Wednesday, August 3, 2016

            [It has been a beautiful month in Nova Scotia.  But it is time to reconnect…]

 

            The small, butterscotch-coloured moth fluttered vainly and uselessly, even if tirelessly, against the glass. It was stuck between the inner screen and the closed door. It had been there all night. Despite what it did and no matter how hard it flapped its wings, it was impossible for it to get through the glass. To its credit or perhaps ignorance it wasn’t going to give up. But unless someone opened the door, this little moth was stuck and going nowhere. So I cranked open the door.

Then I went and made a cup of coffee.

When I came back I expected the moth to be long gone.  But there it was, still fluttering futilely against the glass, even though freedom was a few inches away. If I could speak moth, I might have said, “Hey dummy, fly to the right; the opening is right there.” Instead I reached in and gently guided it into the opening where it finally flew free into the morning light and fresh air. It didn’t even bother to stop and say thank-you!

The moth’s action has made me stop and think about how sometimes people find themselves stuck in bad situations and no matter how hard they think they are trying to get free their efforts remain ineffective and unsuccessful. Glass ceilings and brick walls throw up impasses that thwart every effort one makes to break free. We flutter vainly, continuously, exhaustingly, hopelessly, with the good world so frustratingly close that one can see it from just inside the emotional, physical, spiritual, economical, psychological glass panes which we are banging against; but no matter what one does, how hard one tries, we are stuck between the screen and the glass door.

God opens a door.  Call it transformation, rebirth, redemption, love, grace, but God opens a door.  Some folk just keep banging their wings against the glass anyway. “The truth will set you free,” Jesus once said. The truth is that you or I don’t have to be stuck between the glass and the screen.  Sometimes, God has to give us a nudge to find the opening.  But real freedom is the ability to fly into the Light, to soar on our sore wings and feel the Spirit lift us up on the breezes of God’s hope and joy. Real freedom is letting go of useless, repeated patterns and finding the difference a few “inches” can make.

“For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened,” (Matthew 7:8)

Why are you still beating against the glass?

Dale