Dwelling

It feels like there is a gap between almost everything.

There is a gap in deep, profound and spiritual ways. The gap between now and not-yet, for example. We sense the weight of the world, the hard stories, the grief being walked through by friends.

’A weary world rejoices’ seems like too much to ask.

There is a gap in tiny, personal ways. The gap between how I write and how I am. The gap between my ideas and my capacity, between the vision and the actuality.

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’The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.’

Or, as Eugene Peterson puts it, ’The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood’.

I think of Jesus dwelling. Among heartache and loss, among our clutter and contradictions. I think of him in the neighbourhood, in this house, maybe.

I imagine Jesus dwelling among these so-called-gaps. I imagine that all of it is welcome, and safe.

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It feels like there are gaps.

But there is room, actually. For weary rejoicing. For wise words and wonky living. For dreaming and stalling.

I think about what it might mean to be a person who dwells among, who inhabits their neighbourhood, who is present, not pessimistic.

Some people, like me, tend to dwell in their thoughts instead of their bodies. We dwell on the gaps. We dwell on contradictions and disappointments and uncertainties.

I am trying, this week, to dwell with my people, in my places.

It feels like there are gaps.

But there is room, actually.