We believe in a Spirit that emerged into visibility.
Michael Morwood
Rowan Williams talks of Jesus, Incarnate Word of God, as “earthly visibility, open availability”. Jesus is the place of meeting, always pointing beyond himself to the Other. Reflect upon how, in the gospels, Jesus is the place of meeting and encounter with Other for those who have eyes to see, ears to hear, and the openness of faith.
Think of Jesus as the Word or expression and story of God-in-our-midst. Reflect on how this story can ground us, connect us, embrace us, clarify us and change us, so that we may live with renewed life and hope for our world.
Image: Rosemarie Adcock, Triumphal Entry
Word and story as place of meeting
We need a story that will educate us, a story that will lead, guide and discipline us.
Thomas Berry
Take care for the spiritual quality, the holy quality, the
serious quality, of the language.
Barry Lopez
“Language is…the medium of our encounter with the real”. We no longer have Jesus in the flesh: but we do have the text of the Gospels. As sacrament of the Word of God a Gospel story becomes the “place of meeting”.
Approach a story from the Gospels which has “touched” you in the past.
Open yourself to it.
Reverence it.
Acknowledge it as a sacred text.
This is not a text to prove something,
or even a text offering timeless truths.
It is – if you allow it – a place of encounter, engagement,
revelation and transformation.
As we open ourselves up towards the Scriptures we open ourselves up to a dialogue, not only within ourselves, but with God. In this dialogue we discover (as Martin Buber saw) that all revelation is both summons and sending. It is the symbolic or sacramental word of Scripture which offers us a special place – given that we approach it with respect and openness – where the Creator can deal directly with the creature.
Image: Rosemarie Adcock, The Road to Emmaus
The images in this post are of large scale paintings by Rosemarie Adcock whose work takes stories from the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, transforming them through her imagination. The image at the top of the post is titled Crossing the Red Sea. She says of her work,
‘It is my desire to draw my viewers into the beauty of a colorful composition as though they were entering a new world. It is also my passion to share an ancient faith in a fresh and vibrant way, displaying a part ancient, part future story, wherein we dwell somewhere between, with our lives connected to the entire narrative.‘
For more of her images visit Rosemarie Adcock.
For a printable PDF of the text of this meditation please click on the link below.
