Article in Stretton Focus, June 2012
I have been reading a book called ‘Finding Your Hidden Treasure’. It’s written by Benignus O’Rourke, who is an Augustinian friar. I was glad to hear him say that the Christian life can be an exciting adventure – because I agree! Although I’m just sorry that nobody ever told me this when I first joined the Church.
I had to discover it for myself many years later. This I did by loosening the grip of a rigid, doctrinal approach to God, and embracing the dawning realisation that God is greater than any religion.
Religions are only useful if they introduce you to the spiritual dimension of life, and invite you to explore it. This indeed can be exciting, because it turns out to be a personal search for your ‘self’; that is, your true self, which all religions tell us is “made in the image and likeness of God”.
Having made this discovery, which essentially means learning how to be happily and healthily related to your ‘self’ (or in other words how to become a fully integrated person), the adventure continues as you explore your relationship with other people, and with the world you live in.
In doing this, you become aware of your relationship with God, who is the Oneness of all things; in whom all things exist and have their being. You don’t have to travel far in this exploration, for it is the treasure hidden in the soul (or self) of everybody. You don’t have to look ‘far’, but you have to look ‘long’, for even one lifetime may not be enough to discover the breadth and length and height and depth of this sacred mystery in which we exist, and which religions call God.
Donald Horsfield
