Alive

I've spent the last few days at L'abri, a place that has soothed my soul and set my mind racing with thoughts, ideas, possiblities, hope and that feeling of freefall you get when the world is opened up to be bigger than the one you have been living in. It's easy in the land of Christian bubble to get so used to the language that you forget the concepts behind the language which are so much wider, bigger and more beautiful than we have words for. We constantly need to be working out what we are saying, using different language, allowing others to express things differently as well. Conversation is much more interesting that way, we can be free to ask questions, to not judge based on the right sounding answer, to dig deep into each other complex souls and take joy in the whole experience.

I'd like to issue challenges to any other blog writers whose blogs are full of Christian language, myself included, lets try and play taboo with our posts for a while. Thinking about the language we use to express this relationship with the Creator thing. Try not using words like God, Sin, Gospel, glorious, grace, Christ. Use different language to explain the same concepts. Enjoy the freedom of figuring out what we are really talking about.

At L'abri I was reminded of the reality of just being. Of sometimes breathing being enough, being the only expression of my relationship to the Creator. Of a God who is bigger than I am. I was reminded of the fact that we are most truely human, real and ourselves in relation to Him, and how that doesn't narrow the world down but sets us free to explore the deep and wide delights of being human. Being human is so incredible when you stop to think about it, the complexity of all we are and do is staggering. We can embrace that, swim in it, delight in it and not just express things in the narrowness of our correct language that belongs to our partcular subset of this thing we call Christianity. God is bigger than it all.

There are many thoughts floating down in my head which need to be written, tested and conversed with. For now I'm glad to know that there is no outside when it comes to the Maker. I may run out of the door of my house that I have built for our relationship but He is outside as well as inside. There is no outside of God that I can run to. I am loved and accepted wherever I go because I am his.