Here on a trail of aspen leaves, I notice Light personified, a stippling gold effect who flits across my hiking feet. As I stoop to move a creeping caterpillar to safety along the path, I feel a shared understanding with all creatures great and small. In this moment, I feel immune to offense. I wish wellbeing to all.
I have experienced illumination at other times as well; periods when I felt free of the natural man. In these moments, my eyes gaze clear of any fear, and my spiritual muscles feel poised like the runner on his mark. Come, Mortality, my old foe, I think. Sound the gun. Today I’ll race any trial, any heat—I dare you to compete.
But then mid-race, growing pains start to tug at my well-fitting limbs, and stumbling, I no longer feel comfortable in my own skin. They say a preying mantis sheds completely seven times before his mortal sojourn ends. How many times have I left old skins by the trail, and then continued jogging on my journey? Seventy times seven? The latest instance came this past summer. A new move, new congregation, new friends, new classes, new job, pumped my heart and mind full of growth hormone, until one day I awakened to sense--with some measure of alarm--my exoskeleton had grown tight. In despair at the mounting tension in my life, I forgot the readiness of former days, and slipped into the depths of an anxiety disorder, another familiar old foe. The ever present fears of mental illness fettered me. Even when I started to remember from previous experience that relief of my pain was possible, the effort of getting there seemed too monumental to try.
Therapy, prayer, support of loved ones, and all personal efforts led only to an exhausted desperation, like that felt by C.S. Lewis’ character, Eustace, from the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. When as a lad he found himself stuck in dragon form, Eustace learned he could not escape the scaly skin by his own merits. Aslan alone could pierce the dragon hide with his terrible claws, and undress it from the sorrowing boy; the saving action pained Eustace. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, Paul points out in Hebrews 10:31. Eustace would likely agree with me: Healing hurts.
The Lord knows my struggle, feels my shuddering gasp as He wrenches old skin from me. He has seen the new me emerge, with glowing face and triumphant stride, countless times before. He knows each struggle can bring me yet again to that point of victory. But He does not hurry the process, and rather seems instead to linger until I show courage to the point of breaking. I used to wonder why He sometimes delays deliverance.
But as I sit in these aspens, peering at ants, bumble bees, and greens, I recall learning once how a butterfly emerges victorious from her chrysalis. The torturous effort of hatching forces fluid to the tips of her wings, and gives them crisp, eager flapping, a motion necessary to propel her body skyward. Perhaps the Lord lets me struggle for the same reasons He does not relieve the butterfly of her chrysalis. He wants me to work hard, to struggle, so my efforts may send righteousness shooting to the extremities of my limbs, until one day I arise and become the noble daughter of God I am meant to be.
I have experienced illumination at other times as well; periods when I felt free of the natural man. In these moments, my eyes gaze clear of any fear, and my spiritual muscles feel poised like the runner on his mark. Come, Mortality, my old foe, I think. Sound the gun. Today I’ll race any trial, any heat—I dare you to compete.
But then mid-race, growing pains start to tug at my well-fitting limbs, and stumbling, I no longer feel comfortable in my own skin. They say a preying mantis sheds completely seven times before his mortal sojourn ends. How many times have I left old skins by the trail, and then continued jogging on my journey? Seventy times seven? The latest instance came this past summer. A new move, new congregation, new friends, new classes, new job, pumped my heart and mind full of growth hormone, until one day I awakened to sense--with some measure of alarm--my exoskeleton had grown tight. In despair at the mounting tension in my life, I forgot the readiness of former days, and slipped into the depths of an anxiety disorder, another familiar old foe. The ever present fears of mental illness fettered me. Even when I started to remember from previous experience that relief of my pain was possible, the effort of getting there seemed too monumental to try.
Therapy, prayer, support of loved ones, and all personal efforts led only to an exhausted desperation, like that felt by C.S. Lewis’ character, Eustace, from the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. When as a lad he found himself stuck in dragon form, Eustace learned he could not escape the scaly skin by his own merits. Aslan alone could pierce the dragon hide with his terrible claws, and undress it from the sorrowing boy; the saving action pained Eustace. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, Paul points out in Hebrews 10:31. Eustace would likely agree with me: Healing hurts.
The Lord knows my struggle, feels my shuddering gasp as He wrenches old skin from me. He has seen the new me emerge, with glowing face and triumphant stride, countless times before. He knows each struggle can bring me yet again to that point of victory. But He does not hurry the process, and rather seems instead to linger until I show courage to the point of breaking. I used to wonder why He sometimes delays deliverance.
But as I sit in these aspens, peering at ants, bumble bees, and greens, I recall learning once how a butterfly emerges victorious from her chrysalis. The torturous effort of hatching forces fluid to the tips of her wings, and gives them crisp, eager flapping, a motion necessary to propel her body skyward. Perhaps the Lord lets me struggle for the same reasons He does not relieve the butterfly of her chrysalis. He wants me to work hard, to struggle, so my efforts may send righteousness shooting to the extremities of my limbs, until one day I arise and become the noble daughter of God I am meant to be.
3 comments:
First of all I love C.S. Lewis, and they way he makes it easy for us to find Christ-like attributes in the Aslan.Your comparison of this was great. How the Lord helps us shed this skin that we can't do ourselves, just as Aslan did for Eustace. I like how you cry out at mortality, at the race itself. Yet are we against mortality or with it?
Great job. You weave nature, literature, and personal experience together seamlessly.
This original piece and the revision stemming from seem to have potential together. I hope that both will appear in your McKay essay. Both are fluent and rich.
Post a Comment