A Pause In Lent 1

Categories: god-related-stuff, a-pause-in-lent

Date: 13 March 2011 13:24:32

Joining with Floss over at Troc,Broc et Recup and several other bloggers too, I'm pausing in Lent. I think the idea is that once a week we blog about Lent: what it means to us, how we are keeping Lent, our thoughts and our prayers. I have joined in because I thought it would do me good: my spiritual side is a weak and wan little thing at the moment. I'm not taking part in any Lenten discipline, nor reading any Lenten books, nor doing anything - I guess this is my Lenten discipline, but I'm fairly sure it's going to be rather incoherent, and rambling.However, for other, more inspiring posts, try going to Floss and her list of other Lent "Pausers". Where am I spiritually at the moment, I ask myself. Well, basically, I seem to be avoiding Church. I make excuses: it's a long journey, my friend isn't there at the moment, I can't understand what the sermon's about, I don't want to go, it's too wet, I've got up too late. However I dress it up to myself though, I know the truth: I am avoiding going to church. Or maybe it's God I'm avoiding - I don't know. Nor do I truly know why. But church is not calling me at the moment. I've not been for 5 weeks and I'm not missing it. I am still praying - in a fairly low-level way, generally. I am still "chatting" to God. I had a couple of days ranting at God about the total unfairness of a friend's son's cancer, and praying, whenever I could the arrow prayer "Please God, not malignant." For a hold-your-breath few days it was looking like God couldn't give a shit, but he came through with a diagnosis (described by the specialist as "incredible") of Hodgkins lymphoma. I was grateful and thankful and back-on-God's-side (for a couple of days) then it all just dribbled out of me again. Then there is the world shaking news of earthquakes in New Zealand and now in Japan. While I don't exactly blame God for these - they are, after all, natural disasters caused as the techtonic plates go about their business and the earth continues to evolve as it has done over millions of years - I still am horrified by the enormity of what has happened and the helplessness I feel.

Maybe this is my problem: I'm feeling insignificant, useless, helpless in the face of such horrors - both personal like cancer, and global like the earthquakes. I was talking to my mum about the first of Dr Brian Cox's new BBC series "Wonders of the Universe" She said that the effect of watching this for her was to realise how, in the grand scale of things, we are nothing but mere specks of dust. In fact a million billion times smaller than mere specks of dust. We are insignificant. And I argued that while we may be insignificant in terms of the universe, to those around us we are significant. We do have an effect. We can change things....because if we think that we are insignificant, we then are in danger of believing that everyone is insignificant and unimportant. And that surely will effect how we interact with them and how we see the world. If nobody matters then we don't need to worry about them.

A quotation from Dr Who which kind of sums this up...As Kazran describes Abigail as "No-one important" (when in fact she was the most important person in the world to him) the Doctor responds with: "Nobody important? Blimey, that's amazing. Do you know, in 900 years of time and space, and I've never met anyone who wasn't important before." But while I'm with the Doctor here, while I believe what I said to mum: that in the place where we are, in the here-and-now, we are important, and we are not insignificant, I do start to wonder about how significant we are to God. As creator of not only this Universe but every universe to the end of infinity, it seems nigh on impossible to me that he can care for every creature within those infinite universes (human, or whatever other life form they may be). And presumably, if Christ died for the creatures in this world, then did he die multiple times for creatures in other worlds/universes - or maybe they didn't need it, because they hadn't "fallen" quite so spectacularly as humankind. Does he care if I don't go to church? When thousands of people have just been washed away by a tsunami, worrying about my lack of attendance at a small Eglise Reformée in central France seems like a non starter. I can't help thinking God's got bigger fish to worry about frying... But then I guess that I am always, inevitably, going to be thinking from a finite, human point of view. I'm trying to make sense of a world I don't understand because it's too big for me. And if the world's too big I haven't a hope understanding the Universe and beyond... I am trying to squeeze God into a box that is too small to contain him. I'm trying to make him comfortable, and easy-to-understand, and I am forgetting that he is GOD. Huger than the very hugest thing. Creator of infinity. That isn't comfortable. That isn't easy-to-understand. So maybe I should stop trying...

The soul in its littlenness looks on God in his greatness and loves Him.

God in his greatness, looks on the soul in its littleness and loves it.

Trite? Profound? Easy to say? Difficult to grasp? I don't know.

Oh, dear, I don't know if this is what Floss was hoping for...It's not exactly encouraging. It's not exactly inspiring.But it's where I am. I suspect that my Lenten discipline may be to try to spend time mulling over what I'm saying here. I'll maybe try to hold onto that quotation (from Augustine?) above, and meditate on it a little. I really wanted to share a poem with you, by Joyce Rupp, entitled "May I have this Dance?" which really spoke to me, some 12 years ago, when I went to Iona with a group of people from the churches in Milton Keynes. I had a great time, spending time with my Godson, but also meditating on my relationship with God. This poem summed up my feelings at the time so magnificently well and I think it sums up what I am yearning for now. But I cannot find it available on the internet, and I'm sure it will be in copyright, so I can't quote it all here. But maybe I can be allowed to quote a small part, which still speaks to me:

the Voice stretches into me

a stirring leaps in my heart

lifting up the bones of death.

then I offer my waiting self

to the One who's never stopped

believing in me,

and the dance begins.