For years I lived in Light, bringing others into the light and even being light, but I tired of the never-ending light and longed for a deeper friendship with Night and the softer, subtler lights. As my heart begged for Mystery, depth and awe, I found myself wondrously undone, questioning if anyone I knew would understand. The intriguing inner voices were more truthful to my heart; deeper and richer than the stories I had heard explained from afar. Or perhaps, for the first time, I heard the stories as my own, in the quiet of my soul.
I went deep inside and found a cave. At another time in life I would have felt alone, but not this time. The cave allowed me space to be who I was without the distractions of people and purposes that in linear time, were no longer a part of my story.
“Follow me.“ I heard the words within the cave’s wall. These were familiar words I’d heard before, only this time in a slightly different tone. Jesus and I were long time friends. He and I had journeyed often through time and place with Spirit’s fullness nudging me this way and that, but this invitation was new.
I took a step deeper into the cave and found a leper. His soars had healed but the scars were there. He told me about people who had politely distanced their lives from his, in fear of being too close to the pain of intimate living. The leper took me farther into the cave until we found a community of lepers, each in solitude yet communing in their seclusion. The scars detached them from those who could not see their beauty. And there I delighted in my own scars for I was a struggling pilgrim, journeying with those who dared to go deep inside and let others in.