A spiritual journey is like being in a darkroom, peering into the dim outline of an image as it emerges, astonishingly, as if from nothing, and for the first time. Doused in developer, stop bath, fixer and a final fresh water rinse, details of the photographic negative get revealed. For me what has been appearing, slowly, is the likeness of a God that has remained hidden for years. I come from a long line of clergymen going back three generations on my father’s side. And after long treks through the wilderness, crossing many time zones, trying out strange systems of belief and reading scripts penned in foreign tongues, I find myself circling back to the source from which I have come. And this presence is loving and kind, tolerant, showing no malice.

But why now I wonder should the traces of a Christian faith emerge? Perhaps it is due to the world being on fire and the overwhelming trials and tribulations that people endure. Perhaps it is due to just how unchristian the Christian response is today in light of the suffering of migrants, the denial of a women’s reproductive rights and a lack of empathy for the creatures of the land, sea and sky.

Today God gets co-opted, branded and is used to back agendas of power and control. To follow the law of a loving presence requires a willingness to be with that which is always a bit murky and can never exactly be known. We need to have humility and a kind of intimacy for the incomprehensible. Always what emerges from the depth of prayer is that which can never really be put into words.

But this need not leave us in the dark. Rather it is a calling to live with passion and to do what is conscionable. The more time we spend  in the darkroom of our soul, the more the original light appears to guide us.