Thought for the Week: The spirit of Christ
Thomas Swain asks 'What does the spirit of Christ teach you?'
Often I am drawn to experiences of early Friends and their talk about the movements within that they felt and shared with the early Quaker community.
Sometimes George Fox’s words expressed it as ‘Christ has come to teach his people himself’.
‘Christ has come to teach his people himself.’
During a recent Meeting for Worship, I wondered whether the spirit of Christ was teaching me when I feel this movement within as I watched the fire and heard inwardly: ‘When the logs are closer together there is more brilliance and greater warmth.’ Is the spirit of Christ teaching me that as a community when we are closer together we are more brilliant and feel more warmth? Is the spirit of Christ teaching me that in our closeness we know love?
I wonder whether the spirit of Christ teaches me, in seeing Esther faithfully wind the tall clock, whether I am being reminded that in her winding she is adjusting the weights to keep the clock going. Is the spirit of Christ teaching me that my concerns, those weights in my life, are what make me tick?
And is it the spirit of Christ that helps me raise the question: ‘What is the gift of the clock?’ Is the gift in its face? What is the gift in me when my weights (concerns) are wound? Is the gift in my face? Is it in my arms? Is it in my tongue? Is it in my heart?
The spirit of Christ in its inward movement seems to only want goodness for me. It seems to foster energy to love, to feel connected, to feel at one and to be generous. The spirit of Christ seems selfless and for our benefit.
It is bold to ask: ‘What does the spirit of Christ teach you?’
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