Fat Spaces - thoughts on worshipping during lockdown.

Oh worship the lord, in the beauty of holiness, by Reverend Alice Watson. @alicelydiajoy

Psalm 46 verse 10 says “Be still…and know that I am God.”

Be still. Be quiet. Sit by dim candlelight and meditate upon God’s purpose. Be still. Be calm. Be serene. Be serious. Be at one with God. Be still. 

Yeah, right. 

This is a time of chaos and confusion, not a time to be still. Scary circumstances have forced many of us into a situation of compulsory stillness, but if you’re anything like me then your thoughts now scatter madly, refusing to settle like a flock of spooked birds, and the prospect of being still seems harder than ever before. But then I must confess, I’ve never been very good at being still anyway, despite the Christian preoccupation with this way of connecting with God. 

Celtic spirituality teaches us that stillness is an avenue to God, and we must also seek out thin spaces; those places and moments, both geographical and metaphysical, where the membrane between our earthly world and the spiritual realm is stretched so taut that we can practically reach out and touch the divine. It’s a beautiful thought, and anyone who has ever spent time in a thin space – Iona, for example, or maybe an ancient church or cathedral – understands exactly what that thinness feels like. 

I discovered God round about the time I was having my fourth child, and with a newborn and three others aged two, four and nine, opportunities for experiencing thin spaces and stillness were and continue to be scarce. 

Let me tell you instead of how I mostly experience God by commending to you the spiritual discipline of what I call Fat Spaces. 

Be busy. Be fraught. Be frustrated. Be over-worked and underwhelmed. Be amused. Be scared. Be bored. Be cross. Be content. Be preoccupied. Be anything but still. Welcome to fat spaces, where our incarnational and all encompassing God also likes to dwell. 

I’ve become, out of dire need, accomplished at finding God in fat spaces; in the chaos of family life, in the busyness of a large household, in the noise and in the everyday din. I am as comfortable with seeking God in the rage of turned over tables as I am in the whispering quiet of the lonely mountain top. This has been my story of faith so far; stillness and silence are privileges so rarely afforded to me that I no longer seek them out and instead have found God elsewhere. 

God dwells in the fat spaces of our messy lives; at the kitchen sink and at the dining table, where everyone talks at once and no one can be heard. In the walk to school, shepherding small people and clutching tiny hands. In the witching hours before bed, when tempers fray and harsh words come from tired mouths. In the tedium of endless washing and sorting of laundry and in the sacred act of cooking that keeps us all fed. God is there, truly Emmanuel, making our home holy and our family life a living sacrament. The very essence of kataphatic worship, is to pause – albeit briefly – and reflect often on the realisation that God is amongst it all. Amen. 

This isn’t anything new. A few weeks ago – though it feels like a lifetime ago now – we had ash pressed onto our heads as we were reminded again that we are but dust, and to dust we shall return. Dust, a substance comprised of the microcosm of life, broken down and mixed together. Not simple. Not tidy. Not clean. Of course we are from dust and when we return to dust we return to God. Maybe there’s a lesson there; that amongst the dust of life we’re actually closer to God than we might think. 

My efforts to meet with God in the dusty detritus of family life, puts me in mind of that hymn so beloved by toddler groups the world over: the love of God is so high, you can’t get over it, so low, you can’t get under it, so wide, you can’t get round it. Oh! Wonderful love!  

So very wonderful and so very wide that it surely fills the biggest and fattest of spaces. Even my crazy, chaotic, hormone-ridden, often ill-tempered and hilarious home. So wide and all-encompassing that it can fill the gargantuan hole torn in our lives by this global pandemic. 

Friends, I understand your despair at the loss of our churches and I know you feel bereft at the disconnect from traditional ways of worshipping. I feel it too. But God did not abandon us and we did not abandon each other. Yes, this is messy. Yes, this is hard. But if we can’t contain God or control how we seek him, then God will find new ways to meet with us. We wouldn’t have sought it but a passage to experience God’s grace has been blown wide open. Just imagine what we might find here.

I’ll finish with the words from my favourite Psalm, 139, which always makes me feel so utterly seen every time I read it. I pray it makes you feel the same way. 

Be still. Be moving. Be together, in the dark and God will be with us.

Psalm 139: 1-12

1 O Lord, you have examined my heart

and know everything about me.

2 You know when I sit down or stand up.

You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.

3 You see me when I travel

and when I rest at home.

You know everything I do.

4 You know what I am going to say

even before I say it, Lord.

5 You go before me and follow me.

You place your hand of blessing on my head.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too great for me to understand!

7 I can never escape from your Spirit!

I can never get away from your presence!

8 If I go up to heaven, you are there;

if I go down to the grave,[a] you are there.

9 If I ride the wings of the morning,

if I dwell by the farthest oceans,

10 even there your hand will guide me,

and your strength will support me.

11 I could ask the darkness to hide me

and the light around me to become night—

12     but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.

To you the night shines as bright as day.

Darkness and light are the same to you.

Glory to the Father and to the Son

and to the Holy Spirit;

as it was in the beginning is now

and shall be for ever. Amen.