Wayfaring A Gospel Journey into Life

chapter 1 Seeds of God This morning I went into my daughter's bedroom. She is nineteen now and away at university. Her room at home is full of expressions of who she is. There are posters on the wall, books on the shelves, clothes in the cupboard, CDs in the rack and ornaments that she has chosen, or been given. Everything has something to say about her life, her friends, her unique presence in the world. Beyond the few square yards of her room, the network of her life reaches, one might say, to the ends of the earth. To her family and friends in various parts of Europe, North America, Asia and Australia, and to her circle of companions whose own lives are just coming to blossom, like an exuberant springtime, to grow into their own kinds of fruitfulness. Yet, twenty years ago, she was a single cell! She could have been examined under a microscope. She could have been placed on a pinhead, along with all her classmates. Such a short time ago she was a microscopic particle of creation, and now she is a fully developed human being on the threshold of her adult life, with the potential to do almost anything she chooses. Everything in this room expresses relationships she has formed, and interests she has pursued. Her presence in the world has reached out in countless different ways to affect the lives of others, as their lives have affected her. Above all, she has injected a charge of her own unique power of love into the world. She has energised creation with her own enthusiasm for living. She has become an essential node in the web of life, so complex that none but God knows its detail and potential. She has inspired love. And love has inspired her. As I stood in her room this morning I was overwhelmed by the miracle of life, that begins from almost nothing and has the potential to grow into almost everything. Each human life reflects the same pattern as the universe itself - beginning from a single point, infinitesimally small, and expanding outwards, constantly revealing more and more of its immeasurable potential. In my purse I carry a photograph of my daughter. It reminds me of how she looked at the moment the photo was taken, and I value it. But it can never capture more than the tiniest fragment of who she really is. That has to be experienced, in real life and in genuine interaction, and even then we can only begin to touch the full reality of each other. Perhaps what any of us knows of each other - even of our friends and closest acquaintances - is more like the photo than the reality. We experience each other in three dimensions. The reality, surely, reaches out into infinite dimensions, and is rooted deep into that first single point from which our being sprang. We hear each other's words, sighs and songs, but only on a narrow waveband that our ears can receive. The full reality of life's song is surely being broadcast on infinite wavelengths. What we think we see and hear is not only partial, but can even be very misleading. We make judgements about each other on very scant evidence, and we even pass judgement on ourselves, reducing ourselves to an image glimpsed in the distorting mirror of our own perceptions. Before we set out on the journey mapped out by this book, we pause for a while to let God deepen that shallow picture we have of ourselves and of each other, and to open up just a little of the infinite treasure in the heart of our true selves, that only God is fully aware of. Nathanael and the pink elephants One of the Lord's first friends can give us a few clues about this process. Let's stop by with Nathanael, one lazy morning in the sun. Things are stirring around Galilee. A new teacher has been attracting interest and a small band of followers has been gathering. Nathanael is sitting under a fig tree (John 1:43-50). Maybe he was doing what a good young Jew should have been doing - meditating on the Scriptures. Or maybe he was up toSilf, Margaret is the author of 'Wayfaring A Gospel Journey into Life' with ISBN 9780385504614 and ISBN 0385504616.