In the Northern Hemisphere the days are closing in as winter approaches. Whatever happens with climate change the tilt of the earth is always going to be a 'climactic' factor in our approach to life. Longer evenings encourage indoor functions. But we still cherish those long days outdoors - the vistas and the space in front of and around us. In the 21st century we have been getting used to ever smaller dwellings as the population of the world grows and land becomes scarcer. It is not unusual to have a room which is only 5 meters square in the great cities! - and we forget that this is the size of many houses in undeveloped countries today as it was in Western Europe in the Middle Ages outside the cities. But in those far away times there was always a larger space available for everyone in the great cathedrals that were built from the tenth century onwards. And in time there were local churches which also had space for people to gather, not only for worship but also for local events. From the evidence that we have of the beginnings of Christian worship when the disciples shared the meal with Jesus, later to be called, Eucharist or thanksgiving, it was worship in the space where they met, in relationship between themselves and with Jesus, the risen Lord.

But there has always been another space which humans have inhabited - the space within ourselves, in the mind linked with the body. It is here that we live daily and either hope or lose hope, in varying degrees, in life. As T.S. Eliot put it graphically in the poem East Coker -

O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark, ...
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God.
... as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations
And the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence
And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about ...
- I said to my soul, be still, and wait ...
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

This inner space, call it soul or mind, is critical for the human outreach towards the Other, the spiritual basis of life. So in the long pilgrimage of the centuries it is eventually the space of the soul which now takes centre stage in the human drama of life. We witness, both in a Catholic environment and a Protestant environment, the emphasis upon the individual's need for spiritual solace almost apart from the relationships with one another and with the Lord that constitute what we call 'church' or the gathered community of Christians. This narrowing of the relationship between the soul and God can also be seen in the theological outlook and doctrines of the Christian church from the 6th century onwards and which came to full flowering in the Reformation and Counter reformation movements of the 16th century. Today we can look with equanimity on this historical progress from the corporate relationships in worship to the generally individualistic ideas of today - because that is all we have known: despite the theoretical ideas that as 'church' we must always be striving towards 'unity' among ourselves.

It may be that with the general decline in numbers attending church services there is an opportunity to address this situation. Already many cathedrals have turned out the pews and restored the great space that was once the hallmark of such buildings. It may be that the smaller churches will be allowed to do the same. But then, when, and if, that has happened, we are faced with the choice of re-integrating the inner and the outer spaces which we inhabit as Christians. The primary space is the space of relationships between ourselves and with Jesus. The movement in the past towards the primacy of the soul as the inner space, came from an emphasis on the death of Jesus as the Saviour. But the gospel also has the final perspective of the Jesus who, in the resurrection, was the 'first born', the beginning of the new creation by the Father for all humankind. In relationship with Jesus as risen Lord, we are given the capabilities of true relationships with all - and still have within ourselves that inner space now refreshed with the living waters of the gospel.

Christian worship, from the beginning, was a meeting of joyous relationship with this Jesus, who as transcendent Lord is always present to us and to the human race. It is to this horizon, this wonderful space to which we are being led today. It may take some time to recover the reunion of the inner and the outer in our personal lives and relationships as Christians; but it is surely the way that is being proposed by the Lord himself in this twilight of the inheritance of the Mediaeval world and the sunrise of a renewed understanding of Christian worship. In the words of the Johannine Christ - (John, 10:10) - and of Paul (Philippians 4:4) -

Copyright © Aelred Arnesen