The thread so far is just at the point of sitting with both Absence and the
Possibility of Presence at the same time. It's not the easiest of
things to do. But like so much else in life, learning to recognize our moments,
to read the signs, to follow the star becomes more familiar in the doing.
But after a long plod sometimes things happen all at once.
Lucy was just playing hide and seek when she climbed into the
wardrobe, edging back behind its old coats so she wouldn't be found. Back and
back and back until she discovered there was no back--and something was
crunching under her feet--it was snowing! She was in Narnia.
Moses, having run away from Egypt to save his life, was tending
his father-in-law's goats so far from the familiar that it was called The
Back of Beyond. This is where Moses saw the great sight--a bush that burned
but didn't burn up.
Four years after my friend gave me the gift of being lost,
I was again sitting and reading one morning (I had become so curious and open
to where the thread I was following might take me that I was actually reading
the Bible--pretty much the last place I thought wisdom might be found.) One of
the 'wise people' I'd been reading quoted Jesus here and there. He obviously
had been experiencing Jesus as a particularly rich
source of wisdom. Go figure.
So I had plodded through the first 10 chapters of Luke. Same old
same old.
Then in chapter 11, I saw it, I got there--the back of the
wardrobe, the back of beyond. Here's what I was reading, Jesus was saying:
Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find;
knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks
receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the
door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks
for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks
for an egg, will give a scorpion?
I wasn't 19 anymore. I was 23. Some things I was beginning to see
from both sides, at least a little. I had come to that point in time where a
child can begin to see his/her parents in a fresh way. How hard most parents
try. How hard it is to be a parent. How much most parents really care about
their children. How much my parents cared about me.
Here's what I read next, Jesus is still talking--
So, make the connection. You humans, being as fallible as you are
(one thing my 4 years had taught me was how very fallible I was), know how to
give good gifts to your children. Consider what God wants to give you.
Then, just like that, in a flash--Narnia, a flaming bush.
I jumped out of the chair. My heart was on fire. My brain was
nearly exploding with wonder. I kept looking back at the chair. And the Bible.
Who knew!
All I had done was to consider what God might want to give me. It
came faster than Next Day Air.
Who knew?
