Mission Aim-3B: Fellowship – Your Inner Journey

A Journey

As a  child of 5 onward, I used to look around at the congregation during the larger recital points - like The Lord’s Prayer or the Creed - and gazing into the faces of strangers, my child’s mind wondered: do people mean each word or are they like my pet parrot - just making a sound? Are they “paying attention” - as my piano teacher constantly reminded me. Are some of them here at all? (From 2 onward I'd learned how to pay attention to one thing: music, while my mum played the piano)

A journey interrupted

At 15 I rejected the ritual as I couldn't "feel" Christ here. Catholic school, ex altar-boy, Christian upbringing, it also saddened me and enraged me the angry youth as I turned around to witness the drunks - duty-bound "hypocrites" - noisily stumbling in at the back of the church at - just before and out again soon after - the blessing of the bread and wine. Rushing to continue with their own spirit. My life at home and school also deeply questioned the role of God and His "...works in mysterious ways", in a musical teenager: unanswered, un-found, unopened. But by 17 I fell-in with a crowd of great friends - Jews, Christians, Muslims, atheists...; English, Scottish, Greek, Irish, Ceylonese, S. African, Malay. Life broke with the past, and then in the broken places started to become mended: with friends; with music; and with what comes from good friendship.

Meditation

At 19 Christianity no longer in my life, I discovered meditation: A different passage of time; stillness; awareness; being; “Just simply To Be”. But Christ I knew was a gem whom mum & Christ had "sewn into the fabric of my life"(ancient Buddhist tale); and hence of Him I could not let go. Christ and His teachings remained in my life.

At 40 to 50, a dad of 2 little ones now, having ranged widely in my search in other religions, I returned with a new "seeing", an unshakeable conviction. It was the Spirit I was seeking, not any particular religion. And finally that conviction drew me to re-engage with Christ. At first only in a scientific, rational, logical way (given my career in Computing), researching and reading everything to prove He existed. He did. He does.

Connecting with the Spirit

Since then my connection to Christ has deepened beyond all I could imagine at 15!! Having found His Words, deeds, thoughts, and The Holy Spirit in the Gospels and NT (recently a NT translation from Aramaic - the original language spoken by Christ and His Disciples), I have tried to live a life as father, husband, brother, friend, and even neighbour according to Christ's teachings. Not always succeeding. I have also engaged in many a lively discussion with Christians -Anglican, Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Quaker..., even my by-now longtime friends the Jehovah's Witnesses - who I warned from the start: would engage my mind in challenging discussion, but not my heart in religion.

Your Journey

The Magnitude

At each site we visit we make

time for you. Time. To reflect, and contemplate the magnitude of the events in this place and how the presence of the Holy Spirit exerted a world-traversing, slingshot-effect. As a result, to propel Christianity on increasing speed; in a new trajectory; to a new city; a new nation; a new people's hearts

Awareness

The merest beat of a butterfly wing, a falling grain of sand, to see infinity & eternity (William Blake) - is our fellowship's "merest" contribution to your inner journey, and to "Mere Christianity" (C S Lewis). The chance to be aware, to be present, "Just simply To Be" in this place we visit. Aware of the incredible Spiritual act that took place here back then brings the merest of connections to something greater. A mere chance for the inner you to be prompting you "pay attention!!", aware, silent, still, mentally poised to seize the moment, apprehend the sight, feel the feeling, grasp the magnitude of The Spirit of Christ's action in this place. The "action" is unmistakable and unmissable but you must be paying attention. Aware.

And aware to that fact you are here; in this place, now, in this moment: How did you get here? Just opportunity? Just Google? Just a chance moment? A definite possibility, it's just these. But if you have been seeking Christ, seeking The Holy Spirit, seeking a better Way of life when you go back, is it remotely possible that these have been seeking you too? Ask yourself if in finding yourself here there have been: odd coincidences? stuff happening? a synchronicity? people and events entered your life? possibly an ease to go in this direction came about in you...?
But it is your "Seeing" not with the eyes but with the heart that must come to mind; come to your awareness. (Like the life saving butterfly in Gandalf's hand in "The Lord of the Rings": suppose he missed that moment, would there be another? ) See "Seeing with the Heart"

Your connecting with The Spirit

In other words, our Fellowship - a doing thing - is part of that butterfly effect to "see". An Act of travel. The penultimate act. We go. We travel. Outward. But for you more importantly it is the act of going inward by being in spiritual places, you get to see, feel, think, to live in all too brief a few moments with a butterfly in the history of The Spirit with Christ, Paul, Peter and Thomas. The ultimate "Act" is then you travelling back into your everyday life: The Holy Spirit; Christ and His teachings; a Way of life - not pious or fanatical or as a zealot, but as simply you, the real you, the better you, living with The Spirit of Christ.