Betwixt & Between...

I have a problem. The whole focus of discipleship is that we are profoundly changed by the experience, "...to the measure of the fullness of the stature of Christ” (Eph 4:13). Yet when we allow ourselves to be inspired by visions of newness and possibility, when we journey out & dwell in the margins - sharing hospitality with the stranger, with the widow and the orphan, in a sense we become like strangers and widows and orphans when we return back home. A disciple’s home is now on the road - betwixt and between.

It is like the character of the Wiseman in TS Eliot’s 1929 poem, ‘The Journey of the Magi’. After returning home from his long journey to see the Christ child, he says, “This birth was hard and bitter agony for us, like a death - our death. We returned to these kingdoms, our homes but no longer are we at ease here in the old dispensation, with an alien people clutching at their gods. I should be glad of another death”.

Betwixt & between are never easy spaces to inhabit - seldom tidy. They are like London train stations - mostly chaotic, with people going everywhere and nowhere - never still, feeling edgy ! There is often an overwhelming sense of anxiety and restlessness and difficult labour – even pain. Yet betwixt & between are also places of tremendous excitement and energy, of experimentation & newness & reversals – where dreams are boldly dreamed & visions are nurtured. Mostly they are places of meeting & genuine community because people are participating & journeying together.

Disciples are formed and the Kingdom of God is established in those places !