Happy Moo Year!
James Cathcart
December 31, 2019
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We at Sanctuary First want to wish you a Happy Hogmanay and a blessed and bright New Year full of wonder, warmth and beauty.
As 2020 rolls around we launch a new theme at Sanctuary First: ‘Making Sense Of It…’ The idea is that we are going to encourage one another to read the Bible alive to our senses. The start of a new year is often a time when people resolve to reconnect with their bodies: joining gyms, making pledges, starting diets. These attempts may often be comically doomed to failure as we decide that reasonable expectations are ‘so last year’, but they are a testament to the human spirit’s ability to pick itself up and try again. The only reason there are still humans is because of this instinct. Many of our new resolutions may become… less resolved… but each attempt gives us new chances to learn new things about ourselves and our world.
At this time of year, when many of us are wanting to work on our fitness and our habits, perhaps starting new routines, we thought it would be stimulating to read our Bibles mindful of our bodies and our senses. As we re-tune physically we can re-tune spiritually, open to new ways ancient texts might speak to us.
I took the above picture of the handsome highland coos on a recent frosty walk with beloved friends. The walk was short, nippy and bracing but it was also energising, exciting and enlivening. It is so easy to get detached from our surroundings — to simply pass through rather than stop and notice a massive leaf, a hoard of acorns, or a mahoosive majestic benevolent bovine. When we read the Bible we can also become detached — seeing texts as academic propositions to be debated/debunked/deciphered as opposed to what they are… invitations to join in, to participate, to become part of the story. To hear the waves, see the people, smell the scents, feel the varied textures, taste the promise of the manna… To laugh, to cry, to wonder, to sigh…
So this Moo Year, sorry, ‘New Year’, heed nature’s invitation to explore, test and wander. Go out to to discover new facts and characters, stories and beasts. And heed scripture’s invitation to do likewise. May our embodied multi-sensory lives inform and inspire our embodied multi-sensory faith…
James Cathcart
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