An abbreviated version of my Lent 1 sermon this Sunday. (For some other great reflections see here and here)
I can, quite clearly, remember a handful of times having an upset stomach when I was a child. I don’t think this was any sort of chronic issue that I suffered. The memory embedded itself because of its strangeness. It was not like a cut or a bruise or even a headache where the source of pain or discomfort was readily and clearly identifiable. An upset stomach was something a little more buried. It was something that shifted and churned. At one point it could be a pain and at the next moment a nauseous feeling would wash over me. Something at the centre of me was out of place and it affected my entire orientation. And so I remember trying to sit or lie down in certain positions. I tried to find some way of being that would ease these subterranean flows.