Output.iv

Now then.

I can't post this without acknowledgement of Glen's blog Nah then, but sadly the two have nothing to do with each other beyond their similar sounding titles, so i'll move on.

College retreat, an age ago now, was all about the sacramentalism of the present moment. I've long thought that the only things we really have are moments and memories, so the topic and mode of the retreat wasn't difficult for me to grasp. As far as the idea of a given moment being sacramental is concerned, that also was something that sat quite comfortably.

I always really struggle with the idea of sacrament, largely because of the particularity with which people identify that which is sacramental and that which is not. Even more so when the definition offered is along the lines of 'an act in which God promises her presence and by which his grace is outworked' - my response is always 'oh, so that's only every breath i take then?'. Suffice to say i take a low view of sacramentalism, or, to be more accurate, i take a very high view of the whole of life.

In relation to 'The Now' i had one thought going round-and-round my head which i couldn't get away from, but which seemed largely self-gratifying, pseudo-philosophical, pointlessly whispy twaddle. It was that either The Now is everything; it's all we have - the future doesn't exist yet and the past is gone. Or there is no such thing as The Now at all because of how fine the line between the past and the future is (if it exists at all) means it's impossible to inhabit. We simply live a couple of beats in the past with an eye on the future.

I couldn't work out which of the two perspectives to take, but more importantly, i couldn't work out a way in which either of them mattered; they had no effect and made no difference - and yet it seemed to me that there must be something in it. The following week Kez was preaching from John 12.20-33 where Jesus speaks about his forthcoming death. All the language is 'now...this hour...' etc even in reference to judgement. It does seem as though Jesus' emphasis is in relation to the idea of The Now being everything, inclusive of it being the place where our eschatology is achieved - it also being the place of the Kingdom of God (if we dare play our part now). Of course, from our contemporary view point that 'now' has become a 'then' and so a whole linear take on time is reduced, or at least threatened.

So indeed, as far as the gospel is concerned, the time is now, while it also remains true that (to quote Magnolia) "as the book says, we may be through with the past, but the past isn't through with us".