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January 18

The Return

Much of our contemporary language in church and society is about moving forward. But the secret of life is also about

moving backward to the places of failure and need. The very places we seek to run away from may well be the places to which we need to return.

That humans want to move forward is a part of their existential longing for fullness and completion. This is an important dimension of human existence: reaching towards the future.

But there is more to the human story. We are also people in flight and as such we are moving away from where we ought to be and where we need to remain. This is so often true in our relationships, commitments, and priorities. It is also true in our relationship to God.

St. Anselm exhorts us: “Hope in him whom you fear, flee to him from whom you have fled.”18

Thus there is the call to return. And what a difficult call it is. We would rather forget and move on. To return often means to face the

difficult and neglected places.

Much grace is needed to return to the places of neglect, hurt, and disobedience. The return invites us to linger at these places in order to face them and to work things through in the journey of forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing.

The greatest return is not only to the places of pain, but also to the places of our willfulness, our disobedience, and our flight from the loving heart of God.

Thought

To return in order to receive much-needed reconciliation and healing makes us candidates for truly moving forward.