Invitations to Depthing
BY ANDREW DUNN
This piece is published in the summer 21 issue of Refresh Journal, ‘The Deep’.
When I was in my mid-teens I bought a copy of J.B. Phillips Letters to Young Churches, one of the early modern translations of Paul’s New Testament letters. There began a fascination with more meaningful translations of many of his turns of phrase that seemed shrouded in mystery in the King James version.
Since then, of course, there have been many other modern renderings of Paul’s letters, the Gospels and other Scriptures. As with the Phillips translations, many of them offer us invitations, in current language, into deepening understandings of our union with Christ, the heart of Paul’s spirituality and mysticism.
My own discovery is that as life moves on through a wide variety of experiences, challenges, griefs and joys, it enables me to see these spiritual truths more refreshingly and broadening. The same ground is often covered again, but more deeply, more expansively, more nourishingly of the moment.
Take for example Paul’s unique and oft-repeated phrase of believers being ‘in Christ’, ‘in him’, ‘in the Lord Jesus Christ’ and so on. It’s the kind of relational term for which there is no simple or final translation. Rather, it’s open to experience, to fresh insights, and yet limited by the boundaries of what we are experiencing at present. It’s never easy to find words to describe it so it becomes a lifelong exploration and deepening.
Similarly, Paul’s use of the term ‘Lord’. James Dunn has counted Paul’s use of both terms (83 uses of the in Christ and related terms and 47 of in the Lord group). He also notes that these terms only appear in Paul’s writings apart from one reference in 1 Peter.
Dunn suggests that these terms of ‘participation in Christ’ make this relational reality of more significance in our lives and devotion than justification by faith, the usual way of describing the heart of Paul’s presentation of the gospel! (James Dunn. The Theology of Paul the Apostle. Eerdmans. 1998. Chapter 15 – Participation in Christ).
Ponder these gems as invitational to deepening: “For me to live is Christ and dying is gain” (Phil 2:22). “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 13:14). “To know Christ and be found in him” (Phil 3:8-11). And these stretching comments: “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me...” (Gal 2:19-20); “Hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:1-4). Or this comment about baptism, “buried with him in baptism and raised with him...” (Col 2:12).
Really apt for me is this verse from Colossians 1:16:
“... all things have been created through and for him ... and in him all things hold together ...”. What a fine Christian base for ecology!
I get the sense that in touching a soft and attractive fern or bush orchid or a massive kauri, I am touching Him in whom it is held together and is given its uniqueness.
To see creation, to touch it, to embrace its presence is to embrace its origins and its being in Him in whom it consists now! I don’t think David Attenborough would approve, but then in all his work I don’t get any sense of a spirituality beyond his sheer delight in beauty and the intricacies of evolution.
One of the most surprising discoveries with my wife Margaret’s death is that our in Christness still envelops us and bonds us together in Him. So much so that she is often present, especially in my early morning prayer times, and our marriage bond is strengthened in death, not diminished! I’ve never read about that anywhere but have discovered its truth and experience and enjoy its reality.
But how do we enable the deepening to develop?
After all, it’s a very hectic and busy life without much time for quiet reflection. I’m fortunate in being able to lead a more eremitical life which gives time aplenty to follow a devotional routine that nourishes. I’m also surrounded by bush, birds, and silence that enable the contemplative faculty to flourish.
Music plays its part as does reading and the enjoyment of wildlife and zoo-type TV programmes. An annual Auckland Zoo pass gets plenty of use and encourages sheer enjoyment of life in many forms. I haven’t been baptised yet from above by orangutans on their high wires but read the cautionary notices!
So I suggest finding what attracts and thrills you – and do more of it as the contemplative faculty is refreshed, expanded and enjoyed.
It is in the recovery and expansion of our contemplative faculties that we become more sensitive to the still small voice and the delicate nuances of God’s loving are sensed and recognised.
Each of us can build our own routines and patterns of devotion. Do it all wrapped around by the presence of God’s love and grace, and in partnership with Christ our Lord.
Whatever happened for St Patrick that enabled him to include this in his Breastplate?
Christ be with me, Christ within me. Christ behind me, Christ before me.
Christ beside me, Christ to win me. Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me. Christ in quiet, Christ in danger.
Christ in hearts of all that love me. Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
May it be our discovery too!
Andrew Dunn still makes Oasis Retreat Centre at Albany home while preparing to sell the two hectares of covenanted bush and paddocks before moving on. It feels like another leg of the journey in faith and in Christ without full clarity about the future.
One With You
Margaret Dunn 1999
Praying is always incomplete,
Praying is never finished,
For praying is longing for you, my God,
And you will never be possessed.
Praying is journeying deeper into you
Which is never completely achieved,
For you are deeper than my knowing.
Praying is following the desire to know and love.
Praying is allowing my will to bend to yours.
With my humanity and your divinity.
This process will take me all my life.
Becoming one with you.
Memorial Wall, Peace Garden, Albany Presbyterian Church
