Up the Isthmus for Christmas

Myra says we have not ‘fallen from grace’, that there is no grace from which to fall. That there is no boat to miss, no ‘Good Ship Lollipop’
She asserts that we have evolved from the primordial slime and clawed our way to the head of the queue. And that as we have evolved in physical and mental complexity, so have we evolved in SPIRITUAL complexity. That this is not to say that we have invented God, but rather that God has evolved with us.

But suppose we have fallen so far that we cannot even see the possibility of grace. Suppose we are so ‘steeped in sin’ that we have completely lost sight of the ‘way’?
Myra insists that the concept of sin is at best unhelpful, and at worst destructive and life limiting. ‘If you feel you have done something really bad then - just don’t do it again. Don’t spend your days wallowing in guilt. It does nobody any good.’
And when I asked, why then do we feel so alone, so estranged, so alienated, she said ‘Well why shouldn’t we? Feeling like this is a natural outcome of being human. Or, to be more accurate, it is the price we pay for evolving into consciousness.’

Is that true? Is it why I feel so alone this Christmas? In the midst of all the jollity, the festive cheer, the party hats? Or is it that I have so ‘lost my way’ that I am treading some path of my own, that leads to nowhere – and that deep down I recognise this, hence the emptiness inside.

In a book I read, a woman wrote: Could it be that those of us who march to the beat of a different drum may just be tone deaf?
Or might it be – as Myra suggests – that some are more spiritually evolved than others, and can see a bit further? Further? Into the abyss? Or....

Night, mothering night,
Take us on your knee,
And hide our eyes
From the blank face of eternity.

Is it better to be happy rather than spiritually advanced? Do we have a choice?

I do not think I am yet ready to accept Myra’s offer of an Archdeaconship in The Church of the Latter Day Sinners.