Supernatural

“The heavens are telling the glory of God… day after day pours forth speech…” (Psalm 19)

Supernatural… The other evening I was in an interview and I was asked what I understood by the idea ‘supernatural’ ! Now I knew how I was supposed to answer but for a few moments my mind went blank. I was stuck ‘between’. I was thinking, “Why can’t I say something ?” Then in the expectant silence I realized I had moved on.

In the West we make a distinction between the natural and the supernatural worlds. The natural world is that which is – those identifiable rhythms that are part of the whop and weave of everyday life. The supernatural, on the other hand, implies a rather more occasional intervention on the part of a rather more distant God, like something from the twilight zone.

The problem with this dualism is that from our rational scientific viewpoint the supernatural becomes a rather exceptional blip on the horizon… a way of explaining the unexplainable. The supernatural ends up becoming a test for the true believers… those who embrace the superstitious and the magical !

Yet the Scriptures continually speak of the ‘Godness’ of the world… the intimate care and ultimate involvement God has with us and around us. I like what the prophet Hosea says. He says, “Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord; for his appearing is as sure as the dawn”.

The possibility of knowing God isn’t exceptional. It is certainly God’s initiative but his ‘appearing’, his presence resonates with the rhythms of the natural world itself. That God would make himself known, that God would make himself available to us is as sure and consistent and wondrously filled with possibility as a new day dawning. There is nothing supernatural about that but it’s certainly not ordinary either.

The idea of responding in awe and wonder is the idea of heightened awareness of being overwhelmed by moments, by experiences, by phenomena, by encounters that are supercharged. But isn’t that the journey of a disciple… the idea of perceiving the world with new eyes and new ears ?  This is an intensifying of everyday experience. In God’s reality the world sparkles & glistens… it is all supernatural !

Outwards and downwards.

Unless You Become Like Children

Becoming like a child… Recently, I had the opportunity to sit and listen to my wife explain to my 4 year old son – Dawson – about the mysteries of communion…

With children everything is so literal… When Dawson started eating the wafer, he turns to my wife and says, “This doesn’t taste like Jesus’ body !” And Elizabeth quietly explains, “No… it’s not meant to taste like Jesus body… it helps us to remember him.” To which Dawson replies, “I can’t remember Jesus’ body because I don’t know what he looks like !” Elizabeth starts becoming more directive, “Look up at the Cross and imagine Jesus on the Cross”. So Dawson looks up at the Cross for a bit and then he turns to my wife and says, “I’m just going to remember him as a circle !”

A little while later the little cups of juice were given out and I see my wife take a breath. Before Dawson drinks he is asking, “Is this going to taste like blood ?” To which Elizabeth replies, “No, it will taste like juice”. “What kind of juice ?” asks Dawson. Elizabeth answers patiently, “Grape juice !” And Dawson says, “No, I want apple juice.”

‘Unless you change and become like children you can never enter the Kingdom of heaven…’ 

Hasidic Storytelling

One morning, the Rabbi was walking through an uninhabited region with his disciples. “I am thirsty,” complained one of the young men, “I am burning, I am dying of thirst.”

The countryside was like a desert. There was no sign of water anywhere.

“Don’t worry !” said the Rabbi, “When God created the world, He saw your thirst as well as its remedy.”

Shortly afterwards they came upon a peasant. He was balancing two pails of water on his shoulders.

“My Lord has gone mad,” grumbled the peasant, “this morning he sent me here to walk backwards and forwards with this load of water – just like that, for no reason at all.”

“You see,” said the Rabbi to the thirsty student, “when God created the world, He arranged all this madness, so you might quench your thirst.”