The Fire Inside Impels Us on the Road...

A generous grant from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary recently enabled my preaching cohort to travel to England for a weeklong prayer and study retreat as part of our two year "Resistance Through Preaching and Song" Project. We are an ecumenical group: two ELCA Lutherans (Alex & Asher); two Episcopalians (Kerri & me); one Swedenborgian (Anna) plus one other member (not an official part of the cohort for purposes of the grant) from the Church of England (Gemma). 

​One highlight of our retreat was a day trip to Holy Island/Lindsifarne on the August 31st--the feast of St. Aidan.  

In the church on Holy Island we found a beautiful illumination (below) including these words:

His love that burns inside me
​impels me on the road
to seek for Christ in the stranger's face
or feel the absence of His touch

Before the tide rolled in, cutting off the Island from the mainland, I took off my shoes so that I could walk barefoot on the Pilgrim's Way from Holy Island back to the mainland.  As I walked through sand and water, mud and sea grass, praying and pondering these words, step by step a song began to take shape.

​​The fire inside
impels me on the road
to seek Christ in the stranger's face
​or feel the absence of his touch.

In the video below, you can see the members of my preaching group "on the road" after our trip to Holy Island, and we'll do our best to teach you the song.  

​The fire inside
impels us on the road
to seek Christ in the stranger's face
​or feel the absence of His touch.

The fire inside
impels us on the road
to seek Christ in the stranger's face
​or feel the absence of His touch.

Powerful words, huh? And challenging.

I am essentially a homebody, so any fire that "impels me on the road" is at least a little bit scary.  And as a strong introvert, the demand to "seek Christ in the stranger's face or feel the absence of Christ's touch" is definitely scary.    

And yet at the same time I definitely experience a fire inside that continually impels me forward--out of my comfort zone and onto the road--into challenging situations and challenging relationships that  I might never choose of my own accord. 

Thanks be to God, the Kingdom of God isn't built entirely on my choosing!

​As Jesus says in John's Gospel:

You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.... (John 15:16)
 
While I might not have the power, of my own accord, to choose the path God has set before me,  neither do I have the power, in the end, to deny it.  

In the words of the Prophet Jeremiah:

...within me there is something like a burning fire
   shut up in my bones;
I am weary with holding it in,
   and I cannot. (Jeremiah 20:9)

​The fire inside
impels us on the road
to seek Christ in the stranger's face
​or feel the absence of His touch.

When has the fire of Christ's love impelled YOU out of your place of safety and comfort?  
What fire impels you on the road  to seek Christ in the stranger's face?  
When have you heeded the fire, and experienced the touch of Christ on the road or in the stranger's face?
When have you ignored the fire, only to experience the absence of Christ's touch? 
In what direction is the fire inside impelling you today?