Sunday 3: for presence

… dig your toes into the earth and know that you are evolving here and now, even among the untidy mess of the unknown.  It’s all becoming mulch for the green growing heart of you, coming home to yourself.

Jenneth Graser, Unlocking the Secret Garden (Day 28, 85)

On the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 I watched several short films the BBC had made of her life, (she called them ‘intimate portraits’), where she spoke frequently of faith, family and friendship being her guiding principles.  In ‘The Unseen Queen’, Elizabeth provided a commentary for some of her home movies, and one passage caught my attention in particular:

“We are all visitors to this time, this place. 

We are just passing through. 

Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love. 

And then we return home.”

In one sense, this a simple statement of faith, that there is a ‘home’ for each of us in the hereafter. Yet, it also expresses the powerful acceptance of how Elizabeth felt about the vulnerabilities of the present moment which confront us all, which anyone and everyone feels at some point, regardless of their social status.

Making room for a time of staying, of being present and accepting of the what ‘is’ of my circumstances is another one of those soul-work balancing acts for me.  On the one hand, due to chronic ill health, I can go for weeks without leaving the house.  I have no option but to ‘stay put’.  On the other hand, because I live in my mind so much, I can often find that I am ‘elsewhere’ for huge chunks of the day.  

Making time for ‘skying’ – simply putting down whatever is demanding my attention, and looking at the sky until I notice its’ subtle presence – is my way of rooting myself back in the here and now of how I am – in my body and in this home and in this street and in this village and on this earth … 

Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘prayer’ is another statement of hopeful faith, a longing to see beauty in all its wonder.  It is an acceptance of the dedication needed to stay present so one can look, deeply and intently, so one can create:

It is so beautiful here, if one just has a good & single eye without too many beams in it. 

And if one does have that eye, then it is beautiful everywhere.

We are still a long way from that, however, since there are often beams in our eye that we know not of.

Let us therefore ask that our eye may become single, for then we ourselves shall become wholly single.

Becoming single-sighted about my present allows me to absorb myself in the Presence.  Far from there being ‘no room’ for the outcast, the alien, the refugee, the foreigner, the cripple, the homeless, the God-Who-Is-With-Us shows me that the present moment is an eternally expansive ‘here-ness’.  In that Presence we can all find a place to be the Godself we were born to be.

There is room.

There is room, for you.

There is a space in the world, for you.

There’s a place in God’s story, for you.

Love actually is all around, in the glistening lights, the warmth of the fire on winter nights.

The ‘here-ness’ of you, and you, and you.

Of course there is room.

How could there not be when the music is playing, the people are praying and all of the universe is saying ‘you are loved’.

This is where the story starts.

The story that God is not apart. She’s here, right here.

Whether you’re a wise man or a shepherd, feeling like an angel or holding a story that’s hopeful or shameful.

This is the time when we welcome the stranger, like Mary welcoming men to the manger and discovering that these strangers, are angels. 

With messages of love for you and me, messages to hang on the Christmas trees of our hearts.

This story is yours, because God is here, not there; near, not far, because Christmas is coming and of course, there is room.

There is Room | Christmas Short Film 2022

Spoken word written by Tim Baker from All We Can (https://allwecan.org.uk)

welded in place. (iPhone image)