07.07.09

the fire’s glow..

Posted in formation at 8:48 am by len

Steve Bell writes,

Burning ember, I remember, love’s first light in me;
I was cold then, like a stone when
I saw your flickering;
Oh what beauty as you drew near me,
I could scarcely see;
Somehow I knew I would be new
In your burning..

Last night I dreamt that I could see a warm glow surrounding me and my friends, and as others joined us they absorbed the warmth and also began to glow. Then I saw something else. It was as if I could see the structure behind reality, like Neo looking down the corridor and seeing light and numbers instead of walls and flesh. I saw the roots of flesh in Spirit, the connection of individuals to God, and then through them life was flowing out to others. It was like watching the living vine as nutrients flowed along the path out to the branches.
When I woke I found myself thinking about something else. I was filled with renewed conviction that the basic pattern of discipleship is a triad – one in the middle with a hand reaching up and a hand reaching down.

We stand on the shoulders, rightly, of those who have gone before. And we are called to faithfully pass on what we have been given. Each one of us should be in a covenantal relationship to someone further along the path, and to some who are nearer the beginning. We should all be both learners, and teachers. This connectedness is the path through which life flows in the body of Christ.

1 Comment

  1. NextReformation » we are what we love.. romantic theology said,

    October 27, 2009 at 12:12 pm

    [...] So we end with theopoetics, because after all there is no way to use mere words to describe the transformative power of love, any more than mere words can describe the lover’s experience of the beloved. So we use word-pictures and rhyme and music, because poetry and music help words take flight, and the experience of love is both rooted and wild and words need wings to approximate it. We end up in the Song of Songs, or in the poetry of St. John of the Cross, or in a modern version of it as offered by Steve Bell (”Burning Ember“) or Bruce Cockburn, [...]