Scriptorium Daily
I have chosen to go the wrong way. I have accidentally scarred my soul when I meant to find happiness. I have confused desire with love and short term pain relief with healing.
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I was in a spiritual desert trying to build a kingdom of self. Sand castles. Victories with play swords. It was always futile, but if I gave up the dream there would be nothing.
Fear consumed me in that desert place. This fear was twofold: that if I gave up on sin, that I was giving up on the only happiness I had ever known and that I was too loathsome for a universe with a God good enough to forgive me.
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Like many people I have known, the mere thought of a God so good and loving that He could have mercy on me made me afraid. Such fierce compassion! Such severe mercy would leave me for all eternity exposed as one so foolish, so unworthy, so hateful as to require the ultimate sacrifice.
I did not want to be a welfare recipient for all eternity. It was pride, but pride which did not want to be the flaw in perfection, the tolerated off-key singer in the angelic choir ruining the song in the conductors benevolence.
Healing at such price was too terrible, better the sweet oblivion of meaningless death.
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Then I realized what I should have known through Sunday School. The fierce perfection of Heaven was Love and not just the straight edge of a ruler. God was locked in compassionate cycle of healing and reconciliation in which no note would be allowed to remain sour.
He would not just “fix me,” but in a greater miracle reconcile all my history to Himself. Indeed, He would do this and make all well (and more than well!) whether I cooperated or not, but there was a chance to bow before this Divine rearrangement and enjoy it.
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Like the women in William’s poem, I had to see I was wrong from the very beginning. Even my virtue led to vice. My pride to abasement. My loves to hurt.
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The painful good news is that I could not really defy Heaven even in that. My folly became the means for Heaven’s wisdom!
The guilty woman had to hear that her very stumble had become a glorious victory. What next? Do we merely sit with head lowered in shame?
What comes after Mercy sets us free?
The poet Taliessin compares what remains for this penitent woman to the work of legendary Pheilippides.
This brave soldier brought the news of victory to Athens from the battle of Marathon. Pheilippides (the spelling varies) ran to Athens with the good news so the citizens would not burn the city (the first marathon!) and died as he spoke the word of victory.
All that is left for the forgiven woman (and for me!) is to run the rest of life in the glorious marathon announcing Heaven’s victory. Every step rings with the defeat of the ancient foe! All is well! Triumph! Victory! (more)
