Homebound

Today's blog post continues my exploration of Christ inviting us to become fully alive, this time through the idea of coming home.

In these times of working from home, I have been involuntarily remembering the various places in my life that I have called 'home.'

The Isle of Iona

One such place is the Isle of Iona, Scotland, where I felt at home on my first visit.

I remember approaching Iona on the ferry. It was a sunny day, and I scanned the hills and housetops until I located the abbey, difficult to see at first because it resembled a large stone, blending in with the landscape. The place felt familiar, even though I had never seen it or been there before.

My class with whom I was travelling was early, so when we arrived, we waited outside. I don't remember who started it, but eventually most of us sat or lay on the lawn in front of the abbey refectory soaking in the sun.

Our professor was the only one standing. 'You look like you're at home!' she told us all -- at first admonishingly, and then I think realising the significance of what she had said.

Reminiscing comes with some sadness, realising that those chapters have ended, but also with the hope that I can still learn something from them. I remember with fondness the woods and creeks of Indiana, through which I wandered for three years while learning about God and people -- but if I were to go back and visit, I could not recapture the experience of being a student there. Still, I hope my wife and I can visit one day to honour that time of my life.

Another example: every year, when we visit my family in my hometown, I increasingly realise that the city of San Diego is no longer my home in the way it once was; I no longer call the place where we stay 'home,' but rather 'my parents' house.' Still, I remain connected with my family there, whom I will always love.

Perhaps my nostalgia points to a desire to settle, connect and find security. My wife and I hope to more deeply call our current location 'home,' but I especially mean settling spiritually: putting down roots in Christ.

I think this is what St John the Evangelist means when he says of Christ, 'In him was life, and that life was the light of people' (John 1:4).

John writes this in the midst of describing how God created the world through Christ. Thus, John is suggesting that everything, even our innermost being, ultimately belongs to Christ.

In him we find our true home and our life, like the leaves of a beech tree in early spring coming alive, flooded with nutrient-producing sunlight.

Unlike our current existence, the life Christ gives us does not fade or end, but rather fulfils us with the life that we were created for, illuminating and transforming everything we do.

Perhaps all of the experiences I have had of 'home' -- of belonging, of connecting, of being secure -- came, in the end, from Christ, although I did not recognise him at the time.

Thus, our true home is not buried in the past, nor is it confined to our present circumstances. Our home is Christ. He and his people, both living and those who have 'fallen asleep' (1 Thess. 4:14-15), are our family; our native country is the kingdom of God, which has come and is still coming in all its fullness.

Why is the cross so crucial?

Lucasfilm

In the Star Wars saga, recently concluded with Episode IX: Rise of Skywalker, one of the key characters, and perhaps the one most easily recognisable, is Luke's lightsaber -- the blue laser sword illuminating the film posters.

It may sound strange to consider an inanimate weapon as a character, but many legends and histories elevate weapons to almost the same status as living beings, sometimes going so far as to give them names. 

Consider the legendary sword of King Arthur, named Excalibur, granted by the Lady of the Lake and embued with power. Some believe Excalibur is the inspiration for Aragorn's sword Anduril in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Once shattered in battle, it is reforged by elves, renamed 'the Flame of the West' and used by Aragorn to establish his return as king.

Although Luke's lightsaber doesn't have a name, it does seem to have a life of its own. (Warning: slight spoilers ahead.) The tale of the lightsaber runs as an undercurrent throughout the saga: the lightsaber is wielded, inherited, lost, found, shattered, restored and finally used to defeat evil. It is given honour in the last scene of the film, when Rey buries it in Luke's home moisture farm on Tattooine.

The reason I mention all this (and now returning to our own galaxy) is because I have been thinking about the reverencing of a certain weapon recently -- though in a slightly different way. During the recent Holy Week and ongoing celebration of Christ's Resurrection, the Church has been honouring the weapon Christ wielded: the cross.

The cross is not often considered as a weapon, and certainly not one that Christ used. It was a Roman form of execution, and it seems on the surface that rather than conquering anything, Jesus himself was conquered by the cross, hanging and dying on it between two crucified robbers.

In the words of one ancient prayer of the Church on Good Friday, 'Today is suspended on a tree He who suspended the earth upon the waters.'

But Christ allowed himself to be crucified because knew that, through the cross, he would defeat the great enemy, Death.

Christ is risen from the dead,

Trampling down death by death,

And upon those in the tombs bestowing life!

Because Christ was God in human form, through dying on the cross he took away the sin of the world (John 1:29), crucifying sin so that it would no longer hold us as captives to death (Rom. 8:1-4).

After dying on the cross, Christ descended into the realm of the dead, where he proclaimed freedom to those who had died before him (1 Pet. 3:19-20). The icon to the right depicts Christ trampling upon Death, breaking its gates and then raising Adam and Eve, the first man and woman.

On the third day, Christ rose again, paving the path from death to life for all who follow him.

Whereas the evil spiritual powers thought that the cross would extinguish the Light of the World, it actually brought the Light into the very place where its brilliance would defeat them (John 1:4-5)!

In the words of St John Chrysostom, addressing Death:

Chris is Risen, and you are overthrown!
Christ is Risen, and the demons are fallen!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life reigns!
Christ is Risen, and not one dead remains in a tomb!

Christ took an instrument designed for evil and wielded it to obtain healing and deliverance for humanity and the world.

Various saints have named the cross the Tree of Life because on it hung for our salvation the life-giving body of Christ (John 6:51).

So, why is the cross so crucial? Why do Christians honour it? I believe the short answer is, 'Life.' Although we often associate the cross with gravestones of people who have died, death is only one end of the tunnel. The cross is the sign that life is on the other end.

In the words of one Church prayer, 'For behold, through the Cross, joy has come into the whole world.'

Rather than being a symbol of defeat, the cross is a symbol of victory.

I am not trying to downplay Christ's suffering and death. He did suffer and die, as will we all. But the good news of the cross is that through dying, Christ overcame death, and he offers to us the same victory.

Christ says, 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it' (Matt. 16:24-25).

We take up our crosses by offering ourselves as living sacrifices to God (Rom. 12:1; this is to put it simply, since I haven't the space to unpack this here!). As we do this, we become more like Christ, trusting that in spite of the challenges we face in this life, and although our bodies are decaying, his Resurrection life is growing in us, the evidence that even on the other side of death, Life awaits us.

Celtic crosses at Iona Abbey

Preparing the soil

Today's blog post is a continuation of the previous two posts, which are about gardening our hearts so that Christ may grow in us.

At the beginning of this year, the first thing we did for our vegetable garden was prepare the ground. We dug up the lawn, then dug trenches in the soil, which we filled with horse manure and tufts of grass to increase the soil's nutritional content.

Although some of the soil was soft, other areas were rocky, so what took the most time was digging up the large stones. Then I raked over the surface to even it out and remove any other rocks or clumps of grass that would block seeds from growing.

Weeds and rocks

Although I was satisfied when this was complete, preparing the soil is never really finished. I continue raking the soil after the neighbouring cat digs holes in it overnight. I continue removing rocks (most of them are smaller now), and even when the surface looks relatively smooth, one pull of the rake reveals more stones hidden underneath. And of course I anticipate the great Battle of the Weeds that has already begun.

My own inner life has had a season of digging up and preparation. When I was in middle school, I developed a harmful habit. Guilt ate away at me for what I was doing, but I could not control it. One afternoon, I realised the state I was in, knelt on the ground and asked God to heal me.

In the days and months that followed, God dug up my inner soil and did something new in me, feeding me with nutrients and removing large stones so that I might become more fully alive. God replaced the harmful habit with a desire to grow in a deeper relationship with him.

Another word for this is repentance, turning away from oneself and turning towards God.

The Bible is filled with stories of people repenting, but one from the Gospel of Luke comes to mind. After teaching the crowds, Jesus tells Simon to 'Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.' Simon is doubtful at first, but he does so anyway and they catch such a large number of fish that they need other fishermen's help in lugging the net back to shore.

Luke writes, 'When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!". . . . Then Jesus said to Simon, "Don't be afraid; from now on you will catch people." So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him' (Luke 5:1-11).

Faced with this miracle, Simon realises that he is in the presence of the holy Lord. At the same time, he sees his own sinfulness, and falls at Jesus' knees in response.

Simon opens his heart for Christ to remove the weeds and rocks from within him, and to begin a new work in him.

This work in Simon would be ongoing. Simon -- later named Peter -- would often repent of his wrong attitudes and learn more about who Christ was calling him to become.

God is still at work in me, too. Whenever I set out to look, I continue finding weeds, rocks and other junk that need removing.

Thus, repenting is not something I do once in my life. I want to make it a daily act of maintenance for my soul so that Christ may grow in me.

In his book Meditations on a Theme, Metropolitan Anthony Bloom writes that this recognition of our sins, 'the ugliness of our souls,' is actually a cause for joy because it means that we are now strong enough to not be broken by such a vision: 'it means, indeed, that we sadly discover our own ugliness, but also that we can rejoice at the same time, because God has granted us his trust. He has entrusted to us a new knowledge of ourselves as we are, as he always saw us and as, at times, he did not allow us to see ourselves because we could not bear the sight of truth.'

Since God has allowed us to discover such weeds and stones, he goes on to say, we now have the opportunity to act.

Prayer of St Ephrem:

O Lord and Master of my life, 
give me not the spirit of sloth, 
idle curiosity/meddling, 
lust for power and idle talk.

But grant unto me, Thy servant,
a spirit of chastity/integrity,
humility, patience and love.

Yea, O Lord and King,
grant me to see mine own faults
and not to condemn my brother.
For blessed art Thou unto the ages of ages.
Amen.

Rivers of living water

In my previous post, I wrote about how Christ invites us to become gardeners, tending the soil of our hearts so that he may grow in us. But what does this look like practically?

Today's post will look at one aspect of such gardening: watering.

Now that I've planted some seeds in our garden, I go out every day to water them. In the photo to the right, the dark patches of soil show where the seeds are (and where I've watered them). Usually by the time I go out to water, the darkness has nearly faded, so the soil is ready for more water and is constantly moist.

If we think about this spiritually, what is the water that nourishes us?

In the Gospel of John, Jesus has a conversation with a woman at a well. He tells her that whoever drinks the water from the well will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water Jesus gives them will never be thirsty (vv. 13-14).

Later, Jesus says more about the water he gives. John writes, 'On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive' (7:37b-39).

The water that feeds us spiritually, then, is the Holy Spirit, who is given to all who put their faith in Christ.

I grew up in San Diego, a desert city whose drinking water is supplied by the Colorado River, which comes from hundreds of miles away.

Many people speak about the Californian climate with envy. One of the most common responses people give when they hear my Californian accent is, 'Why did you move to England? It wasn't for the weather!' But you may already know about the droughts that have choked the Californian soil. Although indeed it is wet here in Cumbria, this water is the reason that the land is lush with life, moss and grass and other green things bursting forth from nearly every surface.

What is our 'spiritual landscape' like? Is our soul a desert, with cracked soil thirsting for rain? If so, what keeps us from drinking the living water? Is it a moist land teeming with life?

During this present lockdown, we are being deprived of many things, such as physical contact with others. Remembering Christ's death and celebrating his Resurrection feels very different to usual. It may feel like a time of drought.

However, I don't believe we are deprived of God's presence. We can use this time to commune with Christ and drink the water he gives us, perhaps more deeply than before. We can strategically use this time to tend our souls.

For example, going on a walk or gardening can be spaces to be still and silent. Personally, I find regularity to be important, so I have been praying through the psalms, at least one each day. I also find nourishment through joining my prayers with others through listening to livestreamed worship services. Although we can do these things even when we are not in lockdown, somehow the imposed solitude can help focus us on what is essential.

Where do you regularly drink the living water that Jesus gives? Where do you find nourishment for your soul?

Listen: 'Let All Who Are Thirsty Come' (song by the Taizé Community)

An invitation to become gardeners

Spring flowers in our garden

This week our long-awaited seeds arrived in the post. This, in combination with the warm, spring weather has meant that in the afternoons I will often stop my work on the computer, go outside and start planting lettuce, spinach and chard seeds.

When I am gardening, especially on a pleasant, sunny day, I feel fulfilled. Gardening is one of those activities that are clearly good and wholesome.

Gardening is at the heart of our identity as humans, according to the Bible, which begins with a garden given to the first people to look after and maintain. That garden, like others, served both the practical function of providing food and the aesthetic purpose of nourishing us with beauty: 'And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground -- trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food' (Gen. 2:9).

The more I clear away debris and rocks from the soil, the more I feel as though I am uncovering or getting in touch with a truer part of myself.

Perhaps this is why, over the past few months of preparing the garden, the song 'Just Showed Up for My Own Life' by Sara Groves has been playing in my head.

In the song, she begins singing about living a false life -- until suddenly she accepts her real identity and comes alive:

Spending my time sleep walking
Moving my mouth but not saying a thing
Hoping the changes would take by working their way from the outside in
I was in love with an idea
Preoccupied with how a life should appear
Spending my time at the surface, repairing the holes in a shiny veneer

There's so many ways to hide
There's so many ways not to feel
There's so many ways to deny what is real

And I just showed up for my own life
And I'm standing here taking it in and it sure looks bright


I wonder how common this experience of 'showing up for [our] own life' is. So often we get stuck in the habits of 'sleepwalking' and 'spending [our] time at the surface' that we never go deeper, unless something tragic or otherwise life-changing comes our way.

For example, perhaps one of the unexpected gifts of the coronavirus is that it can remind us of what is essential. People are spending more quality time with their loved ones and reaching out to people they care about. At least in some communities, neighbours are being kinder and more thoughtful of each other. The natural world and wildlife seem to be uncovering a silence they had forgotten, now that humans are travelling less by car, airplane and other forms.

It is unclear what causes Groves' change of perspective, but at the heart of her song, she quotes St Irenaeus of Lyons, who said, 'The glory of God is a human fully alive.'

Thus, Groves suggests that it is ultimately God who has brought her to life.

This Holy Week and Easter, Christians will be thinking much about someone else whom God brought to life. Jesus' return from the dead is the fullest example of someone 'showing up for [their] own life.'

Damson tree in blossom

By offering his beautiful, perfect life to God on the cross, Christ transformed the cross into the Tree of Life, whose leaves bring healing to the world (Rev. 22:2). In rising from the dead, Christ defeated death itself, carving a path for us to follow, like the first blossoms on a tree in spring prompting many more to come.

Thus, Holy Week and Easter are at their heart about becoming 'fully alive' in Christ.

In other words, Christ invites us to become gardeners, tending the soil of our hearts so that we can receive the seed of Christ, which will grow in us to become the tree of the kingdom of God, providing shelter for others (Matt. 13:31-32).

Solitude, silence and stillness

One of the positive consequences of this challenging pandemic, it seems to me, has been that people have more time to be still, to take a step back and reassess their lives. I have heard people talking about using their free time to do things they have always wanted to do but never had the time, such as learning the guitar or painting.

Such a change of perspective, I think, comes from solitude.

I am reminded of when I worked at the Iona Abbey on the Isle of Iona. Although life there was busy, especially in the summer season, when hundreds of people would visit daily, I often met guests who had come to get some silence. Many of them had recently experienced a life-changing event, such as a bereavement or a transition of some kind, perhaps graduation or being made redundant. They came to Iona for healing and clarity regarding their next steps.

Hermit's Cell

Away from the village and abbey, the small island (three miles in length and one mile in width) did provide solitude. One place where people have found stillness is the Hermit's Cell, a ring of large stones tucked in the shadow of a cliff, the remnants of a structure that may have been used by monks seeking solitude from activity at the monastery.

On the Iona Community's pilgrimage around the island, pilgrims sit there quietly for a few minutes, enjoying the presence of God apart from buzzing cell phones, the glare of computer screens and the rush of daily demands.

The challenge, of course, is practising such solitude when the pilgrimage is over.

Volunteers on Iona do not have WiFi access in their living quarters; there is only a small library in a loft above the abbey refectory where they can use the Internet. This is intentional, an effort to encourage people to interact with each other face to face.

When I was a "vollie," I remember speaking with a fellow staff member about how refreshing it was to be free of social media. He said that when he lived at home, he could spend hours scrolling on his Facebook page seeing what his friends were doing, but on Iona, he hardly ever checked his Facebook. I could relate to him. Yet I found that when I left Iona, I eventually went back to my old habits of wasting time on the computer.

This search for solitude and silence was the impulse behind the first monks and nuns, who journeyed (and still journey) into the solitude and silence of the desert like Jesus did to fast, pray and wrestle against evil, and through their struggle, attain communion with Christ.

This was also the impulse behind the founding of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Led by George Fox in the mid-1600s, they sought to worship Christ free from outward forms of worship, which they saw as distractions. Thus their 'open worship' is largely silent, except for when one is moved by God to speak a word to the community. In this context their goal is also communion with Christ.

A quiet garden

Our Lord himself sought solitude, silence and stillness regularly. The Gospel of Mark tells of how, after an intense evening of healing many people and casting out demons, 'very early [the next] morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed' (1:35).

During this time of enforced solitude I ask myself, how can I seek silence and stillness to commune with Christ?

On starting anew

One year ago, my wife and I moved from Manchester to Cumbria. We left a church community that we had been a part of for almost two years, and I left my job there. We moved for personal reasons, and although we knew it was the right decision, it was not easy, and for several months as I looked for full-time work, the future was even more uncertain than it usually is.

In reflecting on this experience one year later, I have been thinking of St Columba and his own move from Ireland to Scotland. A priest who lived in the 6th century, St Columba (also known as Columcille, or 'Dove of the Church') is most known for re-introducing Christianity to Scotland and northern England.

St Columba's Bay

St Columba's reasons for travelling to Scotland were not as dignified as his legacy there. For decades, he had successfully founded several monasteries in his native Ireland. But in around 560 AD, he became involved in a copyright dispute over a manuscript of the Psalms, which many believe was the cause of a battle in which thousands of people died. Feeling partly responsible, in 563 St Columba voluntarily exiled himself from Ireland, journeying by coracle with his disciples to eventually settle on the Isle of Iona, a point at which he could no longer see his homeland.

The spiritual heritage that St Columba established on Iona has endured through the ages. Today, the Iona Community runs two centres on the island, welcoming visitors to join in a communal life of worship, work and recreation, usually for a week at a time. One part of this programme is a weekly pilgrimage, in which pilgrims journey around the island, stopping at key historical or landscape marks for reflection and prayer.

The furthest point of the pilgrimage is St Columba's Bay, where St Columba is supposed to have first landed on Iona. Here the group reflects on turning points in their lives, in which they have left one place or season behind and started something new. 

For Christians, starting anew is not a foreign concept. Following Jesus means leaving behind one way of life to enter another. For this reason, at this point in the pilgrimage, the group leaders read
a passage from scripture of when Jesus calls the first disciples: 'As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea -- for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people." And immediately they left their nets and followed him' (Mark 1:16-18). 

Although this was the first time Jesus called Simon to follow him, it was not the only time. So it is with us: following Jesus is an ongoing choice, one we can make whenever we enter a new season in life.

St Columba, Enlightener of Scotland

As I look back over the past year, although I see how God has provided for us, it can also be easy to remember the challenges of starting over. However, thinking about how God worked through St Columba on the Isle of Iona reminds me of how this move has been an opportunity for God to do something new in me. 

I also can't help but think of the coronavirus pandemic and the changes it is bringing. To a small degree, the global lockdowns are an exile from our former ways of life.

We can learn from St Columba to look upon this time, or any time we are starting anew, as an opportunity to let go of our nets, our former identities and securities, and follow Christ.

'I will make you fish for people.' This is Jesus' promise to those who follow him: he will transform their identity, empowering them to bring people into the kingdom of God.

The future is always uncertain, but our Lord journeys with us wherever we are and wherever we go, offering to work through us to make all things new (Rev. 21:5).

A prayer of St Columba:

Be, Lord Jesus, a bright flame before me,
a guiding star above me,
a smooth path below me,
a kindly shepherd behind me:
today, tonight and forever.