The open door (3)

The question (looking ahead) of whether or not to turn up for a talk, or (looking back) whether or not I should have turned up for it, has become an example of the moments of which I have been writing. It has become a mental notch on my stick: a proverbial knot on the cord which is my belt. It has the makings of becoming a definite marker beside my footprints in the sand, and, if I follow it through, and if it bears fruit, it may become a clearly visible milestone among the more durable imprints of my passing.

Since my failure to attend the talk at the Malvern Evangelical Church, I have found their website, and have been listening to some of the past sermons available there. This has drawn me still further towards a conviction that I should at least visit them for one of their services. The recorded sermons have provided me with something for which I have been longing for a long time, but which I have been unable to access easily; namely preaching and teaching that blesses me with both affirmation and inspiration, and is not bound by liturgical constraints, traditional forms, and hierarchical aspects of dominance and non-equality. They have conveyed an unspoken but inherent welcome to my place in their midst, and in the fellowship of other Christians of all denominations. It is a fellowship born of discipleship and community: two of the gifts conceived in the Word of God, and made available through the essential lack of any Godless hype and hysteria, and dubious financial aspects of so much tele-evangelism style preaching.

I happily place here a link to their website http://www.mecmalvern.org.uk

Nothing big, nothing flash, nothing false, nothing proud. Something simple, straightforward, honest and true. Something which offers what we all want and need: the power, and the quiet; the relevance and the intimacy of the Word of God touching our own lives and hearts. Though I have yet to set foot inside the building, I also suggest that if you live anywhere near Malvern, and are searching for somewhere where you may safely and fruitfully dare to admit to your persistent longing to learn about Jesus and all that He offers to us, this may be the place you are looking for.
Certainly I do not mean to deter anyone from approaching any other churches, least of all Roman Catholic ones. I am a Catholic, and nothing will ever alter that fact, but I am very conscious of the gulf that appears to exist between so many ‘traditional’ style churches – of whatever denomination – and the everyday twenty-first century lives of the majority of people in our Western World. My longing is for you to develop a living relationship with the reality of Jesus in your life: for you to become a Christian in more than name, and to discover for yourself the life-changing effects of that relationship. When your life has been transformed; that is the time (if there is to be such a time) to give thought to the differences and the relative truths of the many denominations. Hopefully it will also become a time when you are aware of the long-running agony and shame which is our lack of Christian unity.

My instincts, and my limited experience, suggest that the jewels are more likely to be found in a form that can be clenched tightly in the unyielding grasp of a faith-filled hand, than as something glaring, and too large to enable friends to be recognized within the same room. Here, almost on my doorstep, having been there all the time but having now been brought to my attention for reasons unknown, is what may well be one of those jewels. I pray that it may be so for anyone who finds themselves led there for the first time. Perhaps we shall meet there.

I may already have delayed for too long to give or receive whatever was available on that particular day. There may have been something specific for me; a touch, a word, a meeting, a realization, a revelation. Or there may have been something similar which I was to bring as God’s provision for somebody else. But the moment has come and gone. I hesitated and I delayed; I feared and I failed.
But the door has not closed. The cold draughts of doubt and shunned responsibility have blown it towards closing a couple of times, but Jesus has placed himself in the doorway, holding it open; waiting.
He will do the same for you, but in this instance He waits for me. He holds it open for me. He will remain there for as long as it takes, for me.
Oh, my dear Friend: my Love: my Lord; You know me so very well !

I am going to be away from here again for a while; physically this time.
In a few days I shall be doing something very unusual for me; I hope to be boarding a plane to the west coast of Canada.

But nobody will hold the door open for me while I think about it. Nobody will wait for me. I shall either respond to the moment without delay, and be transported to an unknown place, unknown people, and forms of beauty and truth which are new to me, or I shall find myself left behind, wondering what might have been. If I step through that door, the stirrings I shall hear and feel will be of other breezes, in other trees; the waves, which may gently lap or wildly crash upon my shore, will be from another ocean: one I had never previously thought to see.
But the stirrings and guidance already within my heart can never be left behind. – I thank you, God, for that.

‘If I speed away on the wings of the dawn,
if I dwell beyond the ocean,
even there your hand will be guiding me,
your right hand holding me fast.’
(Psalms 139:9-10)

The open door (2)

It is not possible to speak or think of matters related to the initial opening of spiritual doors without returning to one’s own experiences. This may seem to result from the confusion or the emotional turmoil that we went through; or from the impact made by the person, the words, the place, or the incident that became the central point of our particular moment. It may be that our milestone was placed at a point where there was no sudden and all consuming moment, but rather, the recognition of our own awareness having been raised fully into our consciousness for the first time. Of all possible reasons for our own memories being stirred by these thoughts, this quiet raising of awareness is closer to the truth than most. It is not the feeling we associate with our experience that has the true meaning for us; it is the fact that our consciousness was raised to a new level: that we were, in some way, touched by the very presence we were seeking: that we recognized the opening of the door before us.

My own journey into a meaningful spiritual life began, in general terms, in the same way that it begins for each of us; by being in the right place at the right time, and by being with the right people at the right time. My memory always leads me to suggest that the latter was the important factor in my own life, but the passage of time – while not preventing or even reducing the strength of that initial reaction – has enabled me to know that the two aspects of the moment, and of the subsequent months, and even years, are in fact inseparable. In a way that was completely out of character, I responded to something that led me into the presence of the right people. Without them, I would not have arrived at the place in which I now find myself, and I am sure I would not have progressed so far in my journey towards becoming the person God wills me to be.
– (And this is the point at which I stopped writing when last sitting here unravelling my thoughts.)

I have been away from here for five weeks; not physically, but mentally, intellectually, and spiritually. It was not a planned absence, and did not arise out of boredom, or any feelings of staleness, lack of enthusiasm, or futility. Writing here has become fruitful and enjoyable, and the vital feeling that runs through me at times when putting words together is in no way diminished.
Today though, I am being drawn differently into the significance of what I am doing, and I find that I am in fact writing to myself.
I am astonished that so much time has passed since last posting anything here, but I am not concerned by that fact. In my first few weeks of hesitant and self-conscious writing, I did feel that I must keep posting no matter what; but I am no longer gripped by such unnecessary aims manifesting themselves as needs, generated as they are by a competitive aspect of the bloggers’ world which manages to infiltrate the thinking of many of its contributors.
However, having been absent for a while, I do feel the need to write and post something to confirm that I am still here, still brim full, and still quietly overflowing.
But something is different. I had to read through the end of my last post to find where I was when I left off, particularly as I had already started writing its continuation as ‘part 2’ of the same title. In doing so, I was confronted with my own words as partial answers to questions that have been troubling me for only the last forty eight hours. This at once raises the question of timing – in me at least – and leaves me wondering once more about coincidence. What is, and what is not significant? In this instance, is that all it is? Or am I being led to a better understanding of my confusion and my lack of confidence in my own sense of direction? The recently arisen questions have created within me what feels like a form of failure, born of what appears to be an unwarranted timidity.

Over the last few weeks – a period roughly corresponding to the time I have not given thought to writing here – I have had consistent but unobtrusive thoughts of visiting a local church to which I have never been before. The Malvern Evangelical Church (MEC) has been known to me for as long as I have had a real, living faith: for as long as I have been able to truly claim Jesus as my friend. Over the years I have driven past it every now and then, and when I have, it has always raised a flicker of interest: the hint of a question. There has always been a vague, “one day, maybe I shall pop in ...” response, but I have only been as far as the locked door when looking for notices: - once many years ago, and once only a week ago when looking for information on a talk due to be given there.
Having heard about a series of Lent talks arranged by Churches Together in Malvern, and hoping this week’s may offer something of more significance for me than ‘(Saint) Paul the Man’ at a church ten miles away, I sought and found a notice in the local Catholic church. Two of the four talks had already gone, but the third was in three days. The venue? The MEC.
This struck me immediately as being more than coincidence, and, as though having an inbuilt compensation for the possibility that I may not go if uninspired by the subject of the talk, the subject – ‘Bedside Manna’ – was indeed of real interest.

For the next three days I was in no doubt; I was going to the MEC for that talk. The mild apprehension at meeting new people, and at being on foreign soil, so to speak, was brushed aside. I was going; I was looking forward to it; I was quietly excited by the prospect.
I spent the day of the talk in the garden, rescuing more trees from thirty years of ivy growth, and in the visual grasp of the beautifully shaped tree I had given its freedom nearly two years ago. (4th & 5th July 2007. Talk of trees … and of a tree)
It was only as I started to keep an eye on the time, at the end of the afternoon, that I became gradually less sure about what I was going to do. My eagerness slowly ebbed away until, when the time came for me to go indoors to get ready, I was left with uncertainties and the knowledge that I would not be going. The admission itself is almost frightening, but what I felt was a low-key version of fear: a fear of being seen; of becoming known; of being drawn into something which I may want, and even need, but which I may not be able to follow through.
The feeling of failure shadows me because I now regret having not gone. I had sensed that I was being drawn there for a good reason; whether connected with the talk or the venue, or both, (or neither) matters not. But I failed to respond in the way that all my instincts told me I would. I still have those feelings. I am being drawn; I am being called to move forward; and I have horrified myself with my failure to respond in the way I thought I would find so utterly simple. It should be that simple.

Having read through those posts from July 2007, I find so much there that is now speaking back to me. Have I progressed at all since then?
And what of the open door? It was open then. It is still open now. Knowing that to be so confirms my failure.
Turning the last words of my previous post back on myself: - He understands me: He knows me through and through. He is still waiting for me. No matter what, He is always awaiting my return. No matter what, the door, once opened, always remains open.
How can I be so aware of these things, and yet suddenly find myself frozen in my tracks?

‘It is God who, for his own generous purpose, gives you the intention and the powers to act.’
(Philippians 2:13)