After a few months of blogging absence I feel urged on by some restlessness. My reflections on church and the life together we seek to establish are still dominating though less specific to my concern today. I am slightly more pre-occcupied with the questions that are thrown up by spending time 'away' from my spiritual home (which means the presence of God everywhere!).


If I have not been at home, this does not mean I have not been living at my normal address (though I have been on holiday). A clear connection is established for me between actual physical place and the presence of God in a particular way. This can only be true if God is especially present through others that are significant. So being away from home in the sense I am exploring does not mean being away from my home (where God normally lives, which is palpably nonsense) but being distant from the relationships with which God blesses me with the spirit of his Son, the Spirit of Jesus (which Bonhoeffer notes is always stronger in the heart of the other).



So back to church, christian community etc. I enter back into the dialogue and frustration of debate with those whom I love but with whom I seem to disagree on some fairly serious matters. But I trust that we are building community together, in the power of the Holy Spirit and the wisdom of the loving Father. I may yet have to express hard opinions and likely listen humbly to rebuke myself, but I determine that the love of God is greater than life.