Greetings Dear Reader,
“such thoughts had often knocked for entrance, but had always been excluded for the very good reason that if they were once entertained it involved ripping up the whole web of his life, canceling almost every decision his will had ever made, and really beginning over again as though he were an infant.”
― C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength
― C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength
My purpose in revisiting this series of books was to recall the impact of sudden vast change. It was to remember how deeply the story informed my understanding of the vast difference between who we truly are and how we see ourselves. This time around, however, I have seen that same thing with fewer filters and more bare understanding.
When I first arrived back in this small town that rests between the Lonely Mountain and what to me will always be Rivendell, I had a construct in my mind about how things should be in following Christ. The reset I am experiencing is overwhelming. The simplicity of all that I see is overshadowing and tearing away so many things I have valued for so long. The strength of this simplicity has devastated and revitalized me.
The idea of beginning again so far down the path seemed foolish to me. Then I was reminded that many others have done the same with great success. I was steeped in the truth that I cannot change the past but I must forgive it and be forgiven of it. Even if other humans hold my failings against me still, the past is forgiven by the one who owns time, and, therefore, ultimately so am I.
I must not say this with any hint of pride or arrogance. The entire idea of forgiveness and reclamation must be steeped in humility and grace. I deserve to be crushed, obliterated, and forgotten. I am always, every day that I have life, love, and hope, better than I deserve. Every moment given me is one where I need to hear the expression of the Father’s love for me and his desire that I keep following his Son.
Scrapping my constructs and scraping my foundation to the bare surface reveals that all that remains is that love. With love as the foundation, the hard deck I find little need for any of the things I used to placate my hunger for the love I needed but would not see. I also see that this is the condition that plagues us all. Tell me one social ill that cannot be cured through the suitable application of concentrated unconditional love.
I submit that if we choose to love vertically and horizontally in every moment, that we will find less need for the many things we try to mitigate its absence. Power, greed, fear, and anger all stem from a lack of love. The human condition finds all of its ills in the failure to see our need to love and accept the love we are offered.
I am almost to the place where I can articulate this as a construct. The danger is that in systematizing anything so simply vital that I will produce a system and not the wild free construct that love offers. We trade the moment for the process. We sacrifice the now on the altar of the past, killing life for that which cannot be appeased or changed.
It is not possible for me to undo anything wrong I have done, Dear Reader. It is foolish to cling to the good I have accomplished as if that will sustain me. All that I can offer is to attempt to love you in this moment. All that I know is that this is what can restore and rebuild. I will still fail but at least it is a place to begin.
The power to do this is not mine. It comes from the Son who risked all to allow us to see how much his Father loves us. Everything bends to this. The Father expresses his love to us in this way, in that while we clamored for our own selfish indulgent wants, his Son died for our sake. No matter how noble our intentions and acts, we need this love to lift us above our own constructs into the freedom found in following. I am going to try to articulate this in the next few days. For now, however, I just want you to know that I love you no matter what. Until we see that the Light on the marshes is the one to follow, we are asleep in the light. Until we see that all must be founded in love, we cannot find our footing. We will not know where to begin.
Wishing you joy in the journey,
Aramis Thorn
Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a homeowner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”
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