TALKING TO A LIZARD by David Paterson A long time ago, during a vacation from Lincoln Theological College, I went with three others on holiday in Italy. I was a serious, spiritual ordinand with a yearning for the monastic life and a devotion to Saint Francis. I was determined to make a pilgrimage to Assisi but the others preferred the flesh-pots of Siena.
I set off alone, hitch-hiking in a torrential thunderstorm, got soaking wet, saw Rome through a net-curtain of rain, slept in a half-built garage and arrived in Assisi tired, hungry and satisfactorily ascetic, very early on a bright, hot and dusty morning.
In the town square, by the Church of San Francesco, hordes of brassy tourists were pouring out of shiny, clean coaches. At the morning Mass I concentrated on Saint Francis and pretended there were no intruders. I was alone. I knelt, I wept, I prayed. That was, after all, what I had come to do. Then I left to hitch-hike back to Siena.
The whole event was deeply enriching and has probably influenced everything I've done since.
Something entered into me which was much deeper than words and I have been aware of drawing on that internal reservoir on many crucial occasions. More often still, when considering why I think, feel or act the way I do, this experience is what comes to mind. That was, after all, why I had set it up the way I had. I chose what God I wished to create for myself. I believe in that God and have given my life to it. I have a Gospel from God to help save the world.
The essence of it all was that I was able to let go, cease for a time to keep control on my thoughts and open up to whatever was there. Assisi and Saint Francis already symbolised important things for me so I wished to receive what Assisi had to give, hear what Saint Francis had to say, to listen to God. And that's what happened. Three decades later, trying to describe something of what that experience meant, I heard myself saying, "I went to Assisi. That was good.
Then I left by the road which goes down to the Portiuncula. I sat on the dusty grass verge in the hot sun. I talked to a lizard. "That lizard was very important. I told it about what I'd just experienced. I made a vow there and then not to tell anyone else for at least a year. That seemed important, too.
I doubt whether, even in those days, I would have felt entirely happy about saying, "God spoke to me". The phrase had overtones of usage alien to me. Nowadays I believe such language is misleadingly objective. It too often implies " which shows that God exists." The experience had its own value and the preparation for it was as much my responsibility as was the use I made of it afterwards. And that was in spite of, or because of, a powerful sense of being filled with something far greater than myself.
The power of an experience like that, and its truth, have nothing to do with proving anything. Proof is neither necessary nor relevant. It does not tell me anything about 'existence' - neither of God, nor of the lizard, nor of myself. But it reveals and enhances my self-understanding. What I am, the lizard is, the Universe is. The lizard has no pretensions. It is just there, with no rational way of hearing or responding to me ; yet I make it a vital part of my awareness. It is life. And I am one with it.
I believe that what I have written is profoundly Christian. But then I would, wouldn't I, because Christianity was my route to that place and was also my journey from that place to the present. It is evident to me that it also very Buddhist. And Hindu ? And animist ? And ...?
I hope so.
David Paterson is a parish priest in Loughborough and a member of the 'S.o.F.' Conference Committee.