God is a beckoning word
Gerard Hughes
Patrick White, the Nobel Prize winning Australian novelist, wrote of a defining moment in his life: “During what seemed like months of rain I was carrying a tray load of food to a wormy litter of pups down at the kennels when I slipped and fell on my back, dog dishes shooting in all directions. I lay where I had fallen, half-blinded by rain under a pale sky, cursing through watery lips a God in whom I did not believe. I began laughing finally at my own helplessness and hopelessness, in the mud and the stench from my filthy oilskin. It was a turning point. My disbelief appeared as farcical as my fall. At that moment I was truly humbled”. He later wrote in a letter: “What I am increasingly intent on doing in my books is to give professed unbelievers glimpses of their own unprofessed faith”
There is something primal about Holy Spirit: it belongs universally to the human condition. Spirit is fundamentally about an encounter or engagement with everyday reality. It comes as gift: it is not a possession. It’s an attitude, not an opinion. It’s about making “harsh and saving sense out of what we experience here and now”. We don’t make Spirit happen. We don’t tire the muscles of our mind in order to believe. “We find ourselves addressed, and in being addressed, we find ourselves”. Spirit is always relational: it is about Spirit coming into visibility: it is truly the Bread of Life.
God is all promise, all invitation, all gift.
God is not a possession, a thing or an object.
More like a butterfly, its colourful wings caught in the sunlight,
luring, alluring, elusive,
never to be caught but certainly wanting to be experienced,
touching our longings,
meeting our pain of not-having,
our future that charges our present with new meaning and energy.
“Circumstances are the voice of God” (C.S.Lewis). We are not being asked to fight, fly away or freeze so much as to attend (with courage) and listen to whatever beckons, however small or tentative, in and through the circumstances we find ourselves in.
We find ourselves addressed, and being addressed, we find ourselves.
Sarah Bachelard
The starting point for much spiritual development is precisely in the development of all those aspects of living which ‘take us outside ourselves’ in the appreciation of beauty, goodness and truth….[All this]…demonstrates at a deep experiential level the capacity of the human being to transcend herself or himself, to be drawn ‘outside’….
Vincent Nicholls
Image: Judith Tutin, The holy grail
God….
“will never be plain and
out there, but dark rather and
inexplicable, as though he were in here”.
R.S.Thomas
“I am beginning to experience God at the level of my identity”.
Miriam Rose Ungenmarr Burmann
Indigenous Elder
Image: Judith Tutin, Incarnation
Thae artist featured in this post is Judith Tutin, an Irish artist, who says of her work,
My work explores sources of light, both real and spiritual, elemental textures and evocative silhouettes. I work in oil paint and cyanotype photography to create a visual experience that evokes a contemplative mood and awareness of the transcendent. My explorations sit between abstract and semi-abstract, sometimes referencing traditional religious poses and stained glass but with the colour and methods of 20th century abstraction.
Source: Spiritual Art: Judith Tutin
Aurora lucis rutilat
cælum resultat laudibus
mundus exsultans iubilat,
gemens infernus ululat
Cum ille rex fortissimus
mortis confractis viribus
pede conculcans tartara
solvit catena miseros.
Ille, quem clausum lapide
miles custodit acriter
triumphans pompa nobili
victor surgit de funere.
Inferni iam gemitibus
solutis et doloribus,
quia surrexit Dominus
resplendens clamat angelus.
Esto perenne mentibus paschale
Iesu, gaudium
et nos renatos gratiae
tuis triumphis aggrega.
Iesu, sit tibi gloria,
qui morte victa prænites,
cum Patre et almo Spiritu,
in sempiterna sæcula.
Amen.
The morn had spread her crimson rays,
when rang the skies with shouts of praise;
earth joined the joyful hymn to swell,
that brought despair to vanquished hell.
He comes victorious from the grave
the Lord omnipotent to save,
and bright with him to light of day
the Saints who long imprisoned lay.
Vain is the cavern’s threefold ward
the stone, the seal, the armed guard;
o death, no more thine arm we fear
the Victor’s tomb is now thy bier.
Enough of death, enough of tears,
enough of sorrow and of fears,
o hear yon white-robed angel cry,
death’s Conqueror lives, no more to die.
Grant, Lord, in thee each faithful mind
unceasing Paschal joy may find;
and from the death of sin set free
souls newly born to life by thee.
To thee, once dead, who now dost live,
all glory, Lord, thy people give
whom, with the Father we adore,
and Holy Ghost for evermore.
Amen.
For a printable PDF of the text of this meditation please click on the link below.
