telling.

And that, after all, is where it belongs.
.

Looking back (1)

‘No need to remember past events,
no need to think about what was done before.
Look, I am doing something new,
now it emerges; can you not see it?’
(Isaiah 43:18-19)

Depending on the particular focus of our attention, dwelling on the past will do one of three things; it will teach us and help to liberate us, immobilize and confine us, or place us in a indeterminate state where our attention tips the balance neither one way nor the other. Just as the Israelites had found it much easier to think back to their crossing of the sea and the destruction of the pursuing Egyptian army than to appreciate what God was doing for them in the present, we can wallow in memories of past events in our own lives rather than being open to the reality and the demands of today. We all have markers we have set beside our path when something significant has occurred, and some of these may well have become major milestones for us: Whether they are life changing moments or long running situations, we may feel unable to lay them aside. Good or bad, they may have become anchored within us as seemingly undeniable parts of the persons we have since become. We could say that they have made a home in us.
It is one thing when such unforgettable fixed points seem to guide us and encourage us to go forward in ways which bring increasing levels of peace and integrity, but quite another when they trap us in the continuing grasp of past pains, fears, failures, or abuses. We only need to endure a single experience of being abused (in any way), of being falsely accused, of being hated, of being deserted, of having our dreams shattered, of being publicly shamed, or of falling deeply into sinful behaviour for which we are unable to forgive ourselves, to realize that God is not the only visitor with an ability to find a home within our hearts and minds.
Our memories of such things can take up an inordinate amount of time and energy by their continual presence and by their tendency to block all attempts to leave them behind. They do not readily share our inner space with the living and transforming presence of Goodness; the two do not occupy separate niches while allowing each other to go their own way; each seeks to fill us completely. The one would hold us in the grip of memories and their subsequent debilitating and immobilizing effects, thus preventing us from opening ourselves to the changes God wants to work in us; the other would heal, strengthen and enable us through the gift of freedom: through freeing us from the heavy burdens we have been carrying for so long.

“Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

So said Jesus. The old covenant was built on ‘the Law’ and the Jews were overburdened by the many details it contained and by the observances needed to fulfil its requirements. Jesus had come to change all that. Following Him is easy, and once we have truly committed ourselves to Him, we will find our own burdens – whatever form they may have taken – slipping from our shoulders until they are eventually laid aside.

But these memories, taking up so much of our time and mental energy, and forming part of the structure upon which we have built our self-image and our assessment of our own worth, may not be of hardships, regrets and loss; they may indeed be of the very worst, but may also include what we regard as the very best of experiences. Even those which have since proved themselves to have been grace-filled times – steering us, or moving us, or lifting us in whatever way it may have been – can be held onto as a powerful memory rather than being left behind through the living of the gifts received in those moments. It is the gift which is powerful, and it is the living of the gift (our making appropriate use of it) which brings that power to bear in our own lives and in the lives of others.
Memories can have a powerful hold over us but in themselves they have no power at all. We are incapable of overriding their influence by our own efforts, but freedom will come when we no longer stand before them alone: when we have allowed our Liberator to make His home in us.

“We ought ... with a wise discretion, to analyse the thoughts which arise in our hearts, tracking out their origin and cause and author in the first instance, that we may be able to consider how we ought to yield ourselves to them ...” (John Cassian. Conferences 1:20)

‘... it matters that we know that the power of defeat is in our own hearts, and that our disbelieving self, not circumstances, is the enemy. ... it matters that we give power to our dreams, arms and legs to our love, wings to our wonder, so that they will become the significant part of us.’ (Paula D’Arcy. Where The Wind Begins.)
.

Homemakers

“And we shall come to him and make a home in him.”
.

Ending my previous post with those words from John’s gospel (14:23) has given rise to a gradual reawakening; something to which I am becoming accustomed as I more fully accept my slowness of thought and my inability to see and understand what is frequently right in front of me. The smallest of shifts in perception can sometimes bring food for thought or insight beyond all possible expectation, and such a shift can numb our day-to-day awareness while we linger in the need to ask and seek answers to questions that are very real but remain for the most part unformulated.

.
Over the last few days my consciousness of a long-running uncertainty has increased. An intimation regarding my apparent ability to stand motionless in the middle of nowhere while believing I am on the right path and “pressing on” to the end, has brought old doubts to mind once more. Aspects of my tendency to hold back, to linger in the background, to wait and see, have surfaced again, but any discomfort resulting from lack of achievement and what feels like the wasting of valuable time, has been balanced by an undiminished reassurance derived from the still persisting belief that my waiting is in obedience to my Lord’s specific will for me. It is a conviction that has fed and sustained me for years, but the doubts wandering through my accustomed stability at times such as this, spread unease through previously unruffled regions of thought. The mind thus stirred rouses emotion in the heart, and such emotion bares the soul to whispers, both healing and destructive.

This is not a predisposition, and it is neither desire nor vague inclination (whether temptation or mere curiosity). Its beginnings were buried in the unsuspected development of friendship during the only time I have ever fully acknowledged and admitted a need for support from others. That support was provided in ways that seemed effortless and made available without any conscious decision from the providers. It simply came, as it were, as part of the package God had prepared for me, and it lasted only as long as He willed. My own feelings at the time included what I experienced as a great need for its continuance but the support was withdrawn at the very time I felt most in need of it. Once gone, the active friendship and fellowship also slipped away until, with my return to a more solitary existence, contact was almost completely lost.

“And we shall come to him and make a home in him.”
What a wonderful statement that is. What a phenomenal idea, and what an awesome possibility.
Why would I have wished for a continuation of that newly discovered form of human friendship when the unquenchable companionship of Jesus, the undeniable guidance of the Spirit of God, and the unfathomable creative and parental love of God were already mine, and residing within me? The answer to that question is quite simply because I could only become aware of the living presence within me through the attraction felt for Christ dwelling within those with whom I came into meaningful contact. The process began with God’s provision of the right persons in the right places at the right times, and the person most needed to be present at the right time and place was myself. It seems that He had every eventuality covered, and looking back to the sequence of events over the early stages of my experience, it is impossible for me to accept that I would have remained in place without my guided responses to His direction and the prearranged provision that awaited me.
Without those persons and the particular words spoken at crucial times, I would not be writing here today; no doubt I would still love solitude and quiet, but perhaps I would never have become aware of the truth in those words, “And we shall come to him and make a home in him.”

It is awareness of that truth which feeds the longing and the wonder that hold me at the very edge of things: at the edge of my faith, the edge of my understanding, and at the extreme limits of my meagre capabilities, confidence, and courage. It is that same awareness which constantly tells me not to yearn for the closeness of friendship found when my faith was first brought to life, but to look beyond those who still attract my attention, partly through the memory of past experiences with them and partly through the lingering sense that those same people still have an important part to play in my spiritual journey. I have been blessed with all that I need: God’s grace is indeed enough for me in any situation, and I am called to leave all such attachments behind, focussing instead on the fringes of my comfort zone; to search the distant horizon.

Christ’s Church is not confined within any man-made or visible boundaries; it reaches to the farthest point at which there is someone daring to whisper, “God ... are you there?”
The Father constantly searches the horizon, not only for the returning son – 'While he was still a long way off, his father saw him ...’ (Luke 15:20) – but for every man, woman and child with the faintest glimmer of light and hope in their heart. That glimmer is the undying ember of the ‘first light’ with which we were all born: the spiritual homing-device which links us with our Creator and our ultimate destiny, even when we give Him barely a passing thought.
Our focussing on the possibility, and then on the reality of God’s existence and His presence in our lives, is more than an awakening; it is our coming home to Him as adopted sons and daughters. It enables Him to come home to us, and His coming – His dwelling within us – brings us into the fullness of life as human beings; set apart from the rest of creation, though part of it, and born of the processes that will lead inexorably to the completion of God’s plan for mankind.
.