COMPASS AND MAP

COMPASS AND MAP

                Maybe I was scared and scarred as a child watching episodes of Gilligan’s Island.  Maybe I was permanently traumatized the time my brother and I decided it would be neat to hide in the circular clothes rack at Sears, only to come out and, surprise, our mama was lost!  But, I have  a recurring nightmare of being in a situation, usually with my family, and hopelessly lost, or desperately stuck, or terribly entangled with no hope of rescue.  The setting and scenery change, but the plot is the same.  And, I wake up, just before it is too late.

                This misadventure began in my childhood neighborhood, hiking with my grown child and a young grandchild into a vacant field, an undeveloped area near a subdivision, where I played as a child, north of Ingersoll.  As we walked along, the scenery changed from an overgrown field to a series of rutted out mud-holes in a dirt road.  As we struggled through the mucky holes, my son fell behind; but, my grandson and I did not notice this at first.  When we did realize he was gone, my grandson climbed a tree, maybe to look for his dad?  And, then we waited there in that tree.

                The next scene we were exploring through a vacant hospital or motel or something.  But, then we realized that the place was not vacant; somebody was living there!  We began to retreat, to escape being found, but got disoriented and then separated.  Around us were all sorts of people – nurses, patients, home-owners,  … But, then I became alarmed, not knowing where were my child and grandchild?!  They had been following me, and now they were lost!  And, I thought, “if I am frightened and concerned, then how must they be doing?!”

                Awake and driving to work, I resolved that I need to be less a trail-boss and more of a teacher, training them to use a compass and map.  One day I will not be around.  They need to be more independent and self-reliant, skilled with maps and a compass.  They need their own Map-book and need to know the Compass.  Look to the fiery-cloudy pillar!  “To Canaan’s Land, I’m on my way …”

Romans 7:21-8:11 (RSV)

21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, 23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

8 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, indeed it cannot; 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

9 But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you.