Starting from a blank canvas

Of course, in reality this cannot be done. From the moment we are born, we start to accumulate the sum total of our life’s activity. Nevertheless, we understand the idea. A person comes to the realisation – either that they have gone terribly wrong, or simply that they could have done better – and they want to live a new life. However, if you are truly radical about this, you realise that everything needs to be changed. It is not simply a matter of correcting a few faults, avoiding a few of your “favourite sins” or adopting particular new behaviours that you regard as praiseworthy. Instead, you understand that the very way you think is inadequate. You have adopted values which, on reflection, you now realise are substandard – and this even applies to your good values. Added to the difficulty of amending a way of life affected by the huge weight of habit, is the realisation that even your good and noble traits are falling short of your new aim of being completely true to God.

It is a difficulty that perhaps the via negativa can help with: rather than saying what God is like, recognise what he is not like. You start by eliminating things that are unworthy of God, but then you realise that even good things do not do justice to the goodness of God, and so you remove them too. Imagine a truly beautiful scene: let’s say a hillside covered in wild flowers, a glorious oak tree to one side, all covered by an intense blue sky, with the sun just emerging from behind fluffy white clouds. In your mind, the scene expresses the goodness of God – but then you realise that nothing can truly do justice to his goodness. So, let’s successively remove item after item. The oak tree is wonderful, and you thought of it as an analogy of God’s majestic presence – but on further reflection, you realise that it comes nowhere near expressing his majesty, so, in your mind’s eye, just remove it from your picture. Then keep going, removing item after item until, ultimately, you end up with an empty picture. But not quite empty, because you realise that it is now as though you were looking at a blank canvas in an art gallery, and there is one last thing which you haven’t switched off – and so you switch off the light, and, in your imagination, you are suddenly in darkness. Now, you have succeeded in removing everything that falls short of the reality of God – but you are also sitting in empty darkness. Complete nothingness. Yet it is the experience of mystics through the ages that in that empty darkness, God is experienced, and there is a fullness in the emptiness beyond anything that could be expressed even in the most idyllic image with which you may have started. It is an act of supreme trust and faith to – in your mind – switch off that light, in the hope that – beyond all reasonable expectation – the reality of God will be experienced. Not communicated by anything, but just himself, as he truly is.

Yet – even if you could experience this fullness in emptiness, seeing God, as it were, in the darkness – surely you have to start to rebuild your life? You can’t just always sit in the darkness – though perhaps you can return to it from time to time and allow the darkness to enfold you, embracing again the emptiness in order to know how to live when you re-emerge into the light. For life is lived in the light, and we have to decide what to do with our lives. How then do you begin again?

I think there are two acts of faith that are required.

The first is to believe that – having touched base with God and committed yourself to a new start – it is possible to live in tune with God. The second is to accept that you will fail – almost as soon as you begin, and, certainly, very regularly – but not count that as fatal to your goal.

So, your new start is not in the manner of: “I will try really hard this time!”. Instead, you understand that you will always be dependent on the forgiving grace of God. Trust in his grace as being more important than the power of your own failure. You have set yourself the task of living with the God who is beyond all that life can express – so much so that he is only ultimately known – and not known – in the awesome still, empty darkness where, when you have taken everything away, all that is left is God. It is quite a journey to set out on! I think we are allowed to go one step at a time, and not despair if we trip up now and then.

The problem of perfection

If only he hadn’t said it. “You must be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect”.

I manage to be a good person quite easily. As I have lived a comfortable life and am blessed with quite a gentle, kind personality, I might even say that, on the whole, I am a very good person. Yet Jesus said the goal was perfection. This clearly is not possible, and it bothers me – not least because I don’t like to suggest that Jesus made a mistake. Moreover, in my moments of spiritual awareness of God, I really do feel so filled with his grace that I do feel that this must be what perfection is like. But, of course, it doesn’t last. We are physical creatures, with a whole load of evolved behaviours, not to say personal weaknesses, and then we feel disappointed that the glimpse of perfect harmony with God has been lost.

I think I will be returning to this problem quite often. I do want to explore what is or isn’t possible, and I don’t want to lay burdens on anyone by opening up the possibility of perfection, only to have people feel bad about themselves that they weren’t able to achieve it. There are many puzzles in the life of faith, and one of them is that we are called to live in communion with God, to keep in step with the Spirit, while being totally dependent on grace to achieve anything. We have received a command to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength – but we can do nothing without his grace.

Many of us feel that we go round an endless cycle of sin – repentance – forgiveness – grace – growth – failure. I want the goal of harmony with God to be an inspiring positive force in my life, and I don’t want to hurt anyone by suggesting that the failure to be perfect is a cause for self-condemnation, let alone despair. Yet the call is to live our lives in union with the God of love. This is so far beyond me, but, if you will bear with me, I will return to it from time to time and see what I can make of it.

I expect that the answer to the call to perfection will be grace. And always and always, I return to God’s grace as the life-imparting essence of God. His undeserved loving-kindness is what makes us whole. Yet what does God require of us in response? I am both inspired and wounded by the call to perfection. Perhaps in our flawed responses to God’s love, which are in literal terms ending in a failure to be perfect, there will be moments when his grace shines through. In particular situations, we find ourselves ministering God’s grace to others, and perhaps in those moments, his love is reflected in our faces, and God looks at us and says, “That will do”.

Faith

I do believe, but more than I believe, I trust.

I reach out my hand, and I know that I am alone, that no-one will take it, but still I trust that you see my outstretched arm, and you will touch my heart with your love, even though I did not touch you.

It makes no sense, and that is why I call it faith, but if it makes no sense, it accords with my experience. Over and over again I have called to you, and though I never hear any voice, still you answer me.

As the delicate butterfly cannot be grasped, as her flight cannot be predicted, so you are beyond my control. I know what it is to speak with myself, and sometimes I can be wise, but when you speak the shock of insight takes my breath away. As though the hard kernel has been broken open, the long-hidden truth emerges, and in your light hope springs like a new living shoot.

This cannot happen, but it does. Even if I decide I am mistaken and there truly is no-one there, yet when I reach out to you, I find you. I trust that you are there, and it is so.

This is more mysterious than all else in my life, and it has become more precious. I would love to understand it, and to some degree I have learnt how it works, but really it is beyond all understanding, and it just has to be lived.

And so I live by faith – or try to. And certainly I know that to live by faith is fullness of life.

Faith is the flame that shines in the darkness. Yes, you can blow it out, and it is gone, but then it lights itself again. I did not do it. I do not have that power to kindle the light, to ignite the spark of life that illuminates all reality. It is you who does this. Like someone in darkness I grope for something solid and turn around and turn around to find some solid point of reference. But, like a presence standing behind me, as I turn, you turn also to be always out of view, yet the presence abides. Standing with me in the darkness, literally backing me up, ready to catch me if I fall, directing me forward, and where I go, you go. And so, cupping my hands, I see the flame again, just enough to show me where I am, and, lighting up my face, you see me, and smile your love upon me.