As I was thinking more about yesterday's post, I came across this passage from George MacDonald that really captures the essence of this idea that we've got to fight to be alert and awake to what is real, what is most true. MacDonald's olde [sic] English can take some work to really get through, but this one's worth it:
"To believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream: to will to wake, when the very being seems athirst for Godless repose: --these are the broken steps up to the high fields where repose is but a form of strength, strength but a form of joy, joy but a form of love."
In other words our senses are dulled. What we call "our lives" or "reality" is really mostly a distorting dream. We have to fight to wake up. We have to fight to know and connect with "the wise-awake real" in the midst of all of the stuff that wars against it. Even and especially our own internal world would rather slouch towards "Godless repose" and slumber and dull distraction than search eagerly for reality, for life, for hope, for joy.
But the fight to move in that direction, whatever small steps we might take, these are the broken steps towards the High Countries. Life in the Land of the Trinity beckons us to come on. To not stop or linger or quit or give up until we've come to the end of our journey and all shall be well. All our deepest desires filled, for we have met the Source of them. All our cravings for life satiated, for we know the One who is Life.
This is the walk of faith, the fight to connect with the wide-awake real energy and Person who stands over everything past, present and future.
1 comment:
Amen Brother!
I was talking to someone recently about how the journey of the Matrix was so analogous to our faith journey in some ways. We have to wake up and see that things are not what they may seem, believe it, then live it out.
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