Several years ago I went and watched a couple of movies from the Twilight series. Originally I went to these movies as solidarity with my daughter, although I was drawn into the story. I was so over it after a couple of movies. In the first couple of movies the heroine has a dilemma. She is basically in love with two boys. One is a vampire and the other is a werewolf. She chooses Edward the vampire, but she aware that she loves Jacob too and after the first couple of movies the audience is still wondering what the final resolution will be. In order to marry Edward she has to change from a human to a vampire, from a mortal into an immortal.
It seems to me that these two choices between, Jacob who turns into a wolf, or Edward the vampire who is both eternally dead and eternally alive, represent (for me at least and with apologies to the author who probably has different meanings) two paths of spirituality.
The first path is that of the wolf. It is a very grounded earthy path. God is found in nature. It is a path of incarnation where God comes to us in the everyday things of ordinary life. …Being thankful for being created and for the creation …Finding the divine in not only trees, flowers, animals and people, but in the simple things of life, like food, water, breathing, work and play. …finding God in friends and family.
The second path as represented by the immortal is the more mystical path of spirituality. It is a path where people say they have direct experiences of God and that God talks to them. It is the transcendent path or the resurrected path, even the miraculous path, where things seem to fall into place, where God works in mysterious ways, where people say that everything has a reason, and there is a certain karma to things, a certain destiny to things, that God is working and planning and pulling things together.
Bella is having a little trouble being pulled in both directions, and while we tend to favour one spiritual path over against another, let us be clear. These are not two paths that are in opposition or in conflict. One can follow a very incarnational spirituality and yet have direct mystical experience of God. One can follow a mystical transcendent path and yet come down to earth and be very grounded.
Balance is one of the keys to living a happy and fruitful life, not only in spirituality but in very many ways. One can find a balance in one’s spirituality, and while one might have preferred ways it is good to widen one’s spiritual practice.
It seems to me that Bella is forced to choose one way over the other. However when it comes to our own spirituality we do not have to choose one way over the other. Finding, God, love, community, truth, and spirituality is not about some unique secret way or path. It is letting our lives be open to these things in all that we do and experience.
Reverend Harry Currie,
First Presbyterian Church
