A CONTEMPORARY SPIRITUALITY

Insight came strangely out of what at first seemed unconnected things.

In my recent blog ‘158 Rhosilli Bay’ I found myself mulling on how I can stay rooted in what has already been revealed to me by God in my world, while being open to the Great Mystery of the God of a multitude of other worlds.

Over the years I have collected spiritual resources and incorporated them into my prayer. Recently I came across a poem that I had completely forgotten: ‘Road’ by Don Paterson (after Antonio Machado) that spoke loud and clear to my dilemma.

Traveller, your footprints are

the only path, the only track:

wayfarer, there is no way,

there is no map or Northern star,

just a blank page and a starless dark;

and should you turn round to admire

the distance that you’ve made today

the road will billow into dust.

No way on and no way back,

there is no way, my comrade:

trust your own quick step, the end’s delay,

the vanished trail of your own wake,

wayfarer, sea-walker, Christ.

This spoke to my Rhosilli experiences, on the decking at night and my subsequent dream. In the face of the Great Mystery I cannot go back but neither can I discern my way forward. But the poem ends by encouraging me to ‘trust your own quick step,’ and hints that in doing so I may find myself ‘walking on sea water’ as Christ once did.

I am reminded of the robin in ‘159 An immense World’ who alone of the creatures in the gym is sensitive to the Earth’s magnetic field and guided by its internal compass flies due south and escapes the gym through a a window. Intuitively I knew that we each have such a compass within us, and while not a magnetic one, it functions very similarly. ‘Let your soul be your pilot,’ sang Sting, for it acts as an infallible guide on our spiritual journey. We simply have to learn to attend to it and trust it.

In his ‘History of the English church and people’ Bede [673-735] tells how King Edwin consulted his advisers about whether he should embrace the Christian faith, and one of them told him of the wisdom of a bird, not a robin but a sparrow:

  “Your Majesty, when we compare the present life of man on earth with that time of which  we have no knowledge, it seems to me like the swift flight of a single sparrow through the  banqueting-hall where you are sitting at dinner on a winter’s day with your thanes and  counsellors. In the midst there is a comforting fire to warm the hall; outside, the storms of winter rain or snow are raging. This sparrow flies swiftly in through one door of the hall, and out through another. While he is inside, he is safe from the winter storms; but after a few moments of comfort, he vanishes from sight into the wintry world from which he came. Even so, man appears on earth for a little while; but of what went before this life or of what follows, we know nothing. Therefore, if this new teaching has brought any more certain knowledge, it seems only right that we should follow it.”

My soul, your soul, is the divine spark within each of us. Like a migrating bird, with an inbuilt sense of direction, it comes with us from God at our birth and returns with us to God at our death. While we are alive it is available as our guide.

It cannot be a coincidence that the Spirit of God is frequently depicted as a dove, yet another bird, and some Christians would use the word ‘Spirit’ where I am using ‘Soul’. I wonder what the difference between ‘Soul’ and ‘Spirit’ is, if any? For me ‘Soul’ is present in me and all of creation, from the beginning; whereas ‘Spirit’ is often seen as something that we lack but which we can receive. If that is correct then our choice of word has considerable implications.