Something like this:
(God gets the chair, because he's... God.)
Some pamphlets, depending on the skill of the artist, will also show you a cross joining one cliff to the other, making a bridge for abyss-man to cross over. Look, there he goes!
This one just sticks to the basics...
I grew up seeing these kinds of images. You don't have to look too hard in a church to find them. From being small, I understood that I was that little clip-art guy, standing on the edge of a cliff, separated from my God. Yes, the explanation goes that the cross of Jesus becomes the way to find God, but at the heart of the picture is a terrible separation. Like a child who has lost its mother, a part of my heart has stayed frozen in terror. The soothing explanations that the cross has made a way, have not entirely brought me comfort. The separation anxiety has not been banished. Like childhood monsters rustling in your wardrobe at night, a fear lurks. It is the fear of being alone.
I know many Christians who remember the time they prayed a prayer, asking Jesus to come and
live in their hearts. A kind of invite for Jesus to take up tenancy in a heart-for-rent. I think I prayed a prayer like this before I even reached double figures. I also know many Christians who feel enough anxiety to have prayed this several times, 'just to make sure'. You never do know with tenants - they might not like the conditions and move out, unbeknown to you.
And so, sometime between Autumn and Spring, I became an unbeliever.
I do not believe these pamphlets any more.
Because the truth, oh the truth, the truth is beautiful. You can't stick truth in a clip-art picture, although truth may choose to be found there, if she desires. Truth makes herself known to you
in ways that only you can understand and know, like the secret-code notes we passed to each other when we were small. Truth speaks to the one-year old you, the seven-year old you, the thirty-four year old you, the sixty-two year old you. Truth has been speaking, and sometimes singing, your whole life long. Sometimes loudly, mostly quietly.
I asked God to show me where he had been my whole life. He showed me my Grandad's sausagey fingers, holding my hands and drawing invisible drawings onto my palms as he talked about geometry, and other things I didn't understand. In this man, who gave me his hands and his time, I saw God. He showed me a walk I took to a motorway bridge with the love of my life, at 19 years old. We were so in love, even a walk to a concrete bridge was full of romance. In this teenager, walking with me over scrubby fields, I saw God. He was there too. I heard the whisper of truth, that he was there all along, in these people. God made human.
And then, unexpectedly, I saw more.
In the deepest part of a human being is God. In the deepest parts of who we are, is everything that is loving, giving, good, true, marvellous, joyful, hilarious, forceful, creative, adventurous, tender,
wondering, gentle, strong, energetic, curious, alive. It is here that you swap secret-code notes with the universe, when starry nights tell you you are alive in a deeper way than you knew. We see glimpses
of this deep-self, but this part of us needs to be stirred to life, woken up, called out from under all the
dust and the dirt and the wounds and the grief. Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Spring has come!
There never was a separation between my God and I. From before the dawn of time, the Spirit of Life has been in the breath of humanity, in the breath and bones and blood of me. Not even death can separate us. How could it? We are one. There was no cliff. It was just a bad dream. In the warm light of day I see things as they really are, and fear slips away.
But I saw something else. It turned out there was a sort of abyss. But not between me and God. No. The abyss was within me.
More on that next time!
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