Thursday, June 25, 2015

In the midst

For many years I would stand at a lecturn and address the congregation with these words:

'In the midst of life we are in death' 'media vita in morte summus' written about 750  AD in France and sung as an antiphon and then taken into Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer. It resonates for every age as an invitation to faith and trust.

For me it's become 'in the midst of death we are in life'. You and I have a fleeting span of existence a momentary flash of consciousness and so this inversion focuses life in the here and now rather than colonizing life life as a brief interlude for the here after. Life now is enough and so for myself I have no desire for an afterlife. I cherish the experience that 'this is it' How wonderful and incredible this 'it'.

In the midst of Thanatos we are in 'Eros' and invited to live and love with open hands