One of the delights of being a Christian is that I am never bored. Or at least I cannot recall the last time I was bored, and given my memory and age, it may be true that I’m not to be trusted.
Nevertheless, I continue to marvel at the created world, including cats and people. And so that is my excuse for detouring into Ancestry this last week and allowing chunks of time to be happily offered to my relatives, living and dead. For each person is a work of art, a universe, a miracle and a mystery, and I am told by some folks who have returned from Heaven (near-death experiences) that we will see our family, at least those in Heaven. They even form a greeting committee in some cases. Only Heaven knows, as my grandmother, of blessed memory, would say, chuckling and grinning, tilting her head in an impish manner.
One way or another, life is certainly an adventure.
But I was able to write a few passages in The Music of the Mountain, filling in the character of my ethics professor, Patricia Norton, with a little more backstory. She has a secret, of course, and she has suffered for it. Such suffering haunts her, as suffering does to most of us, and while many seek therapy as my Patricia has done, I for one prefer prayer and memorizing Psalms and other parts of the Daily Offices, highly effective at banning the ghosts of suffering. I have built a library, I suppose, in my memory bank, that I draw on now gratefully, reciting the Venite and the Te Deum and Psalm 100, Glory be to God… There are responsory prayers too, called versicles, I learned from an author I am editing, with a view to soon publishing his booklet, Praying the Daily Offices, with our American Church Union Publishing group.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. Revelation 3:20 ++ Artist is William Holman Hunt 1827-1910, United Kingdom ++ Title is LIGHT OF THE WORLD.
It is a richly textured life, this world of conversations with God. For I listen for his voice, and hear it in many ways, through other people, through thoughts that come to me suddenly, unbidden, that clearly are better than my own. So I invite Him in as often as possible, rather than leaving Him on the front porch knocking as seen in this image by by Holman Hunt.
I have come to believe that He needs an invitation. Having set up free will in order for us to freely love, He likes to be invited into our hearts and thus into our world. So I try each morning, with my first cup of coffee, to strike up a conversation with Almighty God. And see what happens. At least He knows that my door is open.
What if we all asked Him into our hearts, say, once an hour? Is this how He can see the world, only through our eyes? Residing within, He sees what I see and He knows my thoughts too. He knows me.
Some friends in Kentucky who run the retreat house, Nazareth House, and know something about prayer taught me to breathe the Holy Name of Jesus in and out, and I do when I remember. That is a kind of invitation too, and a jeweled tool to add to my treasure chest of hymns and prayers and eucharists. For the more we bring him into our bodies, the easier it will be to ascend that ladder to Heaven.
And so in the discovery of some of my ancestors, as well as some of my living relatives, I have been given a lovely gift, a necklace of diamonds reflecting many different facets and faces. It is hard to believe, really grasp, the marvelous intricacies of humanity, the genetic codes, the bits inherited and bits created in a lifetime of choices, all forming me. And you. And everyone everywhere, no two alike.
Animals too. No two alike. Plants. No two alike. How can such infinite variety be comprehended? That is one of the arguments recent scientists have made for the existence of God. The Discovery Institute is a good place to start that journey. And I have written about these things in my novels and in these pages, for the journey through our own time becomes more and more joyful, not less. There are always discoveries, always God noticing that the door is open, always God, the Creator of the Universe, loving us enough to become one of us, to enter each one of us, to live inside each one of us.
It only gets better, this river of joy.
So, as I think of this week, and the moments I shared with family living on Earth and family living in Heaven, I wonder at it all. It is so magnificent, and there are not words to describe this, the indescribable. Hence we try to paint pictures and tell stories and sculpt heroes and heroines. Hence we speak as best we can, speak the truth, once we have allowed our Lord to live within us.
Simple worship. Simple seeing. Simple love. It’s all quite simple, this trusting God to make all things right. We simply open the door and invite Him in. As often as possible.
Christine Sunderland
Christine Sunderland 