Reconnecting with the Journey
Over the last few weeks we have been invited to reconnect with our faith and God in a number of ways. We have been encouraged to find again our connection to the earth itself and all of creation, we have been invited to take the three-fold path of compassion and we have been encouraged to connect again with the Light of God both in ourselves and those around us. We have been encouraged to not stand on the bank of life but to get into the water and experience the Light and flow of God.
This leads to a renewed realization of the sacredness of life and of our life in particular. It also leads to the search for the wisdom of God that can challenge us but also guide us at the crossroads we all face; and so we are on a path to reconnecting with the journey through which we will come to discover or rediscover how our connectedness can help us find our way to the inner truth of who we are and better reveal that inner truth to the world around us.
A large part of our journey to reconnection involves us as Christians sharing the gifts that we have received from our faith but not as absolute truth to be grasped above all else or as doctrine that must be accepted or rejected; rather we are to offer from our tradition a vision for the world.
In spite of the history that we have been part of personally or corporately, we can have something significant to say to our society and world concerning the sacredness of the creation and the environment; we have been given a vision of nonviolence from Jesus that can redirect nations and peoples from conflict to peace; we have been taught practices of compassion for the poor, the hungry and sick that can influence the wellbeing of any society. But we need to see these elements of our faith as ways for us to be involved in bringing about positive changes in the world and less about creating Christians or building our community.
Perhaps that flies in the face of everything we have ever heard about the mission of the church; but the reality is that those who have found faith in God and wish to live their lives according to that ethic will seek a community of faith for fellowship and support and spiritual growth. But the building of our community of faith or any community of faith will have no impact in our lives or the lives of others if it remains focused only on its own growth and sustenance. As much as people gathered in synagogues or churches or other places for worship, the ultimate focus of their lives was in their daily walk in the community beyond the walls or doors.
Another thing to consider is how we present our faith to others. If we take the stance that there is no truth in the world beyond our truth and no say to experience God beyond our experience then we will see all others as enemies of our faith and come to believe that there is no truth in the world apart from us. Rather than seeking to understand how God may be active and speaking to the peoples of the world, we will be left with a narrow vision.
Years ago I met a missionary who had gone to Nepal. There he met a Buddhist with whom he entered into conversation about truth. As tempting as it was to declare that there is no truth outside of God in Jesus Christ, the man decided that he would share his faith by speaking of what he saw truth to be for himself; he then listened to the other man’s ideas about faith and truth. Neither sought to change the other’s mind through argument but sought to dialogue and so better understand how God was present in the world.
Something that is often missed in our Western interpretation of the Bible and our faith is that our faith history was formed not in the West with its emphasis on order and historical exactness but in the east where a more mystical emphasis is found. Many of our questions about the Scriptures we know as the Bible would never have occurred to the people who recorded the events. Our emphasis on the separation of body and spirit is in direct contrast to the eastern emphasis on the unity of body and spirit. Another thing we learn is that while we tend to concentrate on the transcendence of God – being careful not to see ourselves as God – the eastern tradition from which our faith was born never forgets the immanence of God – that the sacredness of life, the essence of God, is within us.
If we would remember the root of our faith we would better understand that while each of us takes our journey of faith as individuals we are also on this journey with others. By times our struggles may cause us to keep our heads down and our eyes focused on a point to which we are heading but if we take the time to look up we would notice others who are also struggling and may find an opportunity to connect with one another and so reconnect with each other on the Journey.
St. Columba’s Bay on the isle of Iona is also known as the Bay of New Beginnings. It is the place where Columba landed with those first monks to begin a new community of faith. Pilgrims who come to the bay each pick up two stones. The first stone represents something that they need to let go of, something they need to leave behind if they are to move forward in their journey to new beginnings. It may be something in their individual lives that they are hanging onto unnecessarily or a regret or failure that is dominating their life and preventing them from moving forward. It may be something in their collective life, some habit that is obstructing their path to a new beginning. As the stone is cast into the sea, they say, “no more will this prevent our journey into well-being.
The second stone represents something for which they are yearning, a new birth for which they are longing in their individual life or in their shared life in community of faith or other group. They name within themselves that thing for which they are yearning. Then they hold the stone close to them. They carry it with them from Iona back to their families, communities, faith communities or nations and allow it to be a song of the new birth for which they are longing.
Our journey of faith as the people of God began with that call to Abram in Genesis. Our journey may not take us to a new land but our willingness to reconnect ourselves to the journey of faith with God will inevitably lead us to become a blessing to ourselves, others and the world. But let us take on this journey our belief in the sacredness of life, our willingness to adopt and practice the threefold path of compassion and our desire to seek for and find that light of God that shines within us; and so we can take this journey confident that we will reconnect with God and so bless the world around us with our presence.
Amen