“Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. … Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him …”
Luke 24:13-16, 31
“If a person wishes to be sure of the road they tread upon, they must close their eyes and walk in the dark.”
St. John of the Cross, 16th century Spanish priest and mystic
Have you ever said to yourself–“if I can just make it through this …”? We all have. What’s happening when we reach the edge of our human capacities? When we can’t see where we are going, it’s because we are being invited by Spirit to walk in the dark with the Divine. It may not look like that. In fact, it probably doesn’t. It most likely looks like some person or situation is causing us trouble. We may get into conflicts or we may just feel bored. Our habitual ways of seeing and being that used to define us start to rub us—and sometimes other people—the wrong way. We feel on the edge because we don’t know what to do anymore. As one wag put it, “My Boy Scout knife is dull and my matches are wet.” Nothing works. The fears that lay just beyond our now dissolving self-definitions surface to be acknowledged and healed. We feel uncomfortable. We probably feel scared.
The deep truth is that we have chosen to expand our ability to live from our inner Christ. The root of whatever is going on outside of us is inside of us. We have chosen to grow, to live larger and that means change. Though they didn’t know it, that’s what was happening to the two disciples in the scripture passage above. They had no idea what they were about to discover. They were just miserable. Understandably caught up in despair over the loss of their Teacher and Friend and the hope he had inspired in them, they didn’t see the risen Christ. Yet, in a prayerful moment later that evening “their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.” To grow spiritually we must learn to value and be guided by the Light within—to realize that all along we’ve been walking in the dark with the Divine. Now that’ll get you where you want to go!
In the Love and Light of the Risen Christ,
Rev. Anna
