A CONTEMPORARY SPIRITUALITY

Early this September I spent a week alone in my friend Andy’s cabin on the Gower coast as I have done for some years. It was a rich and nourishing week as it always has been. On my last night I slept well as I usually do. I woke at 3.40 restless at the prospect of going home. Knowing that I was fully awake I got up made a cup of tea & went & stood outside on the decking overlooking the dunes and the sea. The human world was dark & asleep, save for some city lights across the estuary. But the sky was full of stars, hundreds of them in every direction. I could hear the sound of the sea, the waves crashing on the shore. I could feel the cool breeze on my body. I could sense the salt in the air. I was aware of the animal life forms in the dunes around me. I felt totally alone: awake & aware.

What I saw was not itself unusual or strange. I have seen it before on previous visits. What was new was my reaction and my response. One of awe, wonder & confusion. Looking at those hundreds of bright stars, knowing that there were millions of other stars beyond them that I couldn’t see, made me aware that there are other worlds out there: so many other worlds out there:   I am aware only of the one I live in, & even that in a very limited way. Stunned I went back to bed feeling small and insignificant.

I fell asleep quite quickly and woke later from a dream in which I was somewhere in south London, it was late & I knew I had to leave where I was & go home, but I had no idea as to where home was or how I could get there. Leaving the building it was dark, there was nobody about, no buses, no trains, just empty streets, nothing I recognised. I was completely lost and had no idea what to do but felt compelled to do something.

I woke from my dream feeling frightened. But the fright belonged to my dream. It wasn’t what I felt once I was wide awake. I was confused and bewildered but not frightened. My dream spoke to me of my night experience. I was confident that, with God’s help, I seem able to manage my way through this world. But what of the reality of all those other worlds?

The past six months, focused on my 80th birthday in April, had been an exhilarating roller coaster ride, as I’d reviewed my life, encouraged by the love and support of friends. I ended up feeling impelled to try & put into words what I felt God had revealed to me over the years. I struggled to do that to my satisfaction but eventually felt that I’d got it ‘right enough’ on the Thursday afternoon of my Rhosilli Bay week. It could hardly be a coincidence that early the following morning after I’d drafted ‘Thy Kingdom Comes’ I had an experience that powerfully reminded me that I surely knew very little of the bigger cosmic picture.

I am reminded of Chet Raymo’s words “what we know is a tiny island in a vast sea of mystery.”  I had arrived at a clear sense of what I knew and was immediately reminded that there is a much bigger cosmic picture of which I was ignorant. What I had come to know wasn’t new, others have come to a similar conclusion. At best it’s what one human being living on one particular planet has come to understand. Would whatever life forms exist on all the countless other different worlds come to a similar conclusion? Or was my wisdom only applicable here on Earth? 

What is God telling me here? Should I focus on what I feel that I know and forget the bigger picture. Should I embrace the bigger picture and let go of my limited human understanding. A better way forward is surely to hold fast to what God has shown me, but to do so with a humility rooted in my awareness of the Great Mystery. To trust the God that I know and trust also that God is greater than anything that I can know, and that other people and indeed other worlds almost certainly have an equally trustworthy knowledge of God that is different from mine, and which is worthy of my respect. I have been gifted with sufficient insight into the mysterious ways of God for my journey as they have in theirs.  

I remember years ago, reading a novel in which a small group of Christians travelled to explore a planet a vast distance away, and found that they couldn’t simply tell the inhabitants of this new world about their understanding of what being a Christian meant, instead they had to begin to try and imagine what it might mean for the non-human inhabitants of this quite different society and culture.

Shusako Endo, the Japanese Christian wrote a novel “The life of Christ” because he wanted to tell his fellow Japanese, not of the Jesus in western clothing that the missionaries spoke about, but of a Jesus in Japanese clothing. Will we humans have the responsibility of taking our experience of Jesus and God to other beings on other planets, and will we have both the humility & the sensitivity to do so? Have we learned anything from missionary work on our home planet?

Or might we find that the Cosmic Christ is already known there, but not in a form we immediately recognise, and that it’s us who have to change in response to what we find. If so, what do I need to do to prepare myself for such a possibility??