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Available for over a year

I wonder if you like your new online life? There are many things to like; if you’re working, then you can be having a cup of tea at home seconds after the meeting ends. No squeezing yourself into a packed commuter train. And the choice; to dip in and out of whatever you like, at any moment of the day, is by turns exhilarating and bewildering. But I find that my eyes hurt, my back gets stiff, I long to look at a further horizon than a screen. My online life has physical consequences. And the relationship between our physical state and our inner life is exactly what Christians reflect on today –the feast called Ascension Day. After today, Jesus of Nazareth was not seen again by his friends or anyone else. Today’s reflections are profound as they consider the movement between visible and invisible, physical and spiritual. The wellbeing of the two are intimately connected. The ancient spiritual discipline of keeping our bodies and spirits connected not separate, has wisdom for us in our 21st century attempts to survive a global pandemic. We’ve moved much of our interaction and emotion online. Necessarily. It’s been a lifeline. The church has learned hugely from this, not least from some people with disabilities, who have said, welcome to our world; finally you understand what access might really mean. But as with spiritual matters, there are dangers here too. We can move our tendency to want to escape real life, create diversionary activity, which are all understandable, just move it online. And issues of inclusion and access are just as acute when a person simply can’t join in because of poor Wi-Fi or no privacy. The reason we’re in this is because a virus is attacking our bodies. Our society is stalked by the shadow of sickness and death. We can’t congregate or touch. For me, as with Ascension Day, this makes our physical wellbeing more not less important: to get out, to breathe the cleaner air. And this week I’ve been, in central London, with others, trying to respond to the physical needs of people here who are not part of the online jamboree of creativity that’s emerged. People who are homeless are thirsty and hungry now. And so on Ascension Day, the day that marks and celebrates the invisible Spirit of God, I know more deeply in my (invisible) soul that my body – and your body – matter now – in sickness or in health - more than ever.