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JUNE 2004 |
I read some lines during the week that really struck home to me and I’m going to share them with you now:
‘We can feel so much, but all good and bad, all painful experiences and all beautiful ones will go in the end, because they are only on loan from God.’
And the speaker of these words? Andrea Corr in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph magazine. Yes, that Andrea Corr. The one in the singing group with her two sisters, and the other one - the brother that nobody notices - or rather, no male notices.
As well as beauty Andrea has got brains, and a spiritual side to her nature. The words form part of the title track on her new CD (I nearly wrote album and that would have dated me!). In the song ‘Borrowed Heaven’ she writes about the impermanence of everything; she describes the song as ‘a prayer about the transience of life’. It’s an understanding that mystics have shared down the ages. It’s not that we as Christians shouldn’t feel both pain and joy in their fullest measure but rather that we should appreciate the context in which we experience those emotions. All things must pass. How many quarrels, how many things that we’ve strived to achieve are really important?
I learnt a long time ago that as Christians we are stewards of God’s creation, we don’t own this planet and its resources; we are simply God’s stewards, and this should affect the way we regard material possessions. In other words we shouldn’t cling too closely to things, but as Andrea point out - and as mystics like Mother Julian have emphasised over the ages - even our emotions come from God, the source of our being.
That doesn’t mean we should feel less deeply but rather that we should value the source of those feelings. In such a view of the world when we hold before God, in our prayers, the good and the bad things that have happened to us that day, we are in a true sense handing them over to God. So let us feel things as fully as we have ever done, but let us be prepared to let go of our hurts and our delights. Let us continue to live life to the full in the moment, knowing that each moment is another precious gift from God.
Alan Harper - Jun 04