Today I sat on a park bench in the late afternoon sun, diary in hand, thinking 'How do I distill this golden weekend into words?' Even that precise moment, sitting there, was beyond the capacity of my writing - because of my own literary limitations and the moment's infinite nature. I was in the park because I went for a walk because the world is beautiful and no other reason, and the sun shone on my face - I am unworthy, and yet I basked in it.
This morning Jacob left, but not before sharing this weekend with me. We shared yoga and a run, overdue hugs and kisses, the paintings of Pierre Bonnard in the Tate Modern, a long bus ride, a vegan quiche and Christmas muesli, and a concert by the London Philharmonic Orchestra which left me breathless. Sharing is a far better word than doing, partly because often we aren't the makers of the joy we partake in, and also partly because this weekend has impressed on me so strongly something I'd been thinking on Friday after reading Romans 12 - that as part of God's community we belong to each other, him to me and me to him.*** Therefore, somehow the joy I feel at the sun on my face is also his joy, because I know my joy makes his complete.
That was something else we talked about this weekend - the possibility of a 'sated joy' this side of heaven, and we concluded that it must operate like that phrase Christians often use to explain the tension between the fact that the kingdom of God has fully come with Jesus and is also yet to be fully expressed: that we will see the full expression of joy when we finally see God, and yet here on earth because of His grace, we can feel joy that is full and complete.
I thought, as I sat there, about a question my friend Pierre had asked me this week: whether I feel overwhelmed that Jacob might come to Singapore at the end of the year if God provides a way. I said no, then I said yes, and I meant it both times. Not overwhelmed because I feel so certain that this is good, and he feels sure too - besides, the alternative seems more 'overwhelming'. But also yes, because love is the scariest thing and it means coming up with the terrifying and beautiful realisation that you are wanted, cherished, that you could change someone's future and they yours. And yes because I wouldn't want to have such a commitment from someone I didn't feel overwhelmed by. It wouldn't be love if I wasn't overwhelmed - I feel quite strongly that some part of yourself must be drowned in the face of something so good.
I only sat there for ten minutes, thinking, writing, reading some of the poems from the anthology Alex gave me for Christmas ('forgive me' the letter that came with it said, 'I found it in Oxfam books a couple of weeks before Christmas and couldn't resist') - I will leave you a poem now.
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
*** God's people are told to 'belong to each other', in a segment about the community of Christ following the call to offer ourselves to God in worship. I gathered that in some ways how we offer our bodies to God has to do with how we operate in the body of Christ (as Romans 12 puts it - I don't think the metaphor's echo of the 'offer your bodies' is accidental) and cultivating humility, valuing diversity, 'belonging' to each other and using your gifts generously and cheerfully were what I saw as ways the passage encouraged Christians to live in a way that made the body of Christ a worshipful one, a community pleasing to God.
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