Leaving the Island

It always comes down to this: Homer is a genius.

It is The Odyssey I always return to in so many situations. That ever present sense of “Ithaca awaits!”

But oh, the winding path we take - our own personal Odyssey from island to island … a wandering within the labyrinth of our own human weakness that waylays our pilgrimage vision of Ithaca - the true love of Penelope, as it were. The non-counterfeit, unalloyed Heaven.

We are all born with wounds - these islands of isolation. All different, all challenging. Everything we experience in our life is there to help us to identify the wounds, and once identified, to open them to the healer - God made Man. He is no capricious Greek God. His voice ever and always calls to us to leave the islands of self. His Holy winds all blow us to Ithaca.

We can feel Him if we are honest. Jesus leading us through situations that strengthen our charity, or show us our weakness, help us to detach ourselves from the syrens of merely human attraction, or sometimes show us that we can be stronger than we thought ..with Him.

He may also show us the islands where we might have stayed too long and healing might be harder now. Leaving will be a greater struggle. We will need the humility to acknowledge that fact and throw ourselves on his merciful strength.

We will struggle through our own personal self delusions of being tied to the mast but still wanting to hear the syrens.

But Christ never gives up and calls as loudly as He can to draw us off those islands. We all know that overwhelming sense of Odysseus gazing out to sea longing so for Ithaca even when he is captivated by Calypso’s promise of empty joy.

We too so long to set sail. Homer understood it all….but our God was still the unknown God for him. I hope he found him in the end.

If we see our lives this way, it becomes more optimistic. We know how the story ends.

Trying, messy, or seemingly unresolved situations can suddenly be a call to leave the island. People who have hurt us or betrayed us. Our greatest fears. Christ is saying calmly: What will you do? Will you forgive, will you love, will you "turn and face the dragon" that frightens you? Will you run when you absolutely must and not look back?

Christ becomes more of the true and loving Friend He IS and less like the aloof Judge you might think He is who sits in morbid disappointment at your failures.

Christ is the wind in our sails. The smell of the free salt air. The call to Ithaca.

It IS a crazy war against self. And sometimes battles are lost. We might find ourselves clinging to islands avoiding the difficult choices - afraid.

I once heard this in a talk. I wrote it down. I have always loved it.

"Run towards difficulty - not away from it. Running towards difficulty is running towards LOVE because it is love that makes the difficulty. Turn and face the dragon".

Difficulties are Christ calling us off the island. Jesus is there in each struggle over self - and when we have faced and overcome whatever we must, He will always say, "WELL DONE. Let's do it again, and again, and again until we reach home.

“Courage Dear Heart! Courage!"

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