A Lea Valley continuum...

Five of us met at Harpenden yesterday to continue walking the Lea Valley towards Hertford - the next stage. Sarah Holloway from Wheathampstead joined Gerry, Linda, Ann and myself as we soaked in his powerful presence before setting off.


The Holy Spirit spoke to us of repression and blankets, moth holes and purses.


Walking, our conversation turned to the new things Father is doing with his people and how we might pull his imagined future more into the present by our walking. Is it even possible to touch what he plans? Our hearts enlarged with faith as the warm ruach of Aslan comes again - blown through and on to the people of God in our time.

In a time of exilic-like difficulty, as Jesus' ekklesia begins to recognise her identity as the intended Bride, Sarah and her husband, have, like Jeremiah, sown into the poorest soil, both financially and emotionally. We too sowed and for Jeremiah's reasons. We liberally sowed the glory dust he's given us, pouring out all we have to rip up the gridlines of domination long laid down in this land. We're walking the fracture of the Danelaw that has divided our nation but within that fracture are to be found the burning jewels of his kingdom...in the midst of death we are in life!

We admitted ourselves perplexed at the God-blindness in our nation. But then I read words like this...

"...it was a delight therefore to meet two believers there, one a Pakistani, who spoke the language of those who are not overwhelmed by the odds which appear to be stacked against them but are awed by the incredible opportunities that sit on their doorstep. These are the people that gateway places need..."

Great prophetic imagination is required not to be overwhelmed...to see our time as an opportunity to change ancient mindsets and demonstrate love to the loveless.   But God! 

In this unbelieving generation (where have I heard that before?) time seems to have to accelerate to keep up with God's kingdom which must be taken by force (Matthew 11).  The wild ones, secure in God's love, give us hope.    Talking of the prophetic voices of artists and poets, like Tracey Emin, generally vilified by the church, who articulate a deep lament, opening a door to reality as we grieve, we recognise we're still in that pre-exilic season where grief has to happen.

But we rejoice as we walk our beautiful land - here a Hertfordshire path.

Which is real? Is the true reality the unseen that is so close...the rush of hope that comes as God draws back the curtain between and we come into where he dwells.  Aaah, the dazzling dark beauty cloud of his presence and glory.    Henry Vaughn said this:

There is in God (some say)
A deep, but dazzling darkness; as men here
Say it is late and dusky, because they
See not all clear;
O for that night! where I in him
Might live invisible and dim.

Here, by the River Lea...Sarah, Jane and Ann.

We've been embracing the darkness of his embers, gathering up the wildfire and throwing his dazzling glory dust wherever we've walked.

Our acknowledgement of what is real breaks open and draws us beyond the veil to revelation of what God can do.