This Ship Has Sailed

I would marry G.K. Chesterton. Seriously. His book, Orthodoxy, literally changed my life, and very few books can make that claim. In it, he wrote a parable about a man who grew sick of England, his home, so he built a boat to escape the boring green plants and the dull gray cliffs on the shores of his domesticated country. As the boat sailed away from the shores of Britain, a storm attacked the vessel, and the young Brit became lost at sea. After several days of purposeless floating, the schooner landed safely on a foreign land with beautiful green plants and strong gray cliffs, and the man was thrilled. He found exactly what he searched for, an exotic land, full of adventure. However, the land turned out to be England, which he now viewed in a completely different light.

I have known all about love and service for my whole life, about selfless sacrifice and humility, and I could quote the exact scriptures that teach about the love of Christ. Minister after minister preached to me about the feet scrubbing that Jesus did, but it just seemed so old and distant. But, at the beginning of last summer, as a young girl cried in my arms because of her guilt, all I could do was comfort her and listen. When I visited a widow’s house and she broke into tears because of the pain in her heart, I could give her nothing but my hand to hold, and I felt a love outside myself. I contemplated what it was I had been feeling, and I thought about the power of simply listening with no desire but to help. Just when I thought I had found something brilliant and new, I was back at John 13 starring at the old familiar basin and cloth with a Savior scrubbing feet.

Love is no longer a theory, but it is a vibrant part of my life. It is not a self help idea but a true expression of gratitude. I left what I knew to find something better, yet in the end, I was back where I started. I no longer follow a foreign man’s theology, for I have made Christianity my own story of love, a story of rediscovery.