Exiled

Posted by Traci at 10:52 AM

An excerpt from Run with the Horses, by Eugene Peterson:

“The essential meaning of exile is that we are where we don’t want to be.  We are separated from home.  We are not permitted to reside in the place where we comprehend and appreciate our surroundings.  We are forced to be away from that  which is most congenial to us.  It is an experience o f dislocation  - everything is out of joint; nothing fits together.  The thousand details that have been built up through the years that give us a sense of at-home – gestures, customs, rituals, phrases – are all gone.  Life is ripped out of the familiar soil of generations of language, habit, weather, story-telling, and rudely and unceremoniously dropped into some unfamiliar spot of earth.  The place of exile may boast a higher standard of living.  It may be more pleasant in its weather. That doesn’t matter. It isn’t home."

"But this very strangeness can open up a new reality to us.  An accident, a tragedy, a disaster of any kind can force the realization that the world is not predictable, that reality is far more extensive than our habitual perception of it.”

Wow. God has been putting something like this in my head but I couldn’t quite get it worked out.  Eugene Peterson articulated it very well.  It’s so awesome how God speaks - I mean really speaks - to us. If we are listening.  I had a thought the other day of that verse in Jeremiah – Call to me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things.  I felt like God was saying, “Did you think I was kidding?”.  I’m trying to take Him at His word. For reals.