of things that need to be attended to.26 The dynamic is there, but we have to participate in it and identify what’s involved in it. It’s partly a matter of being swept up in and by it, but it’s also a matter of acknowledging that these responsibilities are there. So often we get distracted. What is it that both attracts and limits the Church? It has become over-concentrated on its inner meaning. We need to learn how to persist with our task in the world. What are the essentials of this? Opening up the true potential and resources of human life: liturgy is one way of facilitating and helping people to enter into this creative dynamic and drawing them deeper into the light, letting it penetrate them and ‘irradiate’ them. But it’s certainly not exclusive to the Church; there are lots of other ways, too, and we need to recognize and interpret them in public life. It’s about how the Church relates to the world.
Emerging from the Walls: From Jerusalem to Sinai and Home
After emerging from the tunnel we went beyond the Wailing Wall and then back to where we were staying. Until this point we had been one whole group, but this was the end of the trip for most people, so we had a time of re-gathering and recollection before saying farewell to those who were about to leave. It was a significant time of sharing, listening to what different people had made of it all, and those of us who’d decided to go on went back to Bethlehem, where we had had a day visit earlier in the trip.
Emerging from the tunnel under the Wailing Wall
It was appalling to see how reduced the Palestinians had become: from our chintzy purpose-built hotel we could see all too clearly the huge wall that has been built to serve as a barrier to any communication between Bethlehem and Israel. It was deeply symbolic – and it was ominous, with sections of concrete abutted together.
So it was a strange thing. We were sort of suspended into this unbelievably posh hotel, and we spent the night there, surrounded by elegant showrooms where we had the opportunity to buy whatever we might have wanted. But we could do absolutely nothing, until leaving on a bus for Sinai early the next morning.
It was a very, very long trip – way down past the Dead Sea – and there were a few minor stops. By then I was finding it all pretty gruelling; perhaps that’s when I realized I was getting too tired.
I had toyed with the idea of going up Sinai, but that wouldn’t have been the wise thing to do. Ideally I’d have loved to, and some did: setting off in the dark early hours – some opting for camels – and then when they came down we spent a good part of the day around the monastery there, built over the site of the burning bush.
It looks like it was just another step in a tourist trip. But it wasn’t. It had become a pilgrimage when right back at the Jordan people realized they were inside the whole thing, being re-baptized. Then it wasn’t simply an exterior thing, but their own drama. So at the monastery at Sinai, although it could all have been treated as a museum experience, it was something much deeper. It was about a reality confronting you that was far more impressive than conventional philosophy will allow.
The monastery sitting at the base of Sinai isn’t just an interesting geological artefact. It’s an impressive ancient Christian monastery: hugely significant for Christians and Jews and filled with connections. It has a Jewish presence there, and there is no over-rating its huge importance for Jews: it is not possessed and remains a vivid reminder of Moses’ encounter with YHWH at the burning bush. This is the burning, living bush, the living presence of God. The monastery is called ‘The Monastery of the Divine Fire’. It is a very special place; in a sense, it’s almost a bore-hole into the divine fire, with the light that goes with it: a place of ongoing light.
The Monastery of the Divine Fire at Mt. Sinai
It’s a place of transfiguration, hinting at an unending source of light: the ‘I am that I am’. What does that mean? That there’s an ‘I am’ always reaching back to a further ‘I am’, and there’s no end to that process. It’s often taken as a statement of ontology, but it’s more than that if you go into it. It takes you further into the ‘I am’ and into the infinity of the light that emerges. For years, I’ve found that to be the most nourishing thing of all: that there’s no sudden halt to the direction you can go; there’s always more, and that is pretty unquestionably linked to the light. The simple resplendence of the light here paralleled my experiences in Palestine.
It is amazing, the burning bush: it’s a primitive ‘symbol’ and yet it is not consumed. It means that the divine can indwell the world without damaging it or taking it over. The transfiguration is more complex, but what supervenes them all is this enormous light. If you think of creation as in some sense a breaking through of the light, there are real parallels with the transfiguration and with the end times, with the unifying, consistent theme being the light, with its gentle and yet strong attraction.
How do healing and reconciliation happen? This light heals without overburdening; that’s not in its nature. Christians often want a strong right arm. They talk in the language of power, but that’s not what it’s about; it’s about a gentle infiltration from within, not coming at you from outside, like a ton of bricks.
How does light happen within the world? It irradiates from within. It’s like seeing people ‘light up’ within; it’s a huge privilege, and we have to recognize and discern it in one another and to embrace and delight in it.
That’s what working with postgraduates is about: gently edging forward the things that are being prompted in them. Things take on a new kind of tentativeness. It’s about letting them recognize and articulate for themselves what is happening and what it is that they’re a part of; that’s the wonder. That’s what Jesus did. He didn’t say, ‘Here I am: this is what to do . . .’ He didn’t come with the purpose of giving a standard or doctrine; he met with people, and the meeting has to show itself as deeply as possible, to reveal who he is for – and in relationship with – each person. Read the Gospels: suspend your judgement and let him come alive afresh. I’ve learnt a lot in the last month about how Jesus happens for people. I’ve moved from understanding Jesus as a given who presents himself to you – and you can either take him or leave him – to realizing that it’s much more about Jesus walking alongside people and interacting with them/us. It opens up a much bigger space with Jews and Muslims: walking with Jesus allows you to walk with other traditions. It provides a wonderful opening because you can imagine Jesus walking with others, too. It’s a triple hermeneutic as Jesus meets with Jews and Muslims too. Just imagine the Emmaus Road story as a story of Jesus coming and walking among his disciples: Christian, Jew and Muslim. Simply look at all the things that Jesus did: his ‘love statements’ opening out the light in things and people, just being there in the flesh with them.
Coming Home (Back to my voice!)
This is where my father ended his ‘narrative’ account of his pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
He returned home full of the Spirit. Something so powerful and deep had happened that afterwards (every day) he could not rest until he had found ways to do justice to it and to articulate more of it. Now there was a sense of Jeremiah’s ‘within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot’27 – but with more of the praise and wonder of the Magnificat (‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour’), too!
He had a new conviction of his purpose and deepest vocation and identity, and he was swept up in articulating the profound glimpse of the light and glory
