Sunrise over the Ganges

In the last post I quoted Bernard McGinn stating that what we want is the ‘desire for God’ – without this longing it seems that nothing much can happen. Our spirituality can only be superficial and lukewarm unless we are possessed by an inner desire

I found the description about one occasion when Stephen Verney experienced this desire helps with understanding what McGinn means. Verney describes how stupid and arrogant it is to try to grasp spiritual truth with the mind. He describes how he went to Rishikesh in India, where he stayed whilst on a pilgrimage at a Hindu community of prayer. He was trying to understand Hinduism, and wanted to see Jesus through Indian eyes.

On his second day there, he was invited by the guru to come and talk with him. Verney who was at the time a Church of England Bishop, felt important and thought at the meeting between himself and the devout guru that truth would be revealed. As he writes – it was – but not at all in the way he had expected.

‘As I talked with him my mind began to feel numb. He asked me why I had come, and I couldn’t say. He asked me what books I had written and I couldn’t remember the titles. Fortunately, other visitors arrived, and an hour’s conversation followed of which I could remember nothing.’

Afterwards Verney asked two other Christians who were there – religious sisters – to help him understand what had happened. One of them said that it sounded as if Verney had had a stroke, but was it a stroke from God?

The next morning Verney got up very early, and stood by the Ganges waiting for the dawn. The community was in a deep valley so it took a long time for the sun to rise over the mountain peaks. He describes waiting and waiting, and feeling increasingly lonely and empty until within him grew a ‘great longing for the light … and took possession of me.’

‘It grew so intense that the rocks around me seemed to move with desire for the dawn, but still it would not come. Then I could see the sky grow red over the mountains, and eagles circling high above me who could see the sun, but still it was hidden from me. The time of our breakfast passed and I was hungry and cold, and now as I waited I was literally panting with desire for the light. Then suddenly, in its own time, the great golden circle of the sun rose over the mountain, and a light poured into the valley, and I was warm and could see my way.’

Verney adds, that he then knew that the Sister was right and that God had closed down his thinking, because God’s truth could ‘not be grasped by my little mind, but that if I would wait for it and long for it he would reveal whatever he wanted to reveal in his own good time.’

And so our desire and experience of God’s Presence often comes strangely and when we least expect it …