Day 2 - Not Alone

As I walk into my room tonight the curtains are open and I stand for a while, looking out into the night. Meanwhile my cat who has once again followed me up, walks to and fro across the window sill, purring. I can hear the noises of the world outside, the hum of traffic, the occasional car horn and the church bells. I sit on my rug and still myself in God's presence. I can hear the hum of my body, my heart beating, the whirring of the blood going round. There is sound everywhere. I think about my spirit and I imagine my body, not as a solid mass, but as millions of moving particles with spaces in between, rather like the planets in space. I imagine the Holy Spirit of God coming to occupy the spaces in between the atoms and dwelling inside the same space as my body. I breath out, relaxing, yet find myself beginning to bite my nails. Something inside me is not quite at peace.

Today we visited an art gallery in the city. Walking from the car park we passed a group of young men and I noticed the look in the eyes of one of them; there was a coldness there which made me shiver a little. And then we passed a young woman listening to something through earphones and yet there was fear in those eyes. I am aware of the hardness in people's hearts and the spread of evil in our beautiful world. Fear can make us want to retreat into our cozy homes and forget about suffering and evil. Suddenly I find myself singing the lovely song by Christina Perri, ' A Thousand Years' and these words strike me, "How to be brave? How can I love when I'm afraid to fall?" And I remember that the Lord Jesus has loved me for more than a thousand years and will keep loving me for eternity! So how can we, then, be brave? How can we step out into the world with our eyes wide open and not be afraid? Only because of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit vibrating, atom for atom, inside our very souls. We are not alone.