Owing to a conjunction of unlikely circumstances, we weren’t able to meet at the scheduled time last Sunday. We weren’t able to meet at all.
Which led me to reflect on two ideas: what do we feel and do when things don’t happen as we hope or expect? And why do we meet at all?
At the moment, I’m reading a book by a contemporary buddhist teacher, in which it is suggested that sometimes it’s easier to know what to do when a really drastic thing happens, then when it’s a small thing that doesn’t go as expected. After all, if a person is physically hurt, you get them to a medic. When water is pouring out of a burst pipe, you find a plumber. But when a friend is late for a coffee, or the baker hasn’t reserved your bread order, there are a range of different things that can be done. That range of choice can itself be paralysing. And the choice we do make can reveal to us some truth or other about ourselves.
The buddhist teacher reminds me that we shouldn’t measure the quality of our lives through the big, drastic events. After all, nearly everyone will help others under emergency situations. Nearly everyone will rise to the need. Whereas fewer of us react in a consistently graceful manner to the ordinary little grinds of life. Yet if we can’t negotiate our way successfully, generously, humbly, through the little things that “go wrong” (if indeed that is a truthful way of describing them), then the occasional flash of emergency kindness and compassion, no matter how profound or far reaching, will not compensate.
Integrity, “one-through-ness”, is a quality of the best lives. People are sterling who can be relied upon, who can be trusted, because they behave in the same style no matter the circumstances or context. People are loved who don’t succumb to the stress of the moment, thus revealing a different side to themselves. People who have integrity are able to live consistently owing to the hard work they put in, even when out of sight, to not being upset whatever comes, be it trivial, small or large.
And so we, who were affected by the non-meeting last Sunday, reflected on how we reacted when it became apparent that our gathering last Sunday was not to take place after all.
And, then, why were we to meet at all? Why des anyone go to any kind of church these days? I have just read the conclusions of some recent research by the United Reformed Church (a Christian church). The research found that most non-Christians (61%) know a practising Christian. They like them, and think they are caring, good-humoured and friendly. A family member of mine, who is atheist and living in Spain, spent some time musing with me about a friend who is conservatively Roman Catholic, and who with his wife takes all the family to Mass every Sunday. This Spanish chap, whilst being wealthy and positionally powerful in his work, is also one of the most patient and unassuming people. Do people go to church because they get made good there? Or, put perhaps more disparagingly, do they go because they get something there that makes them feel good about themselves? Or is it that there is something helpful in the discipline of entering into a commitment with others, and sticking with it, trying again and again, session by session (not necessarily in a weekly rhythm), whether the point is immediately obvious or not? If nothing else, surely we get more patient because our personal sharp edges are rubbed off as we roll along together, time after time?
We haven't actually talked about it. So I can only guess that we each have decided inwardly that something about gathering together does us good. Something about being with other non-saints. Something about being with others who get cross-tempered and frustrated, others who get bored and struggle to hide it, others who are exhausted from the week’s labours, others who are fighting a physical pain, others who can find nothing to smile about, others who are having a really good patch, others who are just living a run-of-the-mill un-noteworthy routine. Somehow the sharing of experiences and resonances; the sight of others coping where we ourselves have not perhaps coped quite so well; the chance to offer some warmth and a smile where someone so clearly lacks them; the simple, repeated, showing-up that we each do for each other; somehow these are the things that sometimes matter most about a community of faith.
Sometimes our faith is in each other alone. Sometimes our faith is centred on the way of the universe/multiverse. Sometimes our faith is in a woolly notion, such as a love, a clarity, an order that somehow underpins everything there is or could be. Sometimes our faith is in the act of exchange that incontrovertibly takes place, without us ever quite understanding what it is or how it happens. Sometimes our faith is that there is faith at all.
But one way or another, we meet in faith. We bring ourselves, and we get changed by our gathering. Even if we cannot say anything more insightful, we meet to express our faith in the internal change we experience. And we express our faith by being constant, as we try to have that integrity that makes us equally patient, generous, warm, sensible, responsive and yes compassionate, wherever we are, whether we are in other people’s sight or not.
