Mustard Tree

Last week I attended an open day for the Interfaith Foundation in London, England. I went along with a certain amount of trepidation, largely, as I realised later, because the world is full of people with their own private revelations, some of which are turned into profitable enterprises by slick design and marketing, but which are generally in the recycling business, and so consequently sell you something that you can get completely free elsewhere.

When it came to the end of the day and we were asked to give a little summary of why we were there, what it meant, what we liked and didn't like, I found  that I was hugely relieved at how grounded it was, and how much it did represent the aspiration to a universal truth, rather than being another distinctive flavour with a high price tag on it. I was delighted that no-one had mentioned unicorns or Atlantis, or crystals, or how to command your own personal angel, or how to make gobs of money overnight.

I felt completely relaxed and at home, even with people who do practice some of the more esoteric complementary therapies, as though they had all discovered something of greater value too. I remembered that in the book of Acts, when people had touched God, perhaps for the first time, they abandoned their 'curious arts', and wondered if this was a similar experience.

Not that one would need to abandon anything (that would be a bit doctrinaire for me - apart from Satan worship, which I don't recommend), but that it all fitted into a greater whole, a truly universal presence. I had the sense that God, whatever else he or she may be, was much, much greater than the slivers of revelation the human race has clung onto for millenia.

Or as one reader quoted: "Is God's book finished?" Evidently, not.