St Martin's & St Paul's
Parish Canterbury
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A while ago I was spending my day off visiting a fairly historic town. I felt a bit low that particular day, concerned about some issue, and seeing an open church I wandered in to say a prayer.
There happened to be a rather lovely shrine in that church and I had it to myself. In the rather archaic form of words laid out in the shrine I offered a prayer and shared my problem. When I continued wandering around the town I began to realise that something had changed. The problem that was getting me down had not gone away, but I was looking at it differently. I realised that there were related issues that I had been ignoring which presented themselves now and put it in a different light. After a while I saw that it was not after all the depressing dead-end that I had thought it was: there was a way forward. And I felt much better.
In our reading for Pentecost (John 7: 37-39) Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as "rivers of living water". There are many ways of speaking of and imaging the Spirit of God, such as the dove of peace, the flame of inspiration; at Pentecost we think of the Holy Spirit as an external power coming upon us as on the Apostles; I find the idea of the Spirit as rivers of living water welling up within us particularly helpful. On the day I have described above I felt that my prayer had not brought an external solution to my problem but rather enabled me to view it differently, making me aware of inner resources that I had forgotten, the rivers of living water that were ready to well up if I only opened my heart to them, by opening my heart to God.
I believe in miracles: I am prepared to accept that signs and wonders do occur; I believe that quiet miracles take place every day when we discover or rediscover the love of God and the rivers of living water that bring life and hope to our desert days.
Amen.
