Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.
~ St. Augustine of Hippo
Oh that you were like a Brother to me who nursed at my mother’s breasts! If I found you outside, I would kiss You,
and none would despise me. I would lead You and bring You
into the house of my mother—she who used to teach me. I would give You spiced wine to drink, the juice of my pomegranate. … His left hand is under my head, and His right hand embraces me! Set me as a seal upon Your heart, as a seal upon Your arm, for Love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench Love, neither can floods drown It. If a man offered for Love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.
~ The Shulamite woman to her Beloved, in Song of Solomon
Oh beloved, it is true. There is within us this little child who is so prone to wander off of the lap of the One we never wanted to leave anyway. And we live in a world that is absolutely screaming that what we want is really “just over there.” And somehow, even though we know it is not true, we skitter off to find what is not somewhere else.
We look to the past as though it were some better place.
We peer intently into our gadgets, keeping conversations about something that has happened, or will happen soon – somewhere (anywhere) else than where we are right now.
We look to upgrades in our careers to begin eking some sort of deeper satisfaction out of our work.
We think a changes in our location will make things better.
We watch the news and have deep concern for things going on across the planet.
We see other relationships and think if we could just…
We go and do and yearn and launch and wish and want and gripe and reach and… And in doing all of this we reach further and further away from the Locus of power in our lives.
What is this within us?
The liar, the deceiver of the brethren has only really used two tactics, bound up under one strategy, from the beginning… First, we hear the hiss of “did God really say?”, and then we hear the follow-on that comes from the dissatisfaction we purchase when we buy into the first lie: “What you want is somewhere else.”
The strategy of evil is so insidiously simple that we miss it: Divide and conquer. If the liar can get us spread out and pulled apart from the Source of our strength, he has the greatest chance of inflicting damage on us.
Can we see it? This is exactly what we are tempted to do almost every waking and dreaming moment. We are tempted to live our lives somewhere (anywhere) other than where they actually work. We are tempted to believe that we can somehow gain strength, or exert greater power over a distance – rather than right up close to others in a given moment.
Oh beloved, the deceiver does know the truth. In G_d’s Presence is the fullness of Joy. And this joy is the real thing. This Joy is the diamond-hard strength to do absolutely everything in His will for us that we need to do (and even everything we deeply desire). And the liar and accuser of the brethren has only one chance. He must get us to believe that the strength is somewhere other than right where we are, right now.
Bluntly,
The power is not online.
The power is not in our gadgets.
The power is not in Facebook.
The power is not in our long-distance relationships.
The power is not in our plans for the future.
The power is not in our reminiscing about the past.
The Power is Him. Right here. Right now.
Stay the night beloved. Your Beloved would reach His beautiful hand behind your head and hold you as you have ever longed to be held.
Don’t go. Stay.
