The following quotes inspired me to see that the ordinariness of our lives can actually be the place where God chooses to work. If we choose to have hearts that are open to him, the ordinary can in fact become imbued with a sacramental significance; it can become become an outward sign of an invisible grace or undeserved gift from God.
This also has resonance for walking the Camino; it can become more than just walking, so much more than just a hiking holiday, but a place to enjoy and reflect on God's undeserved favour in our lives; in the ordinary act of walking or in the appreciation of fellow walkers or the natural world around us.
But I will let Richard Foster explain better than I am able to do:
"If we are truly alive to the manifest presence of the living God, even the most ordinary of experiences can become an extraordinary experience of grace....Most of his [Jesus] years on earth were spent in ordinary human activities...only a tenth of his time was given to revealing his identity as the Messiah and engaging in ministry... [but] Jesus was growing in wisdom "and divine and human favour"(Luke 2:52)... We don't pay much attention to the forty years [Moses] spent herding sheep in the wilderness before God called to lead the Israelites out of slavery...
Material reality is not the opposite of spiritual reality, but the vehicle through which that reality becomes visible...
Life with God is an ongoing, ever-changing, relational adventure. It is not a matter of being driven through life, stopping every now and then to get out of the car and see the surroundings. God invites us to climb into the landscape of our journey, to breathe deeply with full lungs, to feel the blood pulsing through muscles doing what they were meant to do, to experience the wonder of having a body with which to see and hear and smell and taste and touch this astonishing world"
No comments:
Post a Comment