salvation is here

Salvation is a subject that doesn’t get a lot of airtime in many liberal Christian circles. You might even be troubled to see me use that word – salvation. But I’m a big fan of rethinking what we mean when we use certain words, so today I would like to redeem this word “salvation” for a bit. I’d like to propose that we are saved when we accept peace and live from a space of calm, not allowing ourselves to be caught up in the demands of our go-go-go world.

Several years ago while I was working on my Master of Divinity I struggled with a book that refused to leave room for salvation, though it used the word “redemption” instead. I liked a lot of what the book said but could not go as far as it could in saying that there is no room for redemption, why, I wondered, did I have this deep discomfort with leaving that out? I decided to go talk to my teacher about this and as she listened and asked questions we discovered that I was just dealing with a different notion of redemption or salvation than the book conceived of. I and the book agreed that it is not possible to find ultimate and final redemption or salvation because the world is constantly in process and never does and never can come to some final static, resting point of redemption or salvation. I, however, don’t think of salvation or redemption in those sort of ultimate or final terms. To me, salvation is fleeting, it is the glimpses of grace that we see on a daily basis. There is salvation and redemption in a chord sung so perfectly by a group that we all feel deep down in our beings a sense of unity and satisfaction. There is salvation in resting in a moment of silence that holds my centre. There is salvation in the arms of one that I love.

I’m purposely trying to reframe how we look at salvation here because I think it is a powerful concept for understanding the profound difference that is made when we choose to walk a path of love, devoting ourselves to nursing the flourishing of the world, rather than getting caught up in the demands of our culture.

Salvation and redemption connote transformation, a change in life that is profound. In order to facilitate the building of a more peaceful world we need to transform our lives, we need to step out of our comfort zones, we need to risk living more simply, giving more generously, loving more lavishly, and living more peacefully.

We can all be witnesses to resurrection, to the joy of letting go, to living by dying, to new life through a peace that passes all understanding, to grace abundantly and freely given.

~ by Shannon on April 9, 2008.