meditatio at the water's edge

'Cain replied to the LORD, "My punishment is too great for me to bear! You have banished me from my land and from your presence; you have made me a wandering fugitive. All who see me will try to kill me!' (Genesis 4:13-14)

When we act in rebellion against God we are made restless.

When I act in rebellion against God I cannot sit still. I am made a wandering fugitive. I fear the stillness and silence that exposes my shame.

See, when we're busy, we don't have to look in the mirror. When everything is quiet (quiet enough for the blood that we've spilled to cry out!) we are forced to confront our failure, our emptiness, our loneliness, our brokenness. Everyone becomes a potential enemy. We believe that our secret is secretly known and everyone is suspicious. We trust less. We love less. We risk less. We hope less. And so despair and depression crowd in with the noise and busyness to isolate us on an island somewhere east of Eden in a land called Nod (Gen 4:16).

Have you experienced this wandering life of noise and busyness? Have you understood your restlessness as an estrangement from God? The experience is truly more than we can bear, and that is why we run from the stillness and into the distractions of busyness and noise. That is why we turn our angry music up so loud. That is why we work 60, 70, 80 hour weeks (some of us).

Will you try something with me? Will you do something entirely courageous? Will you rest? Will you take a day and do nothing? Will you spend time in silence and stillness and look long enough into the mirror and listen long enough to hear the whisper of God? Will you allow yourself to be confronted with your failure, your loneliness, your emptiness, and your brokenness? Will you wait around long enough to hear God speak "Peace" into your hectic life? Will you stop fidgeting around; stop trying to wiggle away from the reality that you are living east of Eden? Will you open your life to God's peace so you can start trusting again? So you can start risking again? So you can start loving again? So you can start living in friendship with God again?

We don't have to live as wandering fugitives. Following Jesus means that we are following him to our Home. Our baptism is a passage through the Jordan, into the place of rest. Our salvation is a rescue from bondage and restlessness, and into freedom and rest. Jesus has made a new way for us--a way that leads us back into God's presence, back into community with God.

When we act in cooperation with God we find peace.

Shalom.