“Divorced from the brilliant light, we live in a type of exile from our true selves and from what is deepest in creation. Forgetful of our nobility we live in ignorance instead of wisdom, fear instead of love, fantasy instead of reality. The gospel is given to restore our memory of what lies deepest within us.” (Philip Newman)
This has to be one of my favourite quotes. I heard it in a teaching seminar years ago. Now it is tacked to the side of my pc screen. So, in theory, I see it every working day. But mostly, I don’t notice it. I’m used to it, you see. Just like I’m used to the post-it Bible verses stuck to the disk drive, the smattering of prophetic words pinned to the desk-divide, and the cut out songwords that reminded me of a once striking truth.
The irony of that amuses me. The quote speaks about how easy it is to forget who we are, how loved we are, the value of our existence, and there am I overlooking it, transfixed instead by fleeting words on an email or something.
It isn’t just the forgetting that strikes me as a problem. Sometimes life throws stuff at us which is expressly designed to cause us to forget who we really are. We get bogged down by guilt, regret, shame or condemnation. Some friends of mine have an older car. When you turn the windscreen wipers on they just smear the water around, until it’s harder to see than before you did it. Often we’re trying to see through a windscreen thats splattered and smeared and our visibility is restricted.
And then I lie awake at night thinking… But, what if we remembered? What if the windscreen got cleared? What if the scales fell off our eyes and we could truly see ourselves as God does? What if fear and fantasy fell away? if shame and secrecy became a thing of history? What if we woke up knowing?
What lays deepest within us is not the decisions we have made. It is not the paths we have choosen or those we were led kicking and screaming down. It is not the smattering of skills we have managed to attain or the fragile relational structures we hide within. It is not the information we fill in neatly on census-forms, or the way we see ourselves when we gaze mutely into the mirror. It is not the mistakes we made and then franticly tried to cover-up. It is not the whispered fears that plague our sleepless moments.
What lies within us. All of us. Is good.
The image of a creator, treasure unmarred by circumstance, hope that will beat away unbreakable. It is the knowledge that this is temporary – this hurt, this struggle, this loneliness is not for keeps. It’s the capacity that grace awaits to fill. It’s forgiveness, that can clear a path through the thickest, most choking weeds, and find the garden blooming away unhindered behind secret doors. It is what it means to be a child of the Most High. He who never slumbers or sleeps, guarding every step, counting every tear. It’s the yearning for home, the pull towards redemption, the truth that who we are does not amount to what we have done. It is the capacity to love, even when all we have known is the opposite. It is the breath of I AM, bringing us to life.
