the length of God...

The human heart can go the length of God.
Dark and cold we may be, but this is no winter now.
The frozen misery of centuries cracks, breaks, begins to move.
The thunder is the thunder of the floes, the thaw, the flood, the upstart Spring.
Thank God our time is now, when wrong comes up to meet us everywhere,
Never to leave us, ‘til we take the longest strides of soul men ever took.
Affairs are now soul size,
The enterprise is exploration into God.
But where are you making for?
It takes so many thousand years to wake,
But will you wake for pity’s sake? Christopher Fry
I heard this poem for the first time at the American Association of Pastoral Counselors Southeast Regional meeting in Kanuga this fall. It has glued itself to my soul and won’t let me go. The images and the questions comfort and confront me. Like all good poetry (and the Bible), it has layer upon layer of meaning and every time I read it, I see or hear or feel something new.
This morning I am caught by the first line... The human heart can go the length of God. The choice of verb is interesting to me.. Can go... not will go or may go or must go but can go... an implied choice of action. I am reminded of legions of school teachers who when asked the question "Can I go to the bathroom?", replied "You can go, but first you must ask ‘May I go?’" Our hearts are not asking permission nor do they need to.
The possibility, the choice, the journey is ours to make, or not. Just because we can, does not mean we will. Many people I know seem to live quite nicely without embarking on the journey to the length of God. Their lives, the lives of some really good people, seem to stay on track and be productive, kind, responsible and moral without any apparent connection to the heart of God. It is a mystery to me, a conundrum, a riddle without an answer, how one could live and move and breathe in this world and not seek God. And how could one live in this world of sorrow and woe and joy and beauty, accepting all that one has been taught, without questioning the Heart of God? A paradox pair... accepting or questioning, searching or standing in place... that reflects my life as I know it. Perhaps it should be both... accepting and questioning, searching and standing in place, not either or but both and.
"Affairs are now soul sized, the enterprise is exploration into God". These words are the state of my soul in this youngoldage stage in my life. A soul sized life that is traveling in my RV body to explore what my eyes have not yet seen nor my ears not yet heard. Writing is one blue highway for my soul, so is calligraphy and teaching creativity. Feeding and caring for the animals on Sabbath Rest farm, watching the ducks gather on the pond, counting the deer in the herd, checking the weather daily and watching the rye grass grow, picking up walnuts and sliding in the snow... these are another pathway for my soul’s exploration of God. Singing in a choir, hearing the music and making music at the same time, listening to all the voices, good, shaky, or outstanding, as they blend and weave and float through the notes, creating wonder-full sounds... this is another back road to God for me.
The main roads, the interstates of the soul, no longer have much meaning for me. Institutional religion, churches and denominations are not where I often find the length of God. I go to church to be a part of a community of Christian believers and sometimes I find God speaking in worship or in the connection I feel to those who sit in the pews with me. But denominations and churches are by their definition finite and limited in their mission. They are only a part of the journey, not the final destination. I know my feelings about these institutions are colored by the loss of my denominational homeplace and the experience of church as fractious and frazzled. But nevertheless, it is my journey, my search for the length of God, my soul sized exploration... not yours but mine. And, that is my choice. I can, not may I, but I can. I can choose to search, to measure the length of God in my life, to live a soul sized life, to explore the Cloud of Unknowing, to travel the blue highways of the soul, rambling and roaming as I make for my final destination, the heart of God. Peggy Hester