St Augustine, in a memorable phrase, insists that God is not ‘an absent father.’ “Non enim fecit atque abiit.” – (“He did not just make us and go away.” Confessions, Bk 4, Ch. 12). God works with us and for us, and we see God’s hand not just in the sunshine and obvious blessings, but even in the dark times, in our sorrowful mysteries. God is always present to us. The prodigal’s father stayed on at home even after the boy brought shame and sorrow on the family. His older son and neighbours (and maybe his wife too) would have seen him as foolish and fond for letting the younger boy loose with money. When the prodigal returned, his father was waiting and watching. As a good father, he was there when he was needed.
This quote from the www.sacredspace.ie is a perfect representation of where I am in my Theology.
After returning from my trip to Switzerland and Italy over the Holiday, I find myself in a new space of thinking. There is more to the Theological conversation than the Missional/Emergent language passed from one to another. There is a world beyond our comprehension. A presence of being beyond ourselves.
My experience has been, when surrendering to the unknown and inverting the anxious feeling which come in the morning and evening like waves on the ocean, I find peace. This peace goes beyond words I can explain, but there is a picture I see in this moment. Jesus in the middle of a storm with his friends, creates an space for them to see a reality outside of the human realm of possibility.
I am entering possibility.
This was the most exciting revelation of my trip to Europe: the convergence of pieces from the Missional/Emergent conversation I have been and will continue to be apart of, because it is the context I am in, to the history of the Church and the artistic expression illuminated on the inside of the Sistien Chapel. The context of Christianity has changed and with it, examples of what it means to be “Christian”.
I fell in love with the Christian story that day inside the Chapel. The Bible stories depicted on the wall like a beautiful Children’s book, my perspective changed and I fell deeply in love with this tradition of story telling. Everyone through time putting meaning to words for the community of followers carrying the dream of the Kingdom which has come and will come again.
