Photo Credit: AnnStreetStudio - Chateau de Gudanes
" Can you recall a time when a significant someone in your life sat you down with the sole purpose of wanting to know your heart more deeply, fully expecting to enjoy what he found there? More people have climbed Mount Everest than have experienced real pursuit. "
The Sacred Romance
I cycled in to Godalming on Monday. My aim was to drop off a bag of clothes to be resold and bring in some money for Oxfam and also to revisit my favourite charity bookshop and find something fresh to read. This particular bookshop has bookshelves packed from floor to ceiling with good stuff and I love spending half an hour browsing through them, looking for a couple of new books to read. It is a treasure trove of paper and print.
This time I came away with an old copy of ' The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ' which I chose specifically because of the excellent cover. An evocative painting of Huck and Jim floating down the river in the hot shades of colour that can only come from a humid summer day in Mississippi. My second choice was ' The Sacred Romance ' Brent Curtis & John Eldredge.
I cycled back along the river path knowing I had time to enjoy the slow moving water, the splash of a canoe paddle on water, the call of a duck. A few weeks ago I came across a huge carthorse led by his owner, slowly pulling a barge of passengers silently down the river. No sound of mechanical engine to interrupt the calm & peace, just the slooshing sound of of water being pushed aside. A thing of beauty to stumble across, an old forgotten way of living when horse power was literal and is now an experience people are recapturing.
Going at this reduced pace gives me time to really absorb it all. Bumping over tree roots that are embedded in the footpath. Enjoying the light dancing across the waters surface and shadows forming under hanging leaves. The muddy track where the cows come down to drink along the river bank. Swaying banks of reeds along the flood meadows.
I continued on my journey home and turned in to Loseley cycling along the drive and under the avenue of chestnut trees now changing colour and dropping spikey green horse chestnuts. My bike was rolled into the store room and the kettle switched on for a cup of tea. Then sitting in my comfy seat by the window in the late afternoon sunshine I opened ' The Sacred Romance ' and within minutes was agreeing out loud with the book. YES!!! Someone else gets it. I am not the only one.
Photo Credit: AnnStreetStudio - Chateau de Gudanes
" Can you recall a time when a significant someone in your life sat you down with the sole purpose of wanting to know your heart more deeply, fully expecting to enjoy what he found there? More people have climbed Mount Everest than have experienced real pursuit. "
The Sacred Romance
It is true. Not many of us have experienced real pursuit. Pursuit usually ends after a season. How many give up the pursuit when the object is theirs? After a few years of marriage, the busy life of family takes its toll and the intentional pursuit is well and truly over.
' Married people can be the loneliest on earth, not for some failure of the marriage, but because they have tasted the best there is of human relationships and know it is not all it was meant to be.' The Sacred Romance
What would it feel like to have someone intentionally seeking to get to know you for more than a few years?
Someone who wouldn't give up even after decades of pursuit.
I once heard God's advances referred to as being 'chased down by the hounds of heaven.' A slightly terrifying but powerful image. If we think God is floating around weakly trying to make things a little better, we are very wrong. He is no senile philanthropist.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Not because He is after us to punish us. He has already done all the punishing He is going to do and that element of His character is fulfilled in the crucifixion.
Currently He is the initiator of a love story. The pursuer who will never give up. The patient kind eyes that are watching you in the crowded room, longing to draw you aside and just spend some time with you.
Most of us are too busy or too scared to engage with this advance. We are currently occupied by trying to work out how to be a better person and make more of our lives. Or we might be keeping a lid on our anger, wondering where to channel all of our rage at being let down, cynical, messed up by life and disappointed.
WHY is our biggest question? WHERE ARE YOU GOD is our second?
It takes a childlike trust and humility to let that first question go unanswered and move on to discovering the answer to the second.
I find it quite easy to answer that second question. It's obvious to me that He is having fun and He is right in the middle of every day of my life.
As I said before, I am on a journey to kick out the mundane and rediscover the magic. I caught this moment in the rain at Loseley this summer. For me it was an obvious display of His artistic genius.
On a beach in France 2 summers ago this rose rolled in on the tide and landed at my feet. Where on earth it came from I don't know? There was no-one selling roses on the seafront. No bunch of roses lying around that it could have fallen from. From where I sat all I could see was the ocean and a long beach of pebbles to my right. There were hundreds of us on the seafront that day. Anyone could have received this rose. But it came to me.
It arrived from no-where, a red rose floating on the waves and with a few pushes from the waves it was deposited at my feet ! You couldn't have achieved that accuracy even if you had planned it and stood on a boat a few feet away and thrown it at me.
Only God knew why I needed it and what it meant to me. No-one else understood the secret message, but I did. Coincidence, I don't think so.
This summer I came upstairs to find a swallow in my bedroom. Was it a coincidence that I had just been reading how safe a swallow feels nesting close to the throne of God. Maybe but I do seem to have a huge number of coincidences happening in my life! Personally I don't believe any of this is a random accident.
But what about the bad stuff I hear you cry. This is all sickly sweet but what about the mess our planet is in? What about the state of our oceans and the plastic crisis? What about the stress of everyday life, sitting in traffic, fighting for a parking space? What about my failed attempts to find happiness, my loneliness, my multiple miscarriages, the barren womb? How do I apply all of this to my messy life? What about cancer? Where is God when we need Him most?
2 Sundays ago my pastor Kris gave a cheerful upbeat sermon on the subject of the 10 lepers that Jesus healed. Not by touching them or passing on some positive energy, not by muttering a magic mantra or a giving out some doses of Holy water. No, he just told them to go and get themselves checked by the priest. Nothing changed for them except a few words with Jesus. No drama. No immediate miracle. They looked the same, nothing had changed when they left Jesus. They were still lepers.
But it was on the road leaving him, maybe that day, maybe a few days or weeks later that they were healed. Who knows if it hit them all at the same time or if one after another the symptoms started to fade. But the healing came.
Kris made the point that the lepers were probably initially offended at the lack of any obvious miracle. Walking away with nothing obviously changed was not what they had expected. He also said that God generally doesn't do what we expect and there are no obvious rules that he follows. He ended with an illustration from the movie 'LaLa Land.' The ending is not the one we expected. His point being that life more often than not does not go the way we expect.
I left slightly annoyed at this conclusion that God was not going to fix my problems in the way I wanted and off I went into another week unaware of the drama that was unfolding.
Photo credit Hillsong Guildford
On Tuesday Kris received a phone call from a private number. He was irritated but took the call. Expecting it to be a pushy sales man he was angry when he was asked his date of birth and told the caller to stop harassing him and if he was so clever, why didn't he tell him what his date of birth was ! The confrontational call was going no-where until the caller asked Kris if he had gone for a blood test earlier in the day. Kris stopped to listen. "So tell me what the diagnosis is." He was told he needed to come in and see someone. Kris insisted they tell him the results over the phone. They recommended he come in and see someone. Kris persisted, if it was bad he wanted to know right now. Reluctantly the caller informed him that it looked like cancer.
And so on Tuesday at midnight Kris was in Kingston Hospital in the Emergency ward, processing the news that he had Leukemia and would need to visit the hospital every 3 months for the rest of his life to keep the Leukaemia in check. How ironic that 2 days before he had preached his message on healing.
So where is the romance now? Does God have a sick sense of humour?
Well one thing is for sure, He didn't give Leukaemia to Kris to make him a better person. No father violates the body of a child to teach them about suffering.
Kris came back on Sunday to preach a second sermon now that he has been living with these changed circumstances for the past 2 weeks. He said he felt like he was living in someone else's clothes. He felt like the 'Kris that has Leukemia' that everyone was talking about was someone else and not him. He felt he had now become a labelled man. He shared about being angry, angry that there is so much left to still do and achieve and where will he get the energy from to do it all ? Will he be given the time to achieve it ? He said he googled Leukemia which was a very bad idea and has now planned his funeral and is thinking about finishing well.
But he also called this a gift. It has given him more love than he has ever felt before. The messages, texts, time spent by friends and family encouraging him. The warmth and support of the whole church community. It has been a very quick lesson about what he really values in life.
Photo credit Hillsong Guildford
These are the words of a man in shock. They are honest and positive but haven't been tested by the passing of months and years and the toll of sickness. But is there really any other option?
So there it is. The messy journey. There might not be the happy ending we are hoping for. I expect I will keep coming back to this theme of romance as Kris's journey progresses and I process this further.
But to conclude, in answer to the taunting question, where is the romance now? Well possibly the very fact that you have just read this post is part of the bigger picture. Maybe God is trying to say something to you? Maybe this all about you and your journey and He is longing to spend more time with you.
Romance is still right there in the heart of the issue. It has moved out of the small story into the bigger one that is unfolding.
'If for all practical purposes we believe that this life is our best shot at happiness, if this is as good as it gets, we will live as desperate, demanding and eventually despairing men and women.' The Sacred Romance
If you ever research the actual reason we celebrate Valentines day you will be surprised to find that it is all about Jesus healing a blind girl and the priest who prayed for her healing being martyred for his faith. He signed his farewell letter to the little girl ... Your Valentine.
Read the link above for a full explanation.
My hope for a happy ending and my faith in a good God remains undiminished. I will still cling to the author of the sacred romance and His wise words for us ....
" In the world you have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration; but be of good cheer (take courage, be confident, certain, undaunted!) For I have deprived it of power to harm you and have conquered it for you. " JESUS
John 16:33
( And for those who are wondering if there will be any more mention of the folk from the vineyard from the previous blog post, we are having a Harvest Party in a couple of Sundays with Fizz and Fireworks. So that particular story is possibly to be continued... ! )