Friday

The Weaving of Life - a response to the shootings in Christchurch.

A woven butterfly on my evening dress which creates new
beauty after the sleeve was damaged by moths.
We must try to understand
the meaning of the age
in which we are called to bear witness.We must accept the factthis is an age in whichthe cloth is being unwoven.It is therefore no good tryingto patch. 
We must, rather,
set up the loom on which

coming generations may
weave new cloth according to
the pattern God provides.




Mother Mary Clare, The Sisters of the Love of God (Anglican community founded in Oxford 1967).

Today we heard about the deaths of 49 people in the mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand. In a world that seems to become more and more chaotic, we feel sorrow and send love and prayers and healing and yet, it is so tempting to think that it is hopeless, that we can do nothing tangible to help the world to heal.

There's the environment too ... and knife crime ... and (dare I mention it?) Brexit. Seemingly chaos everwhere.

And yet... and yet... Things break so that we can look inside them.

I'm about to go to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to a conference on The Universal Christ - Another Name for Everything, led by Fr. Richard Rohr, John Dominic Crossnan and Jacqui Lewis. About 1800 of us will gather to hear that Christ is not Jesus' surname; that Christ is not limited to Christianity - that Christ is the whole process of creation and that every single one of us is a part of it. Christ began with the creation of the Universe and is one with every rock, plant and being in it. The whole purpose of creation is for God to give birth and all of creation is that baby.

In Jewish mysticism, that baby is called Adam Kadmon, the Primordial Being. Each of us is one cell in the body of this Divine baby. And so are the creatures and so is the land and the sea and the sky and the stars. We will all become perfect, one day. Not for a while yet... And then the baby will be born and the process of creation fulfilled. What happens then? Who knows! Let's deal with now.

This teaching within Christianity is a radical awakening (and much needed) and a shattering of the vessel that has trapped and made exclusive a profound perennial teaching. WE ARE ALL CHRIST. We are called to follow Jesus' teachings and example not to worship him or make a religion out of him. Most of us are damaged, weak, disbelieving Christs who haven't come anywhere near our full potential yet, but we are being called ... and called again ... to pick up that yoke and walk this world as if we were Christ.

As Teresa of Avila put it so beautifully: "Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours”

So what do we do? We WEAVE.

To use a metaphor from the Book of Proverbs and from many teachings of the world's faiths, it is all about weaving.


Dr. Margaret Barker teaches that the early chuch father, Origen, in his Greek translation of the Hebrew of Genesis 1.1 states, 'by means of the net, God created the heavens and the earth.' 

Jewish mysticism also teaches that all of creation is a tapestry, known as the Pargod, woven by all of creation. Each of us is a thread and each of us is vital to that weave. God is the loom and weaves the warp and we weave the weft. We can choose to create holes through anger and fear if we choose, but someone else will always re-weave them to recreate the pattern.

The shooter in Christchurch, other killers and people of cruelty have torn holes in the weft of creation but the Universal Christ - God's weave - remains. It is our work constantly to re-weave that weft. It is what we are here to do.

We weave it through our sorrow and our tears. We re-weave it with our blessings and our hope. We
re-weave it with good works and deeds, with a gentle hand on someone's shoulder; with a listening ear. We also look through the broken pieces to see the complete beauty of the warp still strong, still sound, still open and receptive to our new weaving.

So weave today, please. Weave as the Christ-Consciousness that you are (even if only in potential!). Weave by loving, by creating beauty, by honouring our Mother the Earth. By knitting or crochetting something beautiful, by drawing or writing or painting. By planting a seed, by cooking a delicious meal, by stroking a pet, by smiling at a stranger, by making love rather than having sex, by listening... By doing anything you possibly can do today which is both Universal and creative. It is that simple to be an essence of the Christ Consciousness. It does all count; it does all matter. It is a part of the weave.

Judaic mysticism teaches that humanity as a species is still very young: approximately two years old. We are still having tantrums and breaking our toys and fighting 'the other.' But we are in it for the long haul. We will learn; we will heal. The Universal Christ will be born one day. And every one of us is a part of that great, sacred journey.


She stretches out her hands to the distaff, And her hands grasp the spindle. Proverbs 31:19.

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