Reverend Elaine’s “Reflections” June, 2011

The month of June’s reflection from “May I Have This Dance” focuses on seeking and finding. Joyce Rupp uses the idea of seeking a place called home, a place that is deep within us, where we have found God and God has found us (Rupp. 82). She also quotes Thomas Merton who wrote “we find our true self when we find God and we find God when we find our true self. (Rupp 82).

My musings on her writing this past month have led me to consider the idea of being at home, a place where we can be who are, without pretention. In other words, when we cross the threshold of our home we can let our hair down remove the many masks we wear in our day to day lives and be ourselves, accepted and loved, simply for being!

The idea of letting down all our many defences, removing all the masks we wear each day can be quite frightening because ultimately it means that we get to know true ourselves. Those masks can become fixed on, glued, and difficult to remove. It takes time and effort to peal off the many layers that we use to hide from the world. But when we spend that time ungluing the mask, removing the layers, we get to the essential self of who we are and learn to love that self as God loves us. God already knows our deep down essential self and loves us no matter what. That’s unconditional love!

I think we all search for unconditional love, for acceptance in all our glory “warts and all”. We can find it in God. One of my understandings of God is of a place where I am loved unconditionally, with all my imperfections. I believe that God loves us unconditionally and we are all called to share that love, by loving one another in the way God loves us. I imagine the many people walking in city streets and country lanes, people we work and live beside, looking for that unconditional love, the same love and peace we seek. I think that the church, as God’s house can be that place, that “ideal home” (Rupp 82) and I think its something we need to constantly strive toward, making church an open welcome place where Gods unconditional love is shared between everyone, where we can each be our true self and by being our true selves, find God, waiting.

Ultimately, in all of our seeking and finding, it is God we are seeking. Sometimes we can be distracted by other things to fill that space of loneliness that exists within us, that place where a small child resides, arms lifted up beckoning, craving the comforting embrace of a parent. We fill those open arms with work and shopping and a multitude of other distractions that fill our arms but don’t fill the void of seeking that ideal home which can only be found in God.

In seeking our true selves and God as Rupp images we are seeking home. I liken that to seeking a return to Eden, that place where humanity walked with God in the garden. Desmond Tutu writes in his book “Made for Goodness” that we are like prodigals, far from home, and we can make a choice to make the journey home. T’shuva (returning) is a Hebrew word in the bible that describes finding our way back to goodness, godliness, wholeness (Tutu 144). Our journeys of seeking will last a lifetime; this realisation can be difficult in this world of instant satisfaction and gratification. When we achieve those glimpses and tastes of home, or Eden or heaven, we so want to stay in that moment. Like the disciples at the top of the mountain at ascension, Peter said, “let us build booths, let us stay here.” But like the disciples we must come down from those heady mountain top experiences or God moments, and re enter the world, holding onto those God moments those tantalising tastes of home or Eden that place where God resides giving us the courage and strength to continue journeying, seeking and finding God, as God is ever seeking us.

2 Corinthians 5:5 The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what's ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we'll never settle for less. (The Message)