I love that phrase in the poem! Christopher Mann reminds me that while it is good to pray, to take time in my day for God, if I see those times in my day as the only time I am close to God, it – in his words – “presumes, I think, too much of human piety and grants few gaps for love’s irruption unbidden, uncalculated into our lives.”
God is a master of surprises. God calls us out of the comfortable boxes we put life (and God) into … and challenges us to see the world in a different way, and to see God and God’s presence in a grander, more expansive way.
The situations we find ourselves in as we deal with covid-19 has been an unbidden irruption into our lives. Yet, despite the fear, the anxiety, the shifting of the bedrock of our thought patterns, we have seen – perhaps more profoundly than we ever have – the outpouring of love for family and friend, for neighbour and stranger, for those who are weak, and for those who suffer.
Love – God – has certainly irrupted unbidden into our lives as well. And perhaps that is the key message to take away from our reflections on the Emmaus journey. As the poet says …. “It’s not just the journey, the settings out, the routes through the desert, the arrivals ……. it’s travelling in readiness for Emmaus that counts.”
As we travel in readiness through this pandemic together, may we be always open to love’s unbidden irruption into our lives.