Rising above

The wide open spaces of truth can only be opened up for us when their existence has been revealed to our previously blank and unseeing gaze. The veil which had so effectively obscured them from our hearts and minds, and thus from our sight, is gently wafted aside by the breath of the Holy Spirit as part of an ongoing process of spiritual awakening. Our increasing awareness draws towards and beyond the obscuring curtain of unbelief that so effectively excludes us from the vastness of possibility lying beyond our mundane routines, repetitious desires, and imagined certainties. Drawn into a world of wonder, new horizons invite us to linger, and to journey into the ever brightening light. We are led into opening up these spaces for ourselves: into seeking and searching, and into a deeper unravelling of our vague recognition and experience in the presence of something we cannot fully comprehend but which we sense to be wrapped in truth. Seemingly random glimpses draw us further into the freedom of that space, whether through the spoken or written word, through the attitudes or actions of others, through flashes of inspiration, or through the limitless ways of God’s revelation in the world and in our lives.
In following the Spirit’s lead beyond the mists of confusion and uncertainty that have caused us to hold back, we rise sufficiently above our cluttered surroundings to see that there is an alternative to being anchored in the harbour of our familiar and comfortable life. We cannot break free of our links with the world, but we catch a glimpse of another way of living that is not confined and permanently moored by those links; we can rise yet further above our worldly selves, to discover the previously implausible possibility of breaking free from the hold of animal instincts and selfishness which form some of the links in our anchor chain.

We can think of Christ as the keystone in a structure that would otherwise collapse in ruins: a tower of solid and weighty stone built in defiance of the force of gravity, with the apex of the arch – the keystone – as the high point from which to survey the world around us, but without Jesus as a real presence in our lives we have merely placed Him aloft as a figurehead pointing into the wind while our boat remains firmly chained to the spot. He will lead the way if we will simply respond to His invitation to follow Him, but what do so many of us do? We confine His image safely within our minds and within our church buildings while disregarding the hand outstretched towards us. He would unchain us and raise us above all forces that hold us down. He would lift us into those wide open spaces where we would have the potential for learning the truth, the truth that enables us to see our daily ground-level days as they really are, and as He would have us see them.

Without a superior force working to strengthen our resistance and to lift our thoughts and desires above the world in which we live, the pressure of living in this world inevitably leads us to comply with our natural tendencies. The curve of a dam holding back the immense pressure of water behind it, in the same way as the keystone ties the whole arch together and turns gravity against itself, demonstrates the very power that would tear down these structures actually strengthening them and holding them together, but the tension is colossal. All the energy is expended on resistance, on remaining immovable; nothing is being achieved, and nobody is going anywhere. This is what we do as individuals, with our own self-selected religious frameworks, and it is what we can so easily do collectively with our unthinking or uninformed adherence to particular denominations, church buildings, selected individuals, or preferred forms of service, worship, or other prayerful expression.
It is time to trust in God’s promises, to let go and let God; time to end the blinkered life whether it be one of resistance or of selfish liaison with the superficial attractions of our physical existence. He will raise us above such struggles, and in so doing will reveal the reality and the truth concealed in the world around us; we shall recognize Him more clearly in the people we meet, and through that recognition shall more truly come to know ourselves.
Let us allow Him to raise us up, that we may have the truth revealed to us, and know ourselves to be among The Lifted.

'Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads!
Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut?
Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!

He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground
and where the pathmaker is breaking stones.
He is with them in sun and in shower,
and his garment is covered with dust.
Put off thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil!

Deliverance?
Where is this deliverance to be found?
Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation;
he is bound with us all for ever.

Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense!
What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained?
Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow.'

(‘Gitanjali’. Rabindranath Tagore)