Their prison is only in their minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out.” Lewis, The Last Battle

Throughout the Gospel, we hear, “Do not be afraid.” That is what Gabriel says to Zechariah. That is what the angels say to the women at the tomb: “Do not be afraid.” And that is what the Lord says when he appears to his disciples: “Do not be afraid it is I. Do not be afraid. It is I. Fear is not of God. I am the God of love, a God who invites you to receive–to receive the gifts of joy and peace and gratitude of the poor. The invitation of Christ is the invitation to move out the house of fear and into the house of love: to move away out of that place of imprisonment into a place of freedom. “Come to me, come to my house which is the house of love,” Jesus says. Throughout the Old and the New Testament we see that invitation. “Oh, how much I desire to dwell in the house of the Lord. The Lord is my refuge, the Lord is my dwelling place, the Lord is my tent, the Lord is my safety.” Henri Nouwen, The Road to Peace

For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. They shall bear you in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone. You shall tread upon the lion and adder; you shall trample the young lion and the serpent under your feet. Psalm 91:11–13

Well, I certainly should not be afraid of anything. I can trample my way through life without a second thought.

So what is it that ties me up in knots?

And on the upfront and out there world, I imagine I seem fairly fearless. The sort that rides a loaded-down bicycle for 1200 km of winding narrow roads following haphazard yellow arrows painted on trees and stone walls. Or packs a hundred middle school students into family station wagons and camps out on a pile of dirt behind a Mexican ejido. Or leaves that front door to her home pretty much always propped open.

But somewhere along the way I decided that I didn’t measure up. Not on the outside of course. I always towered over everyone else. But on the inside. If anyone truly saw me, they would think it was inadequate. I even decided to include myself in the frowning judging world. If I ever paused and looked at myself and saw myself, I would be unhappy with who was standing there vulnerable, naked, with no distracting adornments.  

And maybe, just maybe, that love your neighbor as yourself thing is true. And if I can only look at myself with a squinched-up critical eye that is exactly how I look at my neighbor. Weighing. Measuring. Judging.

Rather than waiting out on the road, looking into the sunset settling over the horizon, pacing, looking up, even craning my neck a bit, so eager am I to welcome the wandering prodigal into my awaiting heart. Because that is how I have been welcomed, just as I am, without one plea.

And we are all wandering prodigals. Who have been welcomed with outstretched arms.

It is finished. Done.

And stepping into His tent, oddly enough, is stepping out into complete freedom. His tent is far bigger than the human mind can comprehend. And a light breeze is stirring the door flaps, whispering, “Come further up, come further in!” 

Do not be afraid. It is I.

Here is a good article by a Christianity Today blogger on crafting our own lifeboats. Me and Abraham. 

And dozens of pools in all directions.

“See, I will create
    new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
    nor will they come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever
    in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
    and its people a joy.
I will rejoice over Jerusalem
    and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying
    will be heard in it no more. Isaiah 65:17-19

But the Lord answered: ‘Martha, Martha,’ he said, ‘you worry and fret about so many things, and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part, it is not to be taken from her.’ Luke 10:42

To return to God means to return to God with all that I am and all that I have. God’s love is a jealous love. God wants not just a part of me, but all of me. Only when I surrender myself completely to God’s parental love can I expect to be free from endless distractions, ready to hear the voice of love, and able to recognize m own unique call.

It is going to be a very long road. Every time I pray, I feel the struggle. It is the struggle of letting God be the God of my whole being. It is the struggle to trust that true freedom lies hidden in total surrender to God’s love. Henri Nouwen, The Road to Daybreak

For the joy set before me, I follow in the way of the cross: Not my will, but Your will be done. And Jesus showed us what it means to live with The Big Picture clearly in mind, singlemindedness, undistracted by all of the little no-see-um gnats swirling around our faces. And in our thoughts. And like Peter, I need to wash my feet every day, wash off my dustiness that clings to my flesh. To sit at His feet and be reminded of His sweet love. And.

And nothing else. To choose one thing. Because nothing else matters. It will not be remembered nor will come to mind.

In Lewis’ Magician’s Nephew there is this leafy world between the world. A silent place of bright and warm green daylight. And dozens of pools in all directions. Other worlds full of the unknown and unexpected. And this screened in back porch in Norwich, Vermont is my silent place. My sitting at His feet and listening to Him speak place.

But Mary’s love was not a passive cozy love. There is more than one way to sit at His feet. This is the same Mary who took a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume, and poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped His feet with her hair. It is a costly whole-hearted love. Listening is doing. Obeying. Jesus stepped into the swirling, madding crowd after His pre-dawn prayers of refreshment with the Father. It is a love of power and courage. A rolling up one’s sleeves love because a mighty battle is taking place and I do not want to be distracted from my call, the works for which I was created, and for which He came. The abundant life of beauty and strength, reflective of Our Father.

And Danny Silk has a declaration to speak, which is helpful for folks like me that have trouble articulating what is going on in their hearts:

I know the Spirit of power and love is at work in me.

I can love at all times through Christ who strengthens me.

I am courageous with my love.

My goal is connection, not distance.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. On earth as it is in heaven.

And yet all loneliness, angers, hatreds, envies, and itchings that (Hell) contains, if rolled into one single experience and put into the scale against the least moment of the joy that is felt by the least in Heaven, would have no weight that could be registered at all. Lewis, The Great Divorce

I put my trust in Your mercy; my heart is joyful because of Your saving help. Psalm 13:5

Meanwhile the eleven disciples set out for Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus arranged to meet them. When they saw him they fell down before him, though some hesitated. Jesus came up and spoke to them. He said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them the commands I gave you. And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.’ Matthew 28:16-20

For three days I have been meditating on the story of the prodigal son. It is a story about returning. I realize the importance of returning over and over again. My life drifts away from God. I have to return. My heart moves away from my first love. I have to return. My mind wanders to doubt and fear. I have to return. Returning is a lifelong struggle.

It strikes me that the wayward son had rather selfish motivations. He said to himself, “How many of my father’s paid servants have more food than they want, and here am I dying of hunger? I will leave this place and go to my father.” I am moved by the fact that the father didn’t require any further motivation. His love was so total and unconditional that he simply welcomed his son home.

God does not require a pure heart before embracing us. God’s love does not require any explanations about why we are returning. God is glad to see us home and wants to give us all we desire, just for being home. Henri Nouwen, The Road to Daybreak

“…and some hesitated.” After all that.

But Jesus did not. Rather he welcomed the strugglers into His call to go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to love the LORD God with all of their heart, soul, spirit and body, and likewise to love their neighbor as themselves.

Yes He is merciful. And full of compassion. unconditionally.

And yesterday afternoon my brother Tom fed me crackers and cheese while we sat in his kitchen and talked about life. And death. He told me this story about J. B. Phillips the Bible translator, who was in his living room watching television, when suddenly the recently dead C. S. Lewis appeared sitting in a chair within a few feet of him, “ruddier in complexion than ever, grinning all over his face and positively glowing with health. The interesting thing to me was that I had not been thinking about him at all. And I was neither alarmed nor surprised. He was just there.” But what Tom found most thought-provoking was Lewis’ message of comfort, “It’s not as hard as you think, you know.”

And the other night, while Alan and Jon went to band practice, Pamela and I and the kids watched a BBC television show that has been tracking a small group selected to represent a cross-section of Londoners. Starting when they were seven, and every seven years since, they have been interviewed about life questions such as dreams and plans and opinions on family, love and purpose. We watched Year 56, which included snippets from over the years as life happened. And at the end of the show, Charly, the stunningly beautiful eighteen-year-old headed off to Barnard in the fall declared, “Well, that was depressing.” And Pamela and I looked at each other in surprise. Because really, when it was all said and done, these folks were basically pretty happy with their lot in life, a job of sorts, food in the belly and the kids were doing pretty well with grandchildren on the way.

“It’s not as hard as you think, you know.”

And Tom and I, on separate ends of the continent have both come to the conclusion that when it is all said and done, and this world is rolled up like a carpet and He returns in full glory, it’s going to be a lot different that we have been brought up to believe. We see but through a glass dimly. I don’t think those Dallas Theological Seminary color-coded charts with arrows pointing up and down capture the Father’s heart. And I suspect that much of the heartbreak will be the realization that I spent far too much time and effort and sweat and anxiety on stuff that is going to be tossed into the fire and burned. And speaking of tossing, anything that I did invest in wisely and in His footsteps is going to be tossed joyously at His feet.

And this is a great release, as I prepare to celebrate my fifty-seventh year of life. Freedom. Joy. Love. Day after day returning again to He is the center, I am not. And He knows my heart. And mind. And soul. And my faulty motivations. And my dustiness.

And still He rejoices over me, His child returning. He waits out at the end of the road to welcome me. And runs to embrace me. And calls for a great celebration.

Grant me the grace of your Holy Spirit that I may be devoted to you with my whole heart.

O God, you have taught me to keep all your commandments by loving you and my neighbor: Grant me the grace of your Holy Spirit, that I may be devoted to you with my whole heart, and united to others with pure affection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust.

‘Be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate. Do not judge, and you will not be judged yourselves; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and there will be gifts for you: a full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap; because the standard you use will be the standard used for you.’ Luke 6:36–38

Prayer means entering into communion with the One who loved us before we could love. It is this “first love” that is revealed to us in prayer. The more deeply we enter into the house of God, the house whose language is prayer, the less dependent we are on the blame or praise of those who surround us, and the freer we are to let our whole being be filled with that first love. As long as we are wondering what other people say or think about us and are trying to act in ways that will elicit a positive response, we are still victimized and imprisoned by the dark world in which we live. In that dark world we have to let our surroundings tell us what we are worth. As long as we are in the clutches of that world, we live in darkness, since we do not know our true self. We cling to our false self in the hope that maybe we can find more success, more praise, more satisfaction will give us the experience of being loved, which we crave. That is the fertile ground of bitterness, greed, violence and war.

In prayer, however, again and again we discover that the love we are looking for has already been given to us and that we can come to the experience of that love. Prayer is entering into communion with the One who molded our being in our mother’s womb with love and only love, The in the first love, lies our true self, a self not made up of rejections and acceptance of those with whom we live, but solidly rooted in the One who called us into existence. In the house of God we were created. To that house we are called to return. Prayer is the act of returning. Henri Nouwen, The Road to Peace

It is good to be reminded this morning of the utter clarity with which we are commanded to be compassionate, not to judge and to forgive. Any sort of thinking otherwise is from the Accuser. He came not to condemn the world, rather He came to give His life to His beloved children. And as I consider this week’s prayer: Grant me the grace of your Holy Spirit, that I may be devoted to you with my whole heart, and united to others with pure affection, I am reminded again and again that this pure affection comes from a single-minded heart at rest in His love, because He first loved me.

But this forgiveness and mercy offered up to others is not that of a stoical-grit-my-saintly-teeth sort, mucking about in the gravel pits of life on one’s stomach with one’s face in the dirt. No, rather this is a joyous celebration of His great forgiveness and mercy, somehow accompanied with a full measure of gifts, pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing, poured into my lap.

That is the sort of mercy I wish to live in today, through His grace, filled with His first love, united with others in pure (not what-is-in-it-for-me) affection.