From the Minister...

Dear friends

Every so often, we’re blessed by seeing or experiencing something so special that it takes our breath way. I had such a moment a few weeks ago and have been reflecting on it ever since.

We broke up a long journey back from a week’s retreat at the Taizé Community with a short stay in the northern French city of Amiens. Wondering what to do on a Saturday morning, we booked a boat trip around the Hortillonnages, an area of 1.6 square miles in the heart of the city made up of wetlands, gardens and canals accessed via the River Somme. Hortillonnages can literally be translated ‘market garden’, a name that refers to a use of the area begun in the Middle Ages, when a wide array of vegetables was grown there.

Today the area is best known for the wide variety of wildlife that calls it home. We saw lots of butterflies, as well as moorhens, baby swans and two coots working frantically to build a nest for the tiny chicks who stuck close to mum and dad. Most memorable of all were the damselflies, their bright blue bodies shimmering behind their wings with a delicacy and beauty that is hard to put into words. 

As I’ve thought about that mesmerizing Saturday morning in Amiens, it’s also brought to mind my first encounter with winged insects. I have vivid memories of being taken to the natural history section of our local museum, where glass display cabinets were filled with long-deceased creatures.

Some people would argue that the best way to study an insect is to see it on display in a glass case. You can get an exact sense of its dimensions and wingspan, maybe even bring along a magnifying glass to study more closely its texture and markings. But I’ve always thought that the beauty of such creatures is best understood in the wild. When they flicker and float in front of your eyes, you’ll barely grasp the detail of their anatomy, but does this really matter? You will enjoy a moment of delight and joy and be far more informed by that than anything you could read in a textbook.

I sometimes wonder if the same can be said about our journey of faith. One of my favourite observations about following God comes from Gregory of Nyssa, a fourth century bishop who lived in what is now Turkey. 

Gregory famously said that ‘Concepts create idols, only wonder understands.’ I think this was his way of saying that God is not best understood when we reduce him to a list of propositions or academic jargon. There was a time when I could get quite worked up about these propositions myself. I would eagerly contest with others on the finer points of justification, sanctification, predestination and the like. These days, I find myself less concerned with such debates and more eager to experience fully the love and nearness of God.

As well as my visit to the Hortillonnages, I’ve also been made to think about mystery while reading an excellent new book called Unseen Existences, written by the American pastor and author, Brian Zahnd. He writes that, ‘Ultimately, people don’t turn to religion for practical advice; they turn to religion, if they do, in a quest to encounter holy mystery and find help beyond their own power. To sustain faith in the midst of a cynical age, we must have some experience of religious awe.’

As Zahnd notes, this was something well understood by the Apostle Paul, who finished his great teaching on the resurrection with the words, ‘Listen, I tell you a mystery’ (1 Cor 15:51) and asked the Ephesians to pray that he would ‘make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel’ (Eph 6:19) (italics mine). Mystery was one of his favourite words, used seventeen times in his letters. Perhaps the secret of the apostle’s success was not his great intellect but rather a heart transformed by a meeting with Christ that he was still making sense of years afterwards. Whatever the autumn holds for you, I pray there will be some moments of mystery and beauty, times when you encounter God in ways that blow your mind, feed your soul, gladden your heart and inform your conversations with those around you.

Wishing you God’s grace and peace, Trevor