Wednesday 6 May 2009

The Living Spirit

A beautiful letter in this week's edition of The Friend, by Arthur Wright:

Jesus did not write anything down, nor did he ask his followers to record his teaching. He has never left us and his living voice guides and counsels us still. If we live in prayer we remain in safe communion with him. God is spirit and God’s ways are spiritual and cannot be grasped by human wisdom alone. They can only be discerned by spiritual eyes. The greatest miracle is to be born in the spirit and experience true peace.

We are moved quite naturally and joyfully to give our lives in loving service to a deeply wounded world. The fundamental law of our being is to attend inwardly to the living voice of our creator, to be taught by that voice and to obey it. The unique mission of Christians is to recognise the divine in everyone, friends and enemies, tyrants and saints, and to love them all into glorious life.

The whole human family is embraced by Christ, each one of us in our brokenness. There are no outsiders. Our message is justice and peace and the love that cannot enforce any claim. The way that Jesus shows us is one in which more love and peace, more goodness and mercy and more joy and happiness are possible. He teaches us to prefer the truth to self‑advantage, serving to ruling, reconciliation to victory.

Our hope is not a mocking dream. The truth of things is somehow finer, richer and more wonderful than anything we could imagine, a universal way of love that Jesus proclaims. He appears mysteriously to those who love him and fills our humdrum lives with all the light of morning. Such experiences banish doubt and demand no explanation.