CURTIS, BRENTELDREDGE, JOHN
THE SACRED ROMANCE
Drawing Closer to the Heart of God
Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1997
ISBN 0-7852-7342-5
beletria, román, náboženská literatúra
216 s., angličtina
hmotnosť: 231 g
mäkká väzba
stav: veľmi dobrý
1,00 € DAROVANÉ EGJAK
*kamag*
From childhood on, something or Someone has called us on a journey of the heart. It is a journey full of intimacy, adventure, and beauty, but like any fairy tale it is also fraught with more than a little danger. To ignore this whispered call is to become one of the living dead who carry on their lives divorced from their most intimate selves, their heart. The Sacred Romance calls to us in our fondest memories, our greatest loves, our noblest achievements, even our deepest hurts. The reward is worth the risk. God Himself longs for us, if we are but willing . . .
The Sacred Romance strikes a chord in us because more than in any other age, we have lost touch with our hearts. We have left that essential part of ourselves behind in the pursuit of efficiency, success, and even Christian service.
If you long for something more, even if you don't know what that something is, then open this profound book. Before long you will find yourself eagerly turning the pages to find out what happens next. The Sacred Romance is the story of our lives; it is God's story. It is His invitation to experience His unfathomable love for us.
One of the first Arrows I (Brent) remember came on a fall morning when the green choruses of summer were no longer there to comfort me. I happened upon my mother standing by the stove one morning before school began, stirring oatmeal. She had been crying and the tears still welled up in her eyes. They were not the kind of tears shed in anger or even pain due to a momentary spat with my father. They were not due to some recently delivered message about illness or death in the family.
They were the tears of a frightened girl in her mid-twenties who could find no meeting place between the life she found herself living as wife and mother and the needs of her own wounded heart that never felt the connection with mother and father so necessary to living with courage and hope. I couldn’t have put that into words back then, but I felt the fear as a palpable enemy that needed to be quickly defeated. If there was an adversary of the heart that even adults did not know how to handle, my world was much less safe than I had thought. I moved quickly to help my mother vanquish this foe in the best way I knew how.
I think I put my hand on her arm and said something like, “It will be all right.” I remember feeling a separation within myself and from her even then that kept me from addressing her as Mom or Mommy. I didn’t understand that the arrows were already inside both of us. She looked angry that anyone could believe anything so foolish and said something like, “It’s not all right. You kids just don’t know what iťs like.”
My stepfather was not there to show me how to fend off Arrows such as these and so they entered into me and, as I later came to know, lodged in a deep place. Still later, I came to realize he did not know how to defeat the enemy either, for himself or me.
This other Message of the Arrows that I learned on fall and winter mornings seemed as strong and often stronger than the message of those summer creek-side singers. I remember sitting in the school cafeteria alone, trying to pull the Arrows out or at least cover them over so I could enter into the banter that seemed to flow so easily from my friends. I remember being pinned down on the playground by a friend of mine who was bigger than me and feeling that I would always be in that place if I wasn’t careful.
I remember standing in the kitchen of our old farmhouse in my pajamas one morning at the age of five or six when two men in felt hats and long overcoats came to ask where my parents were. They asked several questions, all of which I answered, “I don’t know.” Finally they turned in disgust and said in parting, “You don’t know much, do you, kid?”
There were other Arrows over the years that struck in that same deep place. Arrows that carried messages about ears that were too big, and a father who never called or wrote; my stepfather, who was a cowboy, commenting to my mother that I was a town kid; another stepfather who came and went and never stayed in touch. There was a girl I loved but couldn’t love (intimacy requires a heart that is released and mine was pinned down with unknown fears and grief) and so I let her go; and total confusion over what vocation I would pursue or even had any ability for. The Arrows flew and all seemed to strike close to that fearful place, a place that said that I was alone in a coldly indifferent world. And even the ones that didn’t, I made sure they ended up there. I needed the message to be at least consistent that the world was clearly a fearful place.
I remember, one day in winter in my early twenties, going back to stand on the bridge over that same creek that had been so magical for me as a boy. It was two years after returning home from college. I had spent most of five years there still pursuing the Romance through parties, alcohol, and drugs, and in always making sure I was present when anything was going on. I feared that if I missed any opportunity, the magic would come while I was not there and I would miss it forever.
