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31/07/2009

the horizon

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We do it all the time - we imagine what is on the other side of a horizon, whether the horizon is the edge of what we can see, or can imagine, or can know. In fact I guess it is impossible to imagine a horizon that is a true limit. We cannot think of an edge without thinking there is something on the other side of it, though we don't know what that something is.

Twilight, Rocky Mountain National Park

So with the spiritual life.  Our journey is always a pilgrimage towards the horizon - which, of course, always recedes from us.  The journey may be outward, into the market place or the desert; or it may be inward seeking what is more than merely human within each person.  But whichever direction we choose it always calls us beyond ourselves and our ordinary limitations.

God is always beyond our horizon.  If God could be contained within our boundaries then we would be the gods.  

So we reach out with our imaginations to what we cannot perceive, and devise spiritual techniques and practices which enable us to stretch ever further.

And in our spiritual reach we meet God who comes to us.  Voltaire said "Dieu a cree l'homme a son image, et l'homme le lui a joliement rendu" (God made man in his own image, and man has returned the compliment).  He meant it as a criticism.  But it is a description of the only way people can make any sense of their apprehension of God.

And Christians in particular should regularly be reminded: no statement about God, not even if it has the authority of the Bible, can ever be definitive.  Even if we could meet God face-to-face we would still only have our limited imaginations and ambiguous words with which to make sense of the experience and then convey it to others. 

We need a Christian equivalent to the injunction: If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.

The spiritual life is made real in our bodies, our practices and our symbols.  It is a journey through the labyrinth, beyond our horizons.  It is a journey undertaken in dialogue with one another, with God who is the Word, and with silence of an absent God.  

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