Abandonment

I saw myself once.
I was young,
sitting cross-legged
in the middle of the kitchen floor,
absorbed with some simple toy--
an elastic ball I think, something plain--
while preoccupied with other thoughts
too large for my brain.

I left him there.
I mingled with the adults
crowding in as it started to rain
(it was a house party)
and didn't introduce him to anyone.

I didn't take him with me
when I left.

He's likely still there,
readily entertained
with his elastic ball and too-small brain.
I wouldn't know.
My own grew too big
to hang on to just the hem
of a garment of an idea
and look up at something
it couldn't contain.

The Lesser Hope

If it is only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.  (From Paul's 1st Epistle to the Corinthians)

There's an assumption underlying Paul's main point here--an assumption he must have felt was obvious enough that it need not be stated outright.  I'm not so sure it's as obvious to people today.  The assumption is that Christian hope is for this life.  Not only for this life, but no less for this life.  It is perhaps the lesser hope of the two, but it is hope.

Hope for what?  That right now, on this earth, in these bodies, Christ might be present.  That God's will be done.  That the Kingdom of Heaven invade our world

No One Ever Heard

 As soon as they had breakfasted they all went out, and there they saw Aslan and Edmund walking together in the dewy grass, apart from the rest of the court. There is no need to tell you (and no one ever heard) what Aslan was saying, but it was a conversation which Edmund never forgot. As the others drew nearer Aslan turned to meet them, bringing Edmund with him.


"Here is your brother," he said, "and—there is no need to talk to him about what is past."


This brief scene from C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe has left an enduring impression on me for many years now.  As I reflect on it now, it makes me think about how the Gospels bring the concept of justice to fullness.  Bear with me.


For the most part, justice consists of stories we tell ourselves.  They are stories about what is fair, what people deserve, what is reasonable recompense for wrongdoing, etc.  It is subjective and imperfect, but nonetheless necessary and one of the great responsibilities of being human.  It is also one of the great burdens of being human  We have the guidance of Scripture and the Holy Spirit, not to mention the wisdom passed down from great thinkers over millenia.  But we still stumble through much darkness along the path.  We still have to make decisions with imperfect information.  We still have to tell ourselves the best story we can construct with the information we have.  Often those stories have high stakes, and so we even cling to them when we think we need to in order to get what we want.  ("He deserves this because of what he did to me." Or, "I deserve this good thing because of what I've been through."  Or, "I'm not worthy of this good thing because of my past.") 

But thank God, a day will come when we are forced (or allowed?) to lay down our stories.

There is hardly a more powerful image our minds can conjure than that of a person face to face with God, the one who sees them as they are.  At that point, the reality of God's truth and God's justice will supplant every single one of the stories we tell ourselves  To see another person face God is to renounce all of your own stories you may have previously felt entitled to hold.  To face God yourself is to surrender all of your own notions of just deserts.  Wherever the human heart encounters the fullness of God's justice, we are forbidden to craft our own.  .