I have long maintained to friends and mentors that I find my theology not in the myriad books which formally fall into that category, but in the novels and stories I read. Truth to tell, it's often a defence against doing something I find difficult; and it's an aspiration often, rather than a reality. But in my Book Club meeting last week, theology snuck up on me out of nowhere.
Towards the end of the two hours' discussion we were devoting to a story of Kamila Shamsie, the word 'atonement' popped up. I've been grappling with it since then, praying about that word, seeking truth in it. A memory from way back that it was William Tindale sometime in the early 16th century, as he translated the Bible into English, who gave the word its theological slant- a shade of meaning it had not carried before. Now, five hundred years later, I cannot see it in any other way than that; and I struggled to see Shamsie's characters in any atonement light.
My thoughts and prayers since the Book Club meeting have added to my Lenten journey, as I know how from from 'at one' with God I have been, how little merged into the likeness of Christ, how costive my love of God and neighbour.
Fortunately, there are still weeks to run in this Lenten season; time to make amends, time for grace to operate, time for atonement to become something more real in me.
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