Caught Between Our Past and Who Knows What

Barry Taylor is an artist, poet, theologian, cultural muser and has become a dear friend the past year or so.  He sits uncomfortably as the associate rector at All Saints Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills California. I say uncomfortably because Barry occupies thought and presence at the outer edges of Christianity, caring little for polishing the relics of orthodoxy while somehow en-living its very intent. He dwells in the hyphenated reality (christian-agnostic-eastern-western-poet-artist-mystic-materialist...)more comfortably than anyone I know. This poem came from a homily where he was reflecting on John 1:29-49.

"There he stood, pointing, pointing

day after day after day

and only sinners came

unwashed to be washed clean

then one day he pointed, hand trembling

gaze fixed on one he saw

pushing us away in his direction

he bid us go, go

and there we stood, wondering, wondering and glancing back and forth and back again we began to walk hesitant, hopeful, eager, afraid we picked up the pace with one last look we saw john turn his back and we were gone, gone

the one before us stopped, stopped

and watched, and watched us approach

caught between our past

and who knows what

then he asked “why?”

we looked at him like children

both of us said “you”

and he said “come, come”

- Mike Mercer

The spiritual path is caught between our past and who knows what's next.  That space of uncertainty, the lack of confidence, our disorientation, the 'not-knowing' is the space where we learn to be human.  Yet our hands grasp for certainty and assurances, the two things that life will not offer and so we are apt to fashion these with our own hands.  Lesser gods that become the gravitational pull of our life. Yet still a Solicitation occurs that will not be extinguished, "go to the limits of your longings...flare up like flame and make big shadows I can move in, let everything happen to you.."(Rilke) There is something irreducible that continues to call us into the depth of our own humanity, longing and life.