Throughout July and August, our lectionary readings on a Sunday have focused on
discipleship and the interactions Jesus has with his disciples and the crowds
following them. Many of those readings have shown Jesus often trying to withdraw
and spend time in prayer with God. These periods of private prayerful communion
with God would appear to be what sustained his soul.
I wonder what would happen if we were to imagine our soul as being like the
Kingston Bridge. There are busy times and quiet times. The job of the bridge is not
to ask what is in the cars or HGV’s but simply to bear their weight for a few
seconds and then allow them to go on their way. There is no problem when the flow
of traffic is even, but when breakdowns and the Woodside viaduct bottlenecks
occur, the fights and impatience begin. Your soul too has to take the weight and let
it go. The suffering becomes prolonged only when you do not acknowledge its
existence and let it pass on. Then it sits on your soul like a judgement.
The time to repair the bridge is in the night when the traffic is light. Your prayer
in quiet times gives you strength to cope with the heavy, busy times. You dig, patch
and repair in the night. As a result, the world can flow over your soul in the day
without congestion. You must allow the flow of faith, love, healing, hope, joy and
light to pass through you into the world. You must allow the flow of hatred,
darkness and sin to flow from the world through you to God.
All of this is done by prayer, and of forgiveness of yourself, of others and perhaps
even of God Himself for what you feel He has done to you. Little by little, you grow
in the power of prayer, in the ability to bear the weight and accept the
contradictions of the two-way flow between God and the world.