Church Of The Aimless Wanderer

you, me, everyone and everything else

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Category: our world

  • church anywhere, any time

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    Church is not a building. Neither, for me, is it a particular group of people. The church I most feel part of can crop up anywhere, anytime, for as long as it suits. All creatures, every thing, are for at least a moment included. When our God moves among us, all creation sings loud.

    I’m grateful for the churches I have been part of throughout my life, and to the many more I have visited. Although I am currently involved in a wonderful church here in London, I remain less interested in joining anything, determined instead to seek, acknowledge and celebrate the connectedness of everything.

    In these extraordinary times, we need each other more than ever. All of us need all of us, no exceptions. None of us are perfect. All of us have unique perspectives of what is. None of these are right or wrong; rather they compliment each other. We can accept each other, help each other whenever we can….the one true church…

  • the last word

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    I’d like to tip my hat to the plant kingdom. Animals and plants it seems began and developed alongside each other. However, at some point in that development, plants began to find themseives at the mercy of animals. Perhaps by the time homo sapiens showed up, the relationship was firmly established?

    Certainly humans have found among plants, sources of many powerful ingredients capable of sustaining and enhancing our lives. To begin with, our ancestors were hunters and gatherers, and so collected suitable plants from their natural habitat. When agriculture was born, the natural order of things began to be tampered with.

    I’d like to think that to begin with those early generations had a deep, respectful, grateful relationship with the earth and everything in it. But as needs grew, alongside competition, acquiring by any means, and radically transforming territories became widespread. If the ‘special relationship’ ever was the case, it now became more and more of an afterthought.

    Innumerable species, and the climates that suited and gave birth to them stopped being family and found themselves instead aspects of the world humans felt entitled to make full use of. Less and less attention was given to the natural order of things. Effectively, earth wisdom was sidelined and eventually ignored.

    In so many words, people of all faiths consider nature the first Bible. Long before words and writing were around, our loving God sang and spoke loud and clear through mountains, forests, flowers, birds, rivers, oceans full of creatures, as well as all terrestial life. Country folks, by virtue of their immediate neighbourhood, are closer to the earth, and to our ancestors primeval beginnings. I salute them!

    I am currently living in London and feel called to maintain and celebrate the country in the city. London has done well with its many parks, commons, squares and gardens, providing amongst other things effective tree sanctuaries. I particularly enjoy the cracks in walls and pavements that are teeming with life. Tufts of grass and wild flowers spring up overnight all over town, quietly insistent that concrete and plastic will not have the last word.

    copyright George Bacon March 2024