Almighty God

We stand before the mirror of your eternity, within

the radiance of your majesty.

Through your Holy Spirit, enlighten the darkness of

our minds, challenge the comfort of our perception,

giving us a right faith, a firm hope, and a perfect love;

that the world may behold your glory

through Jesus Christ our Lord

Amen

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Creationtide ’or the ‘Season of Creation’ is the period in the annual church calendar (from 1st September to 4th October) dedicated to God as Creator and Sustainer of all life.  I will post some further information about the resources available in due course. This is a personal reflection and part of a number of blogs where I want to reflect about the meaning and possibility of attending closely to this season.

I am fortunate to be able to walk into work each day and so experience a little of the joys, wonders and unpredictability of creation.  The season is changing. The leaves are turning and the rain is bringing out the colour and texture of the grass and slightly fading late summer flowers.

 

       

It has been damp this past week but amidst the rather drab weather there are glimpses of colour and life!

        

So my first simple and potentially life changing action is this. We should slow down, stop, look and notice what is around us. On your next journey – what do you notice? What strikes you about what lies in your pathway? What does creation, life, our world mean to you?  How do we each stand back and  behold the glory of God in the routine, the demanding, stretching and sometimes overwhelming busy lives we lead?

How are we to see the glory of God in the changing shape of Autumn? As we consider the uncertainty of our world – threats and counter threats between Korea and America, natural disasters of hurricanes and floods in India and beyond, together with the political uncertainties of Brexit and the battle for power – as we rest and look we become aware that we cannot know the future.  Karl Popper said in ‘The Poverty of Historicism’, the future cannot be predicted, because how it will happen depends on discoveries that cannot be predicted, because if they could be predicted they would already have been discovered. That is why every attempt to foretell the shape of things to come is at best guess work, and usually bad guess work.

We cannot control the moment. We can rest and be still and look and reflect.  We do this in faith and trust. . We are called to be a community that does not live on the basis of probabilities but rather possibilities.  Jonathan Sacks speaks of faith as the defeat of probability by the power of possibility. All the great human achievements in art and science as well as the life of the spirit, came through people who ignored the probable and had faith in the possible.  This means – I think – that we might want to engage in some social action that might safeguard creation – as people who aspire to making the world a better place for our children. Perhaps if we journey with trust in the God of all life and all seasons, then it’s bound to be a process which takes us beyond the knowable, beyond that which we can be certain of in advance beyond doubt.

As Jonathan Sacks puts it:

“Faith is a risk and there is no way of minimising that risk, of playing it safe. Hamlets soliloquy: “for in that sleep of death what dreams may come?” – tells us that there is no death, let alone life without risk. Those who are unprepared to take a risk are unprepared to be fully alive.”

So ask yourself  are you becoming more relaxed, more comfortable and more at peace with your world – with what you see – with what you know ? God has called you by name and made you His own and God wants you to find your own particular and unique way of walking the abundant life with your community.

  

It is in paying attention that we will perhaps come to see more of the glory of God. We learn that we may journey through the world as those who are valued and loved. Despite what we are. Despite all life’s unpredictable and sometimes cruel nature. We are not to doubt that we are loved.  We  need to have learned and learned again to see ourselves with love.

 

So :

stop –

look –

listen

and know the love of God refracted through creation.

 

 

Almighty God

We stand before the mirror of your eternity, within

the radiance of your majesty.

Through your Holy Spirit, enlighten the darkness of

our minds, challenge the comfort of our perception,

giving us a right faith, a firm hope, and a perfect love;

that the world may behold your glory

through Jesus Christ our Lord

Amen