I well
remember the conference at which I was being selected as a candidate for the
ordained ministry. My interview with the educational selector sticks in my
mind. What books had I read? I spoke about a book that had been important to
me. Why did I read it? It had been on the bookshelf in my parents’ house. We
moved on to another book. Why that one? It had been the next book on the
bookshelf. We came to that medieval classic, the Cloud of Unknowing. That
too had been on the bookshelf, but it had caught my attention because it had
been mentioned by Martin Israel.
I had
emerged from a Christian educational system, which had both left me profoundly dissatisfied
by a Christian perspective of life and yet hooked by the quality of life that I
saw in one or two deeply prayerful people. I did not want to believe in the
torturous dogmas of the Church, but I saw in a few people, whose paths crossed
mine, an authenticity of living that was profoundly attractive. I was drawn to
various churches in London, searching for something I could hardly name.
Eventually I came across All Saints’ Margaret Street. There my soul was caught
up in the overpowering sense of the numinous, expressed through the glorious Anglo-Catholic
liturgy. I also joined a prayer group, led by Martin Israel, and I was
introduced to contemplative prayer. The Cloud of Unknowing became the
most influential book in my life (apart from the bible) and its pages
encouraged me to a deep praying, which left doctrine and language behind and
sought to reach into the Cloud in which nothing was certain, except the reality
of the Divine.
It was here
that I found God, or rather the Divine, who had been luring me onwards, drew me
into the reality of the Divine Love. It was a place beyond all words and
language. Yet, if I must use language, it was as if I had been caught up in a
mighty wind and my heart had been consumed by fire. It radically altered me as
a person. Maybe it would be better to say that it brought me into the rebirth
of the person God had created me to be. It profoundly altered my perception of life
and every human relationship. It was an experience of Pentecost yet also a
place of Magnificat. It opened my eyes to a new world in which every status of
wealth, position, power, class, sexuality or influence has been levelled, as we
are drawn into one in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Years later,
as I was studying for an MA in Christian Spirituality, I focussed on the
preaching of the medieval mystic Meister Eckhart. He is constantly pointing
beyond the things of this world to the reality of the unknown Godhead that lies
beyond all images of God. He once prayed “O God save me from God”. His meaning
was that every image, picture, idea or doctrine we might have of God is a
blockage to our experiencing the reality of God, if it is not but a gateway into
a reality that goes beyond our human perceptions. If you are satisfied with an
image of God; if it seems to provide the ultimate expression of what you mean
by ‘God’; then it is like a closed gate that prevents what needs to be a
journey into even deeper reality. We need to enter The Cloud, to move beyond
all images and language, and to discover the living relationship that will
transfigure our lives.
As we debate
human sexuality, the weight of historical abuse cases, whether we are prepared
to worship with other Christians, how we can reach out to the young, how we
interpret the scriptures, and so many other things that engage our passion and
make up the agenda for today’s church, I sometimes wonder if we have lost the
sense of being drawn into the life of the Divine. A shared experience of praying, that leads us
beyond all human language, will bring us to a place in which, being engulfed in
the flame of the Divine Love, we are drawn into a new community as God’s
children. It will not resolve the items on our agendas, but it will no longer
be those items that define us. Our agendas will still need discussion, but we
will have discovered the common bond of having been transformed into a new
creation by the fire of the God’s Love. To discover that shared New Life, and to
live it to the full, with exuberant joy, is what we are called to do, to be and
to proclaim.
