Walking in circles

I read some research recently showing that when people are blindfolded and asked to walk in a straight line, they will often end up walking in a circle. In the dark, they end up back where they started. I like to think that God is enjoying this little joke, but that the phenomenon hints at a deep, liberating truth that pervades human life on earth.

About two years ago, I set out on a journey of the soul, in the dark. My journey began one winter's evening. I was at a Christingle service, one of those church services that happen just before Christmas, where children squish candles into the top of oranges, and listen to the story of the birth of Jesus, light of the world. The darkness of the church is softened by lots of little glowing candle flames. It should have felt cosy and familiar. But instead I felt a niggle, something like a stone in a shoe. I listened to the preacher talk about God, sin, the cross, and sacrifice. It was a story I'd heard many times in many places, sometimes embellished with long religious words like 'atonement' or even 'penal substitution' (for men who aren't happy with what God's blessed them with... maybe, who knows.) Being the offspring of church-going parents, I'm familiar with people talking about these things, but all of a sudden something just wasn't right anymore. Something in the stories that church people like to tell each other began to feel jarring and uncomfortable. And so I set off into the darkness, looking for answers, looking for God, all the while with the feeling of a stone in my shoe.

If I had read that piece of research back then, perhaps I could have guessed that I would end up walking in a circle. I found that the truth I was looking for was in the very place I had set off from. I saw God when I looked in the mirror. I saw God in my own humanity. The soul that sets out looking for God eventually arrives back where it started. He is within us. I hardly dare to suggest it, but what my soul is whispering is this: God is me. Which is different from saying "I am God". I am not God, but God is me. We are, in some unfathomable, mysterious way, one. It took a journey of walking in a circle to see what had been there all along.

And the stone in my shoe? It turned out to be two stones, actually. But I'll write about those another time.