Why The Shadow?

Is it Batman?

No, it's Carbon.  Lurking.  It's what Carbon does best.

When we are children, our shadows are our friends.  We may walk, run, or try to trick our shadow. It is a source of wonder and joy. But as we get older, we fear shadows.  We suspect evil and ill intent, sometimes even of our own.

A shadow is the dark area that comes between a body and rays of light and a surface.

C.S. Lewis had much to say about shadows.  Here is a quote from "The Great Divorce."

"Will you come with me to the mountains?  It will hurt at first, until your feet are hardened.  Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows.  But will you come?"

While I'm no Lewis scholar, what I know from reading the book, and my own inclination toward safe living is this is a call to step into the light, even though it is not safe and it often is unknown and unfamiliar.  Even if you've followed God your entire life, sometimes He'll surprise you in ways that aren't entirely pleasant.  Sometimes we retreat to the shadows.

Keep your head down.  Maybe He won't see you.  Then you won't get hurt.

That is not living, that is just surviving to limp through the next day.

We choose safety, or a vice, or something that doesn't look like a vice, but serves as one, to hide from living a life with Christ.  I mean, how exactly do we do that anyway?  It's not following the Golden Rule or doing church-y thing.

We want to DO more than we want to BE.  We want to quantify life, show results on a chart.  But wild God isn't one for the bottom line.  God's economy is different from ours.  And it's really annoying not to know it, only occasionally getting a glimpse of what it might be.

"Abide with me," Jesus tells us.  Other than the Dude abiding, I don't know of too many people who abide a whole lot, do you?

The Message version of the Bible in John 15:5 goes on in later verses to say, "...If you make yourselves home with me and my words are at home with you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon."

What?  Abiding gets us an audience with the King.  The Creator of the Universe. 

There is no glory in the shadows and certainly none from living there.

Come into the Light.  The mystery is good, the company perfect.