"To lay one's life before God in prayer is already to have faith that in spite of its failures and inconsistencies, in spite of its seeming absurdities and trivialities, it can become a meaningful contribution to God's universe"
John Macquarrie (Paths in Spirituality)
Many of you reading this will know that for many different reasons, I have experienced many different expressions of Christianity. All of them though have one thing in common prayer. That has been my cornerstone through all of my life's absurdities and trivialities. A point in which I have reached a seeming point of no return. I am standing on a cliff edge and I really have no idea what is going to be at the bottom when I jump.
On Ascension day last week, I attended Mass and found my self listening to a sermon about Jesus moving up in the world. In the Ascension, he was of course changing his expression of his ministry and in a sense getting a promotion. I had a sledge hammer on the head moment. We are (to take a slightly more literal interpretation than was intended) moving up the country in order to change the way in which we serve Jesus. The ground was instantly swept from under my feet. Here I was sitting quite comfortably in this lovely place in Oxford, and the concept that I was probably sitting there for one of the last times, if not the last time hit me. My head started to swirl with all the things I wanted to do but hadn't, the places I wanted to go back to and the friends made I did not want to leave. Entirely selfish desires.
Going to receive, the words "Father I commend unto you my Spirit" popped up in my thoughts and with them came the knowledge that no matter how much I might fight it, I am going to have to move on wards and quite literally upwards. I discerned in the following moments of quiet prayer, that despite the unknown quantities still involved, I have a hope that what we are doing can become a meaningful contribution to God's universe. With that knowledge it some how became something I felt I could do.
Contact me in a few months time and I will probably have found something new to agonize about, that is after all my nature. However, also part of my nature is that instinct towards prayer. So for as many things I can find to get anxious about, I can also find the faith to get through it.
On Ascension day last week, I attended Mass and found my self listening to a sermon about Jesus moving up in the world. In the Ascension, he was of course changing his expression of his ministry and in a sense getting a promotion. I had a sledge hammer on the head moment. We are (to take a slightly more literal interpretation than was intended) moving up the country in order to change the way in which we serve Jesus. The ground was instantly swept from under my feet. Here I was sitting quite comfortably in this lovely place in Oxford, and the concept that I was probably sitting there for one of the last times, if not the last time hit me. My head started to swirl with all the things I wanted to do but hadn't, the places I wanted to go back to and the friends made I did not want to leave. Entirely selfish desires.
Going to receive, the words "Father I commend unto you my Spirit" popped up in my thoughts and with them came the knowledge that no matter how much I might fight it, I am going to have to move on wards and quite literally upwards. I discerned in the following moments of quiet prayer, that despite the unknown quantities still involved, I have a hope that what we are doing can become a meaningful contribution to God's universe. With that knowledge it some how became something I felt I could do.
Contact me in a few months time and I will probably have found something new to agonize about, that is after all my nature. However, also part of my nature is that instinct towards prayer. So for as many things I can find to get anxious about, I can also find the faith to get through it.
"To have faith is to meet the world with the conviction that in spite of all its ambiguities and its downright evils, there can be discerned in it the reality of love and a ground of hope."
John Macquarrie (Paths in Spirituality)
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