Thinking Anew: The buoyancy of hope

The excellent series Scottish Islands shown recently on RTÉ 2 provided an opportunity to enjoy the amazing natural beauty of those distant rugged places. For the Russian theologian Nicolas Berdyaev such moments speak to deeper truths: “For every bit of beauty in this world, the beauty of man, of nature, of a work of art, is a partial transfiguration of this world, a creative break through to another.” For Ben Fogle, the programme presenter, this was a spiritual journey as he explored the religious traditions of the inhabitants, past and present.

In the Shetlands he visited an island called Papa Stour, Papey Stóra in Old Norse, meaning big island of the priests. Missionary Celtic priests are thought to have settled there as early as the sixth century. There Fogle met Andy and Sabina Holy-Brook, who in their younger days had been members of the New Age movement living in England but who, years previously, decided to “escape” and find somewhere quiet to live by the sea, closer to nature. That brought them to Papa Stour. They were not deeply religious until one day, out of the blue, Sabina had what she described as “an amazing encounter with Jesus”; it was beyond words. In the past she had felt that Christianity had “too much baggage” but now realised that “Jesus is what is important.”

Churches struggle to manage personal faith journeys of this kind. We are more at ease when everyone appears to be “singing from the same hymn sheet”, even though that is almost certainly an illusion. Experiences are personal and transitory. If I stand close by another person to watch waves crashing on the rocks, what I see will be slightly different to what my companion sees because we are viewing from a different angle, however slight the difference. We see the same wave, but differently. That is especially true of religious experience.

According to Bishop George Appleton a diversity of religious belief is something churches will increasingly have to contend with. In Journey of a Soul, he argues that people are no longer prepared to take their faith from the tradition in which they were born nor from other people. “They want to deduce it from their own experience of life. They do not need theories, but the experience which will be the source of their own interpretation. They are suspicious of anything which seems to escape from life into theory, from experience into doctrine, or from the thing itself into talk about it.”

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In tomorrow’s gospel we read the story of the Transfiguration when “Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.” We are told the disciples sought to “freeze” the experience; that Peter suggested to Jesus that they should “make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” It’s as if he wanted to institutionalise the experience, hold on to what he had experienced forever. The moment passed, however, and, we are told, when it was over “they looked up (and) saw no one except Jesus.” The disciples and the church today with Sabina must realise that “Jesus is what is important.”

Martin Luther, a flawed man in some ways, was certain of the reality of God and its significance for everyday life: “Seek God and discover him and make him a power in your life. Without him all our efforts turn to ashes and our sunrises into darker nights. Without him, life is a meaningless drama with the decisive scenes missing. But with him we are able to rise from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope. With him we are able to rise from the midnight of desperation to the daybreak of joy. Saint Augustine was right - we were made for God and we will be restless until we find our rest in him.”