No Shadows

I have started collecting epitaphs on gravestones. I suppose it really started when I was a child wandering through the local cemetery with my older sister. We found quite a bit of Scope for the Imagination as we gazed upon statues and read the carefully chosen words on the stones. One said mysteriously "An enemy hath done this," which set our minds reeling with possibilities. Was he murdered? Was it during the war? Was betrayal involved? It wasn't until I was an adult and starting to read the Bible that I came across that very phrase in Matthew 13, referring to the parable in which an enemy had sown tares among the wheat.  This sheds no light on the matter for me; does it for you?  

Moving on, I call your attention to a gravestone I came across recently in a small cemetery in Idaho. "Mother - there will be no shadows on the other shore." C.S. Lewis famously referred to life on this side of heaven as the "Shadowlands," a place where we see only shadows of the things to come. Life isn't completely crystallized and solid here; we are only shadows. On the other shore we will be complete and real and solid in Christ. 

In literature when a shadow seems to fall across someone's face, it is a symbol of grief or sadness.  Evil lurks in shadows and waits for nightfall to do its dirty work. On the other shore we will be free from all sadness and evil.  

Mother - There will be no shadows on the other shore

I cannot read these words without thinking of the song "Into the West" from the movie "Return of the King."

Lay down your sweet and weary head

Night is falling, you've come to journey's end

Sleep now and dream of the ones who came before

They are calling from across the distant shore...

...White shores are calling...you and I will meet again.

For all who are in Christ, we will meet again on the other shore. Death is the final shadow and after that comes light and substance and unending joy.  

 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; 

there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. 

There shall be no more pain, 

for the former things have passed away.  

Revelation 21:4

Story

We are all walking stories, this world a diverse library stuffed with living books of all kinds. Some of our stories exalt the Author; others despise Him.  Human history is full of stories rich and complex or insipid and superficial.  An air of mystery may permeate the plot line of one person's novel, while the trajectory of another's may be plain for all to see.

I often think about this when my path briefly crosses that of another, two stories that pass each other by.  And I marvel at marriage, the intertwining of two stories such that they become one, even while retaining the uniqueness of each individual's chapters.

Recently someone posted on Facebook a short video taken of an older woman stealing rhubarb in a garden and cursing continually at the bystander who confronted her.   Her voice was guttural and harsh, her mien violent, her manner rude.  I felt inexpressibly sad as I contemplated her story.   What events and people had brought her to this pass in life?  Did she learn such language because that was the way she was spoken to?  When and how did stealing become the order of the day for her?  Was she ever someone's sweet little daughter or had she been from the beginning unwanted and neglected, cursed at and cast away?   I was curious and yet I would have been afraid to read her story.  Who can stand to know all the misery, heartache and sin that abides in our skins between the covers of our books?

There is only One who is not afraid to enter such darkness because He cannot be enveloped by it.  He casts light wherever He goes.  When He enters a story, its trajectory is permanently changed.   He entered into the ugliness of my story and made it beautiful.  He can do the same for that woman.  He can do the same for you. 

The light shines in the darkness, 

and the darkness has not overcome it

John 1:5

Old Man

I've been walking past this place nearly every morning for months now.  The first time I saw this dual-nature shrub, I did a double take.  What happened here? As I passed it again and again, I found that I was frequently musing on the Biblical teaching of the old man versus the new man.  'Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature.  The old things passed away, behold new things have come.  Here grows a beautiful illustration of that spiritual truth.  The old things have passed away; dead, but still connected somehow until we go on to glory.   The new stuff is green and full of life.





When you approach these shrubs from a certain angle, it looks for all the world as if the middle one is completely dead and yet as you continue on, you are surprised by joy.  When I look at myself, at my inner self, I'm afraid that too often I see only the old man, the old dead growth instead of seeing what is growing up alongside it in beauty.

Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, 

but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:11