Separation

It's the primary consequence of sin, you know: distancing that shape-shifts into so many divides and builds such high walls. Each one adds to the one before it, exponentially tugging our hearts away from the truth and liberation of grace, until we are, ourselves, utterly divided. By the time love begins its untangling, and  forgiveness starts to sink in, it can be nearly impossible to figure out where it started.

The beauty of it all is that divine mercy is not concerned with the beginning of separation, but with its end. Have your interpersonal walls been constructed with shame, ego, or a fibrous blend of both? Grace will deconstruct the walls, brick by brick.

Has the umbrella shielding you from the celestial nourishment of sun and rain been formed from unresolved guilt, a tarp of lesser gods incapable of love and unworthy of hope, or all of the above? Grace will pull back the cover, letting light shine and water flow.

Has the misery of your daily existence been woven from untold abuse, deification of your expectations, or unyielding threads of both? Grace will open the closet, blessing you and everything still contained therein, and invite you to a place at the table of hope.

Have you become an insatiable bundle of appetites, a heart-locked hermit, or a dizzying pinball, bouncing uncontrollably between these two extremes? Grace will show you your true worth, being, and calling.

No matter where you find yourself, the important thing is to not run or hide. Wherever you are when you recognize yourself, let divine love join you. Let grace gather the fragments of your brokenness, leaving nothing of who you are behind. 

Listen to the conclusion of Wendell Berry’s poem, “Wild Geese”:

Geese appear high over us,

pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,

as in love or sleep, holds

them to their way, clear,

in the ancient faith: what we need

is here. And we pray, not

for new earth or heaven, but to be

quiet in heart, and in eye

clear. What we need is here.

It's not just that what we need is with us in the present. The crucial understanding of the human condition is that being with ourselves and those in our midst – fully alert, alive, and present to and in the here and now – is what we need more than anything else. It is really all we need. Everything else is superfluous accessorizing.

The roll, then, is not being called “up yonder”. It is being called daily, hourly, momentarily, in our lives. How (or) will you find ways to answer?

© 2015 Todd Jenkins