I guess in life we are constantly coming back to the sacred things, the sure things, the treasured things that we have known and held onto for most of our life. Its a journey and it does loops. And somehow the loop always goes “home”.

I have had seasons of experimenting in my theology and have drifted on seas of theories, creativity, ideas and even indifference at times. They have grown and broadened me. But I seem this year to have made a little journey back to those sure and certain things.

In January in a car back from Sweden I read the rebuke to the Ephesus church, “You have forsaken your first love. Remember the heights from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.” At the time, I was feeling a bit lost. I was miles away from home and felt a bit like the Jamie Cullum song, “I’m all at sea / Where no one can bother me /Forgot my roots../Just me and my thoughts /Sailing far away.”  The urge to return to harbour was reassuring to say the least.

So, I picked up my guitar again, found a church I liked going to and started attending regularly. Bizarrely, I was also ended up doing the job I started my career in – teaching. It was definitley a return to former things. I started to remember who I was. I remembered who I am.

Last month my boyfriend and I vistied Wales and came across this quaint stone church. It was a gorgeous sunny day. Yellow flowers were dotted over the grass and in the distance lay an expance of silent water stretching out for miles. With not much around us except the sea and the fields, the space felt almost timeless. People had been pilgrimaging there since the 12th century. The words in the church book seemed to carry a pointed weightiness. “Breathe in the peace and revelry of this ancient sanctuary.” We sat in silence and breathed!

I think we are called to constantly return to our beginnings, to be reminded of the simplicity, beauty and power of our faith and to be caught up again to the heights from which we seem so easily to fall.

“We are put on earth for a little space that we may learn to bear the beams of love” William Blake

The introduction to Thomas Merton’s “Contemplative Prayer” is staggering in its testimony to a life of love. The man who writes the introduction is a Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh and his admiration and connection with Thomas is clear through what he writes:

“It is hard to describe his face in words, to write down exactly what he was like. He was filled with human warmth. Conversation with him was so easy. When we talked, I told him a few things, and he immediately understood the things I didn’t tell him as well. He was open to everything, constantly asking questions and listening deeply. I told him about my life as a Buddhist novice in Vietnam, and he wanted it know more and more….We had moments of great happiness and peace together, and the ground of our happiness was true communion and understanding….It is a pleasure for me to write these lines to introduce his book.”

I can’t think of anything lovelier than to be praised by someone who doesn’t see life or faith exactly as you do, but someone who still recognises and has experienced the undeniable evidence of love in your life. What an honour that is, what an example to live up to!