“These new things
that feel so old”
H,
I have been thinking of how quickly
we have grown out of our innocent ways. We used to really weigh things, back in
the day. It is was not mere morality; there was something so darn precious
about the way we approached life and living. Now, we are less able to see
things without the grey. I do not think that older means wiser. More often, it
means more careful, jaded or cynical about the real hope of all things. We are
more calculating, I guess, is what I am trying to say.
It is like this: when we were young
we were always trying to stop ourselves from being impulsive and now we
struggle with letting ourselves be a little less predictable. There is a sense
of wonder in God that you cannot afford to lose. The things set before us,
before everyone really, are so magnificent and metaphysical that we cannot live
in stoicism and still have a full life of faith. We cannot focus on these new
things that feel so old; the new disappointments that hark back to old
failures, the new fears that we match up with old anxieties and the terrible
idea that we are making no progress.
The pilgrim’s process is different.
There are no external markers that we celebrate in the world today. A billion-dollar
ministry is more evidence to our windy eyes than love, gentleness, faith or
humility. We want the accolades and not the humiliation. Our faith wants the
humiliation that is redemptive. Our faith calls for the falling down that is
really standing up. No human eyes can see it.
We are perpetually attracted to
pretty things. We are fools to the attractive and the pristine. We do not want
that awful mess that only the grace of God can cure. We do not want to admit
that we are in that awful mess that only the grace of God can cure.  We want to be independent of everything, even
God. The mantra of the moment is self-sufficiency, self-love and self-fulfillment.
It is not that there is anything wrong with all that ruckus. It is only that
they will not take us where we need to go. After all that has died down, the
greatest question of all remains human mortality. The absurdity of the finite
life calls us to look deeper than the decades we spend on a mock up earth. There
is a calling to something more. There is a mystery that rolls all across the universe.
It calls to us in our most silent moments. It tells us to turn and look into
the light. When we are done with all the acting and posing and pretending the
world has taught us, that light is still above us, edging us home. It does not
dim with age. It grows brighter through space and time. It will grow brighter
in us if we let it.