The Pilgrim's Saved Progress

Please note: the following article contains some spoilers for the videogames Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture and Horizon Zero Dawn.

As both a Christian and a gamer, one of the things I find particularly fascinating is the point where these two disparate areas of my life intersect.  There are plenty of websites and blogs dedicated to Christian responses to and interaction with the video game industry and, contrary to what some might expect, it’s not all Jack Thomson-esque ‘Violent Vidjagame’ rants.  There is a sizeable community of Christian gamers on the internet and, seeing both their faith and their gaming as important parts of their identity, they like to explore how they interact in their lives and what Christianity might have to say about gaming as a hobby; about the types of gameplay on offer or the stories games tell.  Sites like Game Church and Geeks Under Grace often explore this side of things and, though I don’t visit them much, I too like to ponder what my faith has to say about my hobby.  In particular, and especially in the last few years, I’ve been thinking about the idea of ‘pilgrimage’ in video games and it surprised me to find that there doesn’t seem to have been a lot of discussion on this topic across the internet, so far.

According to Wikipedia, “a pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, after which the pilgrim returns to their daily life.”  It’s a kind of adventure, a temporary stepping outside of ordinary life often, but not always, with a destination or goal in mind.  It does not have to be religious - indeed there’s a growing market for secular pilgrimages focussing on mental health and wellbeing.

Based on the above definition, many video games are already about pilgrimages of one kind or another.  A hero is chosen to go on a quest that takes them out of an otherwise less-than-thrilling existence and, through the course of that journey, revelations unfold before them, lessons are learned, powers are gained, etc. etc..  Sometimes this even takes the form of an actual pilgrimage, like in Final Fantasy X where your characters all accompany Yuna, the summoner, who must visit each of the temples of the Fayth in Spira, to beseech their aid in defeating the monster Sin.

Often, as indeed is the case in Final Fantasy X, the pilgrimage structure is actually subverted with the intent of saying something negative about organised religion or about spirituality in general, or just to provide an exciting (if now rather predictable) twist in the narrative.  Even then, in a lot of cases, the actual revelations themselves are far from profound and the whole experience is built more on having fun than on any kind of self-improvement or spiritual development.  And that’s fine.  That is what games are for.  But I believe they can often be so much more, whether they intend to be or not.

Before I look at some specific examples of games where I think this is the case, however, I’d like to look at another concept, related to the concept of pilgrimage, which I think captures even more closely what video games can be.  That concept is peregrinatio, a Latin phrase meaning to travel abroad, but used by Augustine of Hippo in the 4th century to refer to a way he thought Christians should journey through life, as those who are sojourning away from their homeland, rather than comfortably situated within it already.  The Celtic church took the term and used it even more specifically: peregrinatio pro amore Christi - journeying for the love of Christ.  As Esther de Waals described it in her book The Celtic Way of Prayer: The Recovery of the Religious Imagination, the Celtic peregrinatio is a “seeking, quest, adventure, wandering, exile”.  It is this concept that led so many Celtic figures, like St. Columbanus and St. Aidan, to leave their homelands and travel to spread the word of Christ, founding new Christian communities across the British Isles and beyond.  Another Celtic saint, St. Brendan the Navigator, even left behind a fantastical (and probably allegorical) journey narrative as his legacy - one which could make a fascinating premise for a game in its own right  - so committed was he to the idea of setting out and letting God lead the way.

The Celtic idea of peregrinatio permeates Celtic Christianity, such that journeys, both physical and spiritual, hold special significance and there are many Celtic prayers dedicated to the idea of journeying with God.  When looking at the medium of video games, I wonder if a virtual journey might not also hold such significance.

So what examples do I have of virtual pilgrimages?  What have been my digital peregrinationes?  Well, the most obvious example that comes to mind is Thatgamecompany’s masterpiece, Journey.  A very simple game with a wordless story about a mystical journey up a mountain, Journey is a game about pilgrimage.  The exact nature and purpose of the pilgrimage are obscure, told only through images the player finds in shrine-like locations at the end of each level, but over the course of the titular journey, you gradually build up a power of mystical light that allows you to float through the air for longer and longer periods, enabling you to reach more complicated platforming elements and to interact with a series of surreal, fabric (or scripture)-like beings who aid you on your travels.

You can also meet and play along with other players playing the same level at the same time as you.  These meetings are not pre-arranged and you have no control over them.  Neither are you able to communicate with the other player through any means other than your own character’s movement through the world and through the ‘speaking’ of bright glyphs of light, the meaning of which is… whatever you want them to be.  In these simple interactions, whilst surrounded by beautiful locations, strong environmental storytelling and the stirring, emotive music of composer Austin Wintory, the game brings out the sense of wonder and attachment one finds in travelling with others, even those we do not know when it is done for the same sacred purpose.

And, like the title suggests, Journey, just like many pilgrimages, is really about the journey, not the destination - to the point that when you complete the game and reach the destination in the midst of bright light and jubilant harmony, the game takes you right back to the beginning to do it all over again.  This idea of the journey itself being the significant part runs right through the idea of peregrinatio and it has become a feature of many pilgrimages, something we can see coming through even as far back as the Canterbury Tales, where a pilgrimage journey, rather than a particular place or time, is the backdrop for all of its varied stories.

Which brings me to my next category of games, the so-called ‘walking simulator’ and specifically the Chinese Room’s seminal example Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture.  The title might lead you to suspect that it has a Christian theme from the off, but, if anything, that’s a red herring, at least on any surface evaluation of the game.

In Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, you wander around the deserted English village of Yaughton and its surrounding countryside, witnessing scenes from the recent past played out in silhouettes of golden light and slowly unravelling the series of events that lead to the village’s deserted state, eventually making your way to the place where all the events began, an observatory on the edge of the village.  It is a very haunting, peaceful and reflective game.  There is nothing one might consider action and you are almost entirely passive in your reception of the story, choosing only which paths you take around the location.  The soundtrack, by the excellent Jessica Curry, is a mixture of orchestral swells and English choral music and, combined with the beautiful countryside views, it lends the game a further emotional and meditative filter.  Even without the story, therefore, Everybody’s Gone… has the feeling of a kind of spiritual journey, and I personally found it to be an enriching and deeply moving experience.

There is an interpretation of the story which I found on the internet, however, that adds another layer to this spiritual perception of the game.  Through the course of the game you learn about how an alien presence referred to only as the Pattern, and appearing as the golden light you’ve been witnessing, had made its way into Yaughton and begun affecting and eventually disappearing all of the village’s inhabitants.  It’s certainly possible to view the Pattern as a malevolent alien force and the disappearances as acts of murder, but this isn’t how one character in the story - an American scientist who is an alien of another sort in this quiet English village - views the events.  For her, the Pattern is something beautiful and being united with the Pattern is not just desirable, but the ultimate way to be.  These two different attitudes to the Pattern are similar to attitudes you may find to the idea of God and Heaven, but there’s more to this spiritual interpretation than just that.

Throughout the game, you witness again and again how, before it ‘takes’ people, the Pattern brings out the conflicts and struggles of that person’s life and, from a certain point of view, resolves them.  It is, essentially, bringing about a kind of confession and reconciliation, analogous to the actions of the Spirit in Christian Theology, such that the person’s eventual acceptance and disappearance is not all that unlike a kind of Christian rapture after all.  This interpretation of the story, combined with the laidback exploration of Yaughton turns this virtual journey into a spiritual experience, a kind of digital peregrinatio, if approached with the right mindset.  And, as will all such journeys, it leaves you with a lot to ponder and reflect upon afterwards, something I still find myself doing, especially when listening again to its beautiful soundtrack.

Though Everybody's Gone… has a definite endpoint and goal, just like with Journey, it is the journey itself, the experiences you have along the way and that you take with you as you move on, that is really important.  This idea of experiencing a journey is especially important in the next category of games I will look at: open-world games.

In an open-world game, the game opens up a massive area and allows you the freedom to explore and stray from the path towards the next main objective, choosing instead to follow sidequests, hunt collectables or just enjoy the scenery.  When I suggested to someone that open-world games might be particularly important to the idea of pilgrimage in video games I was exploring, they said that they thought they would be particularly unsuitable because they are always distracting you away from the main task, but, I would argue, that is precisely what makes them some of the best candidates for this kind of virtual/spiritual experience.  In an open-world game, you are given the chance to make your own goals and to choose to experience the game world in spite of, or at the expense of, rather than dictated by, the game’s narrative or gameplay loops.  This enables a more meditative experience and the option to overlay what the game already provides with your own spiritual reflection.

At this point, it is worth considering how we might meditate and reflect on art generally.  Paintings have often been the object of or inspiration for spiritual reflection.  One can gaze on a beautiful painting - especially if it is of a religious subject, but even if not - and appreciate the ideas it contains, the creative talent that bore it and the God that lies behind all such creativity and beauty.  Video games need be no different, except that, often, they create an experience we can actually inhabit in a much more direct way than with a static artwork.  On top of this, they often utilise the creative talents of worldbuilders, those with the skill to create fictional realities that excite us and in which we can believe, if only for a time.  Worldbuilding, it should go without saying, is a creative talent particularly close, in certain ways, to the creative act of God Himself and the one, in my opinion, which depends most on that existing creation.  Thus, reflecting on the vistas of an open-world game is both similar to reflecting on any other work of art and also to reflection on creation itself, such as we might do during a physical pilgrimage.

For an example, I’ve picked a game I’ve only recently finished playing: Horizon Zero Dawn, in which you play a young woman named Aloy in a post-apocalyptic world of primitive tribes and massive, animal-like machines.  The game’s story takes Aloy on a massive journey across the remains of the American midwest and deals with the themes of multiculturalism, environmentalism, religion and identity and the dangers of technology.  In the course of the rich and often tragically haunting story, you learn that much of how the world appears in Aloy’s time is down to a complex terraforming AI which has rebuilt life on earth after manmade machines wiped it out entirely. Aloy’s home tribe have essentially mythologised this AI into a mother goddess, but Aloy, in a quest to learn who she really is, must learn the truth for herself.  This lends the game a kind of pilgrimage feel, as Aloy’s journey takes her to the ruined “shrines” and “temples” of this AI’s history in her efforts to understand that history and, in the process, put an end to a digital “demon” that threatens all life on earth.

On your way to these discoveries, however, you can also just explore the world and, whilst it is often fraught with danger, it has a breathtaking beauty and is permeated by the kind of stillness that one can only find in the natural world.  Reflecting on the artificial creation of this world, both in real life and in the terms of the narrative leads me to reflect on the creation of the real world, to appreciate all the more how it has come into being and to worship the creator who enabled that to happen.  Journeying through Horizon’s forests, deserts and mountainscapes also gave me the time and space to reflect on other things as well and, with things spiritual in mind, any trip into that world can become part of life’s peregrinatio.

There are other titles I could talk about which have been or contained elements of meaningful pilgrimages for myself, but about which I don’t have time to go into detail.  Games like ABZȖ, made by one of the designers who worked on Journey and with music by the same composer, which creates a mystical underwater journey of startling beauty and, with its environmentally-told story of a quest for a mystical, life-giving water (the abzȗ of the title) is full of spiritual metaphor.  Or like SOMA, an existential horror game set in the ruins of an underwater research station, which I played when I was just starting to understand that I might have an anxiety disorder.  The philosophical questions it posed about the nature of existence and human consciousness turned it into an unlikely pilgrimage of its own, one I found I desperately needed to complete.

Of course, none of these games is necessarily a true pilgrimage unless you make it so.  There needs to be intentionality to your approach to exploring their worlds and pondering on their meaning.  You could just take it all at face value, enjoy the experience and move on, and there would be nothing wrong with that per se, but if instead, you choose to inhabit their worlds and savour their beauty, to put yourself wholly inside the experience, bringing your own past experience and spirituality with you, then they have the potential to be far more than the sum of their parts and an opportunity - particularly relevant for those of us in various stages of lockdown - to experience the pilgrim’s journey from our living rooms.  The escapism they allow need not be an escape from the things that matter, but an escape from the business of life into something more profound: escape to a place where we can find refreshment for our souls.

On Priesthood

As part of the process of discernment - working through a sense of calling to the priesthood of the Church of England - I'm encouraged to read quite a lot and reflect on the things I've read.  Sometimes those reflections are little more than introspective book reviews, sometimes they go a little deeper and, sometimes, the best way to express how I've reflected on something I've read is through poetry.  Such is the case with my most recently read book, On Priesthood: Servants, Shepherds, Messengers Sentinels and Stewards, by Stephen Cottrell, Bishop of Reading.  As an examination of what it means to be a Priest in the Anglican tradition, it's really quite excellent, but one thing that stood out to me was Bishop Stephen's inclusion of poetry produced by those about to be ordained.  He emphasises the power of poetry as prayer and, as such, I thought it would be the best way to reflect on the book as a whole.  Here, then, is On Priesthood, my poetic response.

Faithful guardian of the flock

Entrusted,

Who leads,

Who protects,

Who guides and enables.

One who ripens the fruit

In others,

So the harvest may be gathered

In the world.

Faithful herald of the word

Delivered,

Who speaks,

Who teaches,

Who questions and provokes.

One who sows the seed

In each soil,

So the harvest may be gathered

In the world.

Faithful keeper of the mysteries

Revealed,

Who receives,

Who kindles,

Who treasures and polishes.

One who tends the fields

With care,

So the harvest may be gathered

In the world.

Faithful watcher of the horizons

Opened,

Who sees,

Who ponders,

Who reads and interprets.

One who quietly observes

The clouds

So the harvest may be gathered

In the world.

Faithful servant of the Lord

Humbled/Exalted,

Who waits,

Who loves,

Who empowers and lifts up.

One who gleans the sheaves

For the struggling,

So the harvest may be gathered

In the world.

Encouragements

This blog would have originally been published in May of 2014. For reasons I can't quite recall - perhaps because it was too personal - it never was, but the reading it now there are things it says which speak to me even six years later, so I publish it now as an artefact, as a memory, as a lesson.

Today marks two weeks since we debuted the Aberdeen Passion 2014 and began an unforgettable and intense two day experience of God's goodness, mercy and love as a diverse family of actors, singers, musicians and production crew. It has been a long two weeks.

Never before, to my recollection, have I experienced such a dramatic shift between an ecstatic high and a melancholic low. I went from the certain, emboldening, relational and joyous experience of God's Kingdom life, to being uncertain, afraid, lonely and sad and as each low day dragged into the next I realised that it wasn't really passing, certainly not in the way I had expected it to.

I was anxious much of the time, desperate to make human connections, especially with those who had had the same great experience and might be feeling something similar. I stayed glued to Facebook, feeding off the short-lived excitement of another comment or like, another photo posted. In between, especially in work, I would be hit by waves of apathy or despair. I relived moments from the play, both on stage and off, and mourned the fact that I was back in the real world, no longer doing something I loved with people I felt a connection to.

I cried. A lot. And a lot more than anyone knew.

And in the midst of this I knew God was with me. At first it was in the kind words of those who saw the Passion and wanted to thank us for our part in it. To a certain extent this was only to be expected, but people were so generous with their praise, it was more than I had truly anticipated.

Then it was in the way that, whilst I was worrying about leading services in my home church - and particularly praying in front of the congregation (something I've spoken about at length) - I had a couple of people telling me how much they enjoyed my prayers (specifically) and found them helpful, something even more have done since I actually led those services last weekend.

And there have been other encouragements too. In a week in which I had, in my desperation to connect, flaunted myself on social media, I never received anything but kind words. The song lyrics I had stuck in my head from the Passion turned out to contain the exact reminders I needed before leading services on Sunday. The sermon that evening was on Hope and Suffering and how, as Christians, we can and should live authentic lives where we do not lie about how we feel (part of the inspiration for this blog). This month's minister's letter was just a long list of encouraging verses. I've had specific verses (Jeremiah 29:11 foremost amongst them) lodged in my head since this began and my bible reading notes have led me through the end of the exodus, reminding me of God's faithfulness and his good plans for us.

I have been surrounded by blessings, from the weather this morning to the smiles on my family's faces when I come home each day. I have fewer reasons to doubt God is with me and on my side than ever before.

And yet I have railed at Him and questioned him. I have called Him cruel and hard. I have tried to cling to Him as to a rock in a storm and, because I was still getting wet, have doubted Him. I have been vain and selfish and inconsiderate of the pain of others. I have been a very poor witness.

These two realities have run alongside each other, each with a claim on me, but one has weakened with time, whilst the other has seemed to strengthen as I have paid it more attention.

I've used the past tense so far, but the truth it is it not yet over. I am still riding a low point, if not as bad a before. I am still prone to bouts of anxiety, or melancholy. I still have moments when I just want to cry. The waves of despair have mostly passed, but they left behind the flotsam dredged from the depths of my own personal abyss. I have always been susceptible to times of mild depression and anxiety is no stranger. These are facets of who I am, of the chemistry of my brain and they will not go away so easily. The aftermath of the Passion had unsettled the balance and I have to deal with that. The point here, however, is that I do not have to do so alone. God has remained by my side throughout, patiently waiting for me to turn to Him, to cry out, even to shout at Him, so that He can put His and around me.

The encouragement is that, far from being distant in our suffering, God is right there with us. And that helps. It is not a miracle cure. Though I belive such is possible, our witness is sometimes the greater in the long term because we've faced pain with God, rather than avoiding it through him, and so we carry on and cling to the one beside us.

Our Father

As part of my discernment journey, and exploring my understanding of liturgy, was asked to rewrite the Lord's Prayer in my own words. I really wanted to write it more poetically, to see if I could explore some aspects of my interpretation on they prayer in lyrical detail. The result is something between a poem and a psalm.

Our Father.

To Him who holds us in His arms

Like newborns; separate one,

Never distant one, may your name

Be held with with reverence, awe and fear;

Weighty, precious and unyielding:

Holy, holy, holy - God!

Though sovereign, reveal your sovereignty;

Though majestic, unveil your majesty:

As the oceans mirror the heavens,

May all bathe in your compassion, love and justice

And so reflect it.

Send us your manna, oh Lord;

Send us quail in the desert of our lives.

Give us honey from the comb

And wash the dust from our skin

As you dress us in white robes

And adorn our fingers with a ring.

May we remember your kindness, Servant King,

Lest we judge others for the dust they, too, tread.

Silence the voices that lure and beguile;

Silence the yearnings within

Which drive us into darkness

And the teeth of wolves.

And when the bramble and nettle lie across our path

May you, oh Shepherd,

Lead us safely back to pasture.

Yours is the crown, the rod and the scepter;

Yours is the strength to action

And your very being is raging fire

And rushing water

And soothing wind.

It has always been thus.

It will ever be so.

Amen.

Grief, Death and New Life

Ezekiel 37: 1-14, John 11: 1-45

The Church of England’s Revised Common Lectionary gives two rather lengthy readings for this Sunday, but, unlike so many such pairings, they have a clear common theme: resurrection.  The passages approach the concept of resurrection in very different ways. In the case of Lazarus’ resurrection, the story is, for the most part, very literal: Jesus raises a man from the dead, although his declaration that He Himself is ‘the resurrection’ takes the concept beyond mere bodily resurrection into the world of spirit and metaphor.  The resurrection vision which Ezekiel sees, however, is not to be taken literally at all.  God Himself explains the meaning of the vision and it’s clear that he is not talking about raising the people of Israel from physical death, but from the spiritual death they feel they are experiencing in exile, or, indeed, the spiritual death that had sent them into exile in the first place.

At this extraordinary time, when everything we do seems strange by context - for most of us, cooped up at home, watching the pandemic grow ever worse in the world outside - and when we are cut off from our traditional concepts of Church, there are a few comforting things that I take from these passages.

Firstly, there is the promise of “the shortest verse in the Bible”, John 11:34, which, in the NRSV linked above is translated ‘Jesus began to weep’.  In the NIV it’s famously just ‘Jesus wept.’  This verse is so often used to point to Jesus’ fragile humanity, how He experienced pain and suffering in incarnation just as all humans must.  At a time when many are anxious and fearful, when so many are losing loved ones very suddenly, when what appears to be a lottery of death hangs all about us, there is comfort in knowing that Jesus weeps, too.  Even knowing what is about to happen to Lazarus, He shares in the suffering of Lazarus’ sisters; He feels their pain as He feels His own at the loss of a friend.  Thus, as we suffer through this pandemic in many ways, we can draw near to Jesus and grieve with Him.

Secondly, there is the promise that death is not the end.  Jesus is the resurrection and the life and, as He says, ‘Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live.’  In Jesus there is hope, even in the face of death and, contrary to how many present it, it is an inclusive hope, one offered to any and all who put their trust in Him.  The only barrier, it seems, is our own decision to do otherwise.

Thirdly, and perhaps most significantly for the majority of us at this moment, there is a promise for the life we live now.  Though we may feel cut off from the Church we love and the familiar patterns of our faith through isolation, though we may feel we are going through a tough and empty time where all the joys of our life have been stripped away and God has never seemed further, though we may be utterly dead in faith and feel unable even to choose to believe in Jesus, the vision of Ezekiel gives us hope.

God is able to bring new life in all its forms and in all its fullness.  As the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 16, 'You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.' God can put flesh on the bones of our life, breath in our bodies and allow us truly to live.  Right now, when we may feel enervated, apathetic or hopeless; that there is little for us worth doing or little we can contribute to our friends, families and communities; that ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely’, God is able to reach down to us in our living death and lift us up to be an army for His purposes.  And that is God’s work, not ours!  We don’t have to pick ourselves up by our bootstraps, nor despair at the work to be done, we just have to trust that God will do His work and thus enable us to serve him effectively.

And so we pray:

Father God,
Thank you that you are with us in our suffering
Through your Son, Jesus Christ,
That you, too weep and grieve,
That, though death may come for us all,
In you it does not have to be the end.
And now, as we struggle to find the energy
To face many days cut off from life as we have known it,
Give us new life and new energy and new faith,
So that we may serve you well now and always.
In the name of Him who weeps with us,
Our saviour, Jesus Christ,
Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
One God, now and forevermore,
Amen.

Going Viral

We live in unprecedented times. Even if one is to look at past pandemics, like the Bubonic Plague, or past events that transformed national life, like World War II, the culture we live in is so far-removed from those times as to make any comparison shallow and unhelpful. The world has never faced anything like this before and to have the very foundations of normality pulled out from under us and life reset to its basic elements is an unsettling thing for many of us. Much discussion has taken place already concerning the nature of the crisis we face and the changes it must wreak upon our lives - after all, many of us don’t have much else to do now we’re locked up in our homes for the majority of the day. I’ve seen discussions about how this will impact our view of economics in the future; how it might alter relationships and our appreciation of friends and family; how it helps us to value the most essential services we are offered in life, like medical care or the provision of groceries. People have made much of our suddenly reduced impact on the environment and, yes, there has been an ongoing conversation about what this means for the Church, which is my concern. With church services across our and many other nations suspended indefinitely and the Archbishop of Canterbury calling on Christians to be Church in a radically different way, I have found myself reflecting on what this might mean. How can the Church be radically different when it cannot meet in any traditional way? What can replace the usual Sunday services or weekly Bible studies? Are there ways to be Church online that we haven’t really explored yet? I am convinced that there are, that the way forward for the Church at this time, and as something that must be ongoing for many of us even when this crisis is over, is to be found in expressing our faith in new creative and practical ways - online for now, but unleashed onto the world as well just as soon as we can leave our homes. I don’t know how this will look in practice, however, and I’m not convinced anyone else really does either. I think, first and foremost, we all need to look at the gifts God has given us and ask ourselves (and God) how we might best use those gifts in our current situation. Only once Christians start to do this en masse will this radical “new” vision for the Church become clear. I put ‘new’ in quotation marks there for a reason. I’ve been hearing talk of new opportunities for the Church, when, actually, what I see are the old paths rarely taken becoming the only options once the well-trodden ways have been closed off to us. I was directed by my ADO to Psalm 137, ‘By the rivers of Babylon…’, and found much there to consider in this current situation. There are obvious comparisons to be made between the Jewish community in exile in Babylon and the Church in exile from its buildings during this pandemic. Certainly, whilst Christians everywhere are greeting this new way of living in very different ways, some of us must be taking this enforced absence from Sunday rituals very badly. Are we sitting down and weeping by the living-room sofa as we remember Holy Communion? It might sound silly put that way, but for some this level of unsettling change will be very upsetting and whatever action the Church takes to continue being God’s people in this strange exile, we must consider how to care for and encourage those who are finding it difficult. Similarly, whether we realise it or not, many of us will be clinging on to old ways of doing things, just as the writer of Psalm 137 seems to be in the second stanza. Certainly, the immediate response to the closing of churches has been to recreate what we know of church online through live-streaming. There’s nothing wrong with that at all and, indeed, it will prove very helpful for many of us, but I am convinced that we will soon discover that that alone does not constitute Church and we may find ourselves longing for something more and grieving what we have lost. The Psalmist, too, laments over the loss of Jerusalem and fears forgetting it as we might fear whether it will ever be the same again after the pandemic has passed. He asks ‘How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?’ and we too must ask ourselves this question. How can we sing the Lord’s song with social-distancing, in self-isolation, in lockdown? The exiled Jews found ways to answer that question. The exile was a period of incredible spiritual growth for the Jewish people, with much scriptural material written and revised during this time as well as many talmudic writings as commentary. Whilst we mustn’t pressure ourselves into doing more than we can in a time which will be trying in lots of unexpected ways - strained relationships, finding time and energy to educate our children, worrying about work and finances, etc. - there is no reason that we too can’t find some time to grow in our spirituality, gaining new insights into scripture, into the way God is working around and through us, learning to love God more and our fellow humans too along the way. Perhaps we will find Psalms like 137 helpful to consider during a time of readjustment. We might at first relate with its picture of fear and sorrow, but by asking its questions, by hurling them at God if necessary, hopefully we can learn to move on. Here I find Romans 12 verses one and two helpful. “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” In the light of our current circumstances, I read this rather differently than I have done in the past. I am very conscious that it is by God’s mercies - the way that he condescends (comes down with us) to be with us in our daily lives - that we might be able to become living sacrifices and live out our faith - our being Church without the usual Sunday worship rituals. Indeed, this verse talks about spiritual worship, which doesn’t require bricks and mortar, or a worship band, or even a preacher, at all. I am reminded also of Hosea 6:6, “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”, or Psalm 51: 16-17, “For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Both speak of relating to and worshipping God outside of the traditional religious practices of the day and so our living sacrifice might also be a living liturgy or a living prayer - turning our lives into the act of worship we are no longer allowed to perform in the way to which we have become accustomed. And that living sacrifice, that liturgy of our lives, is also to be something novel, something transformed and renewed. We need not conform to the patterns of our religious traditions any more than to those of this world. There is much they can teach us of course and much we can borrow and use - I’ve been learning much from exploring Celtic Christianity, for example - but they do not need to constrict us. We have the opportunity now, as we have always had, to worship God and to serve His kingdom in new ways, with new creativity and new love guided by the Spirit. As I see it, the Church is always on the edges of Heaven and Earth, always at the point of standing up, jumping in, taking action. Right now that image is more clear to me than ever before, because all the old patterns we might have fallen back upon have been taken away from us, thus now, now we can perhaps show the world something new and in so doing reveal the most ancient of truths. And so, hopefully, I write these reflections and share them publicly in ways I might not a few weeks ago, because this situation emboldens me. This is but one part of the Church we might become, but I do what I can see to do and hope to have my eyes opened further the deeper into this time of darkness we go.