The open door (1)

‘Look, I have opened in front of you a door that no one will be able to close’
(Revelation 3:8)

Those words have returned to me more than once in recent days; quietly and comfortably, and with a gentle reinforcement of thoughts that had seemed somewhat scattered and unconnected, but which are now recognized as being part of the same underlying truth. Trains of thought, even those intermittent ones that progress slowly and steadily through the years, occasionally give me a flicker of light by which I recognize both their interconnectedness and the fact that I had, for a while, lost my awareness of an unforgettable fact; that the door once opened for me remains open. Always.
I quoted the same words at the end of an earlier post (08 Sept. 08 Door ajar) and find myself thinking back to the clearly marked time in my life when that door first seemed to be open before me.

It is almost always impossible to accurately identify a particular moment, or event, as the start-point of a meaningful spiritual journey.
The awakening of a living faith, and the birth of a previously inconceivable longing to dwell within that newfound wakefulness, becomes apparent only when we have, to some extent, already raised ourselves above the general and seemingly inescapable way of seeing, experiencing, and interpreting the life in which we have been living.
If we are conscious, however vaguely, of an interest that is more than merely superficial: a questioning, a wondering, a recurring wish to find out where a sense of there being something else touching our life may lead, we are already lifting our head above the worldly crowds around us. We have already moved beyond our start-point. Somewhere behind us, lost amid the numerous hints and touches that have been nurturing the tender growth within us, there will be someone or something that tipped our inner-self over the very edge of our initial self-discovery, bringing about the germination of the seed within. But even this unrecognizable point is not the real beginning of the journey we have already embarked upon. We set out first from a place somewhere between our initial realization of infantile joy at the ‘first light’ with which we began our life, and the time when our childhood development matured sufficiently for us to known, albeit unconsciously, that we had not entirely lost that light among the shades into which we had inevitably grown.
But all this vagueness is of little interest to us; and there is no conscious way in which any of it will ever matter to us , however real our early growth has been, and however much we may later realize how necessary to our realized potential every part of it has been. It is the moment we consciously experience as changing our way of seeing ourselves and the world around us that really matters; it is the moment we recognize as significant that does in fact become significant. It is the moment we experience deeply, and think back to constantly, that becomes our unmovable marker in space and time. However clearly we may later see that this is not our true start-point, we will never lose the sense of its having been the beginning of something important, something immense, and something previously unimaginable.

Whether this moment has already occurred, or whether you are still searching for the way of thinking, of believing, and of trusting that will lead you into a situation that becomes that moment for you, an awareness of the availability of whatever you seek awaits you, enlarging and deepening with the perseverance inspired in you by that moment. Is it truth you seek? Is it peace you crave? Is it faith you long for? Are you in desperate need of someone you can trust? Do you yearn for a safe haven? Do you weep for lack of love? Through grief? Through pain? Through lifelong suffering? Through loneliness? Are you numbed by lingering memories of loss, abuse, abandonment, remorse, or futility? Or are you energised, awakened, joyful? Even thrilled by a sense of growing closer to something undefined but holding out the promise of fulfilment and meaning?
Having lifted ourselves sufficiently by our pondering and wondering, something unexpected will either have occurred, or will occur when the time is right. Something which may grow warmly within us, catch us momentarily unawares, or takes us completely by surprise; a something which may later become fixed in our mind as the vital moment: the start-point of our journey. A thought, a person, a scene, spoken or written words, a sensation; whatever it may be, we come to regard this moment as a milestone in our life.
However unconsciously, and for however long we may have been stepping towards the experience of that moment, when it comes it is apparently unheralded, it is new, and it is life-changing. It is a point of departure for us: a flash of realization that gives no answers, but graces us with an awareness of the validity of our seeking and questioning. It leaves us knowing, not so much that we do not know the answers, but that every one of our questions has its answer waiting to become known to us. Having consciously placed a marker at that point in our life, it becomes that milestone; and having called it by that name, it becomes a significant and useful reference point from which to venture further into the new life that grows within us.

Any experience taken on board in this way truly is a milestone for us, but, in time, our increasing awareness, as well as opening the way and clearing the paths before us, will, as it were, seep slowly back into our memory of events and particular moments prior to that milestone. We begin to recall other events, people, places, words: moments which hindsight – in the light of our milestone experience – now shows to have been relevant. Previously unrecognized points begin to suggest the path that led us to our more conscious awakening, and this hazy but nonetheless real tracing of its course in the past, reinforces the significance of our milestone event. That reinforcement further strengthens our belief in the value of whatever may lie ahead. We no longer entertain thoughts about whether or not to continue; we are on our way, and however far we may wander from the path at times – and there will be such times – our faith journey will continue throughout our life. What we make of it, and to what extent we allow ourselves to respond to God’s presence in our life, is up to us. His longing for each one of us never ends, and his closeness will never diminish regardless of the ebb and flow of our enthusiasm.
Once we have acknowledged His presence by placing that milestone on our path, we can never lose the consequences of that moment: we can never lose Him. And, in the unlikely event that we should ever lose our trust in Him to the extent that we would even wish to try, we shall never be able to shake Him off. However far we may stray from the path of obedience, goodness, and love, we must never shrink into a hard shell of guilt, regret, or remorse, or feel that we can never be forgiven for something, however dreadful it may seem to have been.
He understands us: He knows us through and through. He is waiting for us.

No matter what, He is always awaiting our return.
ALWAYS.

No matter what, the door, once opened, always remains open.
ALWAYS.

Beyond words

Some words can be unhelpful to self-proclaimed and recognized Christians, as well as to those outside the Church who are searching for the underlying simplicity of faith obscured by such words. That a specific word may carry exactly the meaning being sought is, of course, potentially helpful. However, the precision of a specific meaning is frequently incomprehensible without some pre-existing awareness of the reality behind the meaning gained through one’s own experience. It sounds absurd, but the meaning is cloaked by the very existence of a word intended to convey it.
A living faith is what we all need. A living faith is what we should be longing to see in the lives of others around us, not for them alone but because this brings about the generation of meaningful community with its constant provision of support and encouragement. Every one of us is in need of this support in one form or another, but if there is nobody nearby with a faith that has come to life, how is that life to be even spoken of in ways that may begin to drag existing Christians out of their habitual lethargy, and inspire outsiders to come a little closer?

Words from the quotation used at the end of the previous post keep returning to me: ‘Concentrate on what has been assigned you’.
This is what each of us should be doing, and whether or not we think we know where we are going, what we are meant to be doing, and how we are meant to be doing it, it is far too easy to direct our energies in totally futile ways. We strive toward some ill-defined end which presents itself as needing our efforts and our focus, but which saps our strength and our enthusiasm, without achieving anything other than confusion, frustration and disillusionment. The experience leaves us dulled, and our faith begins to resemble a cardboard cut-out rather than the vibrant presence upon which we had been hoping to build. Joy drains away, and it becomes easier not to bother. We leave it all behind for a while as we seek to brighten our lives again through some unrelated, unhelpful, or even distinctly unholy activity or entertainment.
If we are somewhere out near the edge looking in, all this may have occurred through our tentative attempts to find out more, and through a willingness to move closer to the anticipated warmth in the hope that it was being generated by truth . Perversely, our attempts may have floundered, not through doubt, or feelings of being unworthy, out of place, or too conspicuous, but on the incomprehensibility of words.
However welcome we are made to feel on a human level, we may feel spiritually excluded by two assumptions, both of which are false. Firstly, that grasping the meaning of words we do not really understand is necessary to our belonging, and to our becoming a recognized and accepted part of Christ’s Church. Secondly, that the people who otherwise make us feel so welcome, do themselves fully understand these words.

The echoing of those words, ‘concentrate on what has been assigned you’, began after a few days of trying to put something together for this post. I found it almost impossible to focus my thoughts in a way that produced anything coherent; I was unable to concentrate despite my efforts to do so. The several disjointed directions in which I began writing all became dead-ends, until I began to read those words in the way I am now doing. Here is the full quotation again.

‘Do not try to understand things that are too difficult for you,
or try to discover what is beyond your powers.
Concentrate on what has been assigned you,
you have no need to worry over mysteries.’
(Ecclesiasticus 3:21-22)

I had been following my own thoughts and ideas to such an extent that I had left no room for any form of guidance. If I had been directed towards something I would probably have remained unaware, and I find that an appalling thought. What enables me to say that I may have failed to recognize any prompting, is that I woke up to the fact that I had failed to notice my loss of self-control. I had lost all awareness of my own limitations, and, although without any active contribution from or to my pride, I had lost whatever humility I may have had. I had been trying to understand things that were too difficult for me, and trying to discover what was beyond my powers. I had not restricted my concentration to what had been assigned me, and, instead, had wasted time and energy worrying over mysteries.
I had not been doing what I had managed to do over a long period with ‘Redemption’, that is, laying aside my meagre understanding without delving into the problems that seemed to arise from it; waiting while its gradual growth branched within my increasing maturity, and came into leaf with the combined experience of my human and spiritual life.

And those same lines will speak to each of us if we read them, not from wherever we would like to be, or from wherever we think we ought to be, but from the place where we really are. If we can lay our self-image aside in simple hope and trust, we can step beyond the many non-existent hurdles that appear to get in our way, hold us back, or push us from the path. It is another form of allowing ourselves to stand at the very edge so that we can go beyond it. It only ever becomes a place of fear when we shudder at the thought of it, and vow never to venture too near. The edge itself is of no real consequence; what we seek is always beyond. Difficult words are of no consequence for the same reason; what they attempt to convey, and what we seek, is always beyond.

A recent letter from a friend included the following: -
‘I now wonder how anyone, inside or outside the Church, can relate to such alien and esoteric language that so much of the church uses on a daily basis. I can’t for the most part detach my early first steps and beginning of faith within certain traditions, but at the same time I now have completely changed my opinion and wonder how anyone is supposed to find or even discuss God and His Church when it is wrapped up in language such as “supplication” and “repose of the soul” which I heard in a service only the other day.’

In reality there is no barrier in these things, and certainly not in the mere words, but so long as they contribute to feelings of exclusion and a form of what could be regarded as inverse heresy (confusion and distraction within the Church over matters well understood by anyone with a real relationship with Christ), they will not only continue to appear and feel like barriers, but may be the outer signs of a very real absence of spiritual life – real, living, and Spirit filled faith – within the Church. We must hope that any truth in this possibility is more likely to be applicable to particular local churches rather than Christ’s Church in general.
We must not allow these already problematic words to gain a form of power over us by our submission to whatever intimidation they seem to create within us.

If something seems to be beyond your understanding, let it go; do not allow it to divert you from the truths which have already been assigned to you. There is no barrier between you and those truths.
There is no barrier between you and Jesus. Follow Him, as did His first disciples. Trust Him. See where He leads.

‘Jesus turned round, saw them following and said, “What do you want?”
They answered, “Rabbi” – which means Teacher – “where do you live?”
He replied, “Come and see;”
so they went and saw where He lived, and stayed with Him that day.’
(John 1:38,39)

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