A few years ago, a friend commended the Fire of Mercy, a multi-volume commentary on the Gospel according to St. Matthew. I was on the fence about purchasing the set until he referred me to this paragraph, describing what Jesus meant when he said the word we translate “blessed”:
Those who live according to the desires of the Lord’s Heart as here expressed have undertaken the buena aventura or “good adventure” they hasten toward the God who calls them and leave everything else behind… The deepest Christian emotion may well be precisely the boundless silent joy that wells up at the center of our being every time we realize who it is that calls us, what he is calling us to, and how marvelous the road is that he himself has prepared for us by first treading it himself. Only adventuresome hearts are capable of following Jesus intimately. A seasoned monk, who had not left his monastery in four or five decades, was once described as having a face like an old sailor’s, with the permanent look in his eyes of someone who has spent his whole life gazing far, far away.
There are lots of paths on offer now. In my American context, there are several I sense most urgently, like the path of riches & power, the path of worldly righteousness and collective validation, and the path of epicurean enjoyment. Few people on these paths have articulated them explicitly as “options,” but these paths are pursued with great enthusiasm.
Yet, in case I have forgotten, I return to that passage and am reminded that there is another way through this life.
There is much I hope to say in a semi-public forum, and I intend to begin to do so on this blog. But I hope to never fail to articulate the offer of God to walk the path of salvation. To be on this path is to have been grafted by God’s grace into a new life. And if you stand on this path, you will know the truth and you will experience that truth’s life - you will not simply stand in place.
I love this life God has given me, and at the same time I am haunted by it’s incomplete realization. I continue homeward with joy as I mourn my failure to yet arrive. Perhaps that eventual arrival will feel a bit like I’m returning to something that before I had only known in part.
Onward on the good adventure!