Week of September 2, 2002
Diane S.
"Now the Lord has said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee."
Genesis 12:1"O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me to thy holy hill and to thy tabernacles."
Psalm 43:2
Leaving home. It is a familiar theme, one we have all experienced, perhaps never more dramatically than during our teen years. Like the Israelites, we were a people routed from our homeland, which was childhood, and commissioned by destiny to build a new city, an adult world modeled after the one we had lost. We had no choice but to embark on this journey to the unknown, lured by the thrill of adventure, eager to meet the challenges, and anxious to create our own worlds. But what sort of values did we choose for ourselves?
When I was fifteen or so, like many young teens, idealism coursed through my very blood, streaming up from some hidden spring, ever dancing before my eyes -- beauty without flaw, truth incapable of refutation, goodness with no speck of impurity. Knowing full well these ideals were abstractions that forever lay beyond the horizon never prevented me from pursuing them. I believed in the dream.
Of course, one cannot live on dreams alone, gorgeous though they may be, for inevitably reality intrudes. I awoke, brought face-to-face with the truth of our humanity, and humbly kneeling at the feet of the Lord, in Whose keeping the whole world rests. For life is not for the dreamers who float high above the surface of reality, surveying all through rose-colored mists, seeing nothing at all, merely trading formless principles for a living human reality -- a reality not pure and ever sparkling, to be sure, but breathing, sensing, knowing. Nor does it belong to those who painstakingly crawl over the surface, peering meticulously at every crack in the earth, every painful encounter, and finding them lacking in all good things. Rather, life shines most brightly for those who walk gently over the hills and the valleys, with an air of compassion, and a hallowed vision that continually seeks out those kernels of beauty, truth and goodness in this imperfect world of our present lives, endeavors to enhance them, and lets the dross fall silently away. For it is not the rejection of idealism that finally brings us to maturity, but the gracious acceptance of reality, and the effort to prayerfully, lovingly shape that reality into a more graceful form.
(Clara H. Scott)
Open my eyes, that I may see glimpses of truth thou hast for me;
Place in my hands the wonderful key that shall unclasp and set me free.
Open my ears, that I may hear voices of truth thou sendest clear;
And while the wave-notes fall on my ear, everything false will disappear.
Silently now I wait for thee, ready my God, thy will to see.
Open my heart, illumine me, Spirit divine!
Amen
Contributed by Diane S.
Published Monday September 2, 2002
Week 40 of Liturgical Year A