I shared this on the Zoom meeting we had yesterday but, although I love organising and facilitating meetings, I am not comfortable speaking. Which is why I blog! So I thought I would put down in writing what I was trying to say.
It is Pentecost weekend and as I was walking my dogs yesterday morning I started thinking about how amazing it would be it we had another move of the Spirit. I wondered if lockdown was preparation like the disciples waiting after the Ascension for the Holy Spirit to come. I even heard Smith Wigglesworth's great granddaughter, who has moved from South Africa to run a church in Bradford, speaking and saying she feels called here because there is going to be a great and mighty move of the Spirit in the UK. I have been praying for revival and for springs of living water to flow through the valley where I live for 10 years now because what Christianity there is here is very dry and has no life in it. So if there is revival bring it on!!
But.........then I heard the words "there is an awakening in the waiting", that this is a season of stillness, where in the awakening our senses will become heightened to everything around us, to the beauty and sound and smell of creation. As our senses are heightened we will be able to smell His fragrance and gain a much deeper connection with His love. As we journey deeper into the Father's heart we will be able to experience the completeness of the Triune God, Father, Son & Holy Spirit where we will become part of the dance with them.
The Celtic Saints would create a circle, either physically or imaginary, around themselves, called a Caim or the Encircling, as protection before a journey. It wasn't a lucky charm but it was an acknowledgement that the Triune God was with them, surrounding them, before them, behind them, above and below and inside them. At the beginning of the prayer of St Patrick it says: "I arise through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, through belief in the Threeness, through confession of the Oneness, of the Creator of Creation." I believe that as we experience more of the love of the Father we will come into an encounter of the whole Godhead, joining in the Circle with them, where we belong as Sons and daughters.
I have just read a book by David Adam, whose work I love, and who unfortunately died in January this year. In Love the World, which was possibly was his last book, written in 2018, he talks of our connection to the whole of the Universe and beyond and explores everything from the Big Bang to Mankind. This is the poem he wrote on the chapter on Space.
Once everyone was able to look upon great spaces,
yet many have adapted to limited space:
small houses and small rooms,
narrow streets and tiny gardens-
vision is restricted.
We all need space
in which to move,
to breath, to think,
to work' to play.
We all need to be able to stand in our own space.
yet now people are afraid of space.
They fill it with sound,
with words
with possessions.
Our lives are overcrowded,
over stimulated, over filled.
Space is seen as emptiness,
as blank,
as nothing.
Yet it gives everything it's shape.
We need to learn to live in our space,
to renew our being,
to find peace of mind,
to extend our vision,
to hear and be touched by beauty.
God loves space:
He made so much of it!
A friend and neighbour's dying words to me were this "Sue, listen carefully, this is REALLY important and you must remember it. Everything is connected! Every single thing in the Universe" I think she had had a glimpse of what was to come and the enormity of it. I hope during this time of lockdown, although we can't physically go anywhere, that our horizons will be widened to the moon and back and beyond. That we might just get a glimpse of the bigger picture to come. Sons and daughters living in our Father's world which is far bigger than we can ever imagine.
And, naturally, the last chapter in David Adams book is titled LOVE, which binds all things together and he finishes with a quote from Julian of Norwich from the 14th century, who lived in a time of war, plague and famine:
"Would you know our Lord's meaning in this? Learn it well. Love was His meaning. Who showed it you? Love. What did He show you? Love. Why did He show you? For Love. Hold fast to this, and you shall learn and know more about Love, but you will never need to know or understand about anything else for ever and ever. Thus did I learn that Love was our Lord's meaning"
