Return to Innocence

I have recently been allured by a new community, a new movement.  They smoke, drink, cuss, and let their attractions lead them to Jesus Christ.


Which is, of course, new for me.  But what allures me is the very tangible experience of companionship and freedom.  Of acceptance and belonging, already.  The first time I show up.


There is a freedom to this approach where the taboos are more or less explicitly in the garbage can, and deep, real questions are par for the course.  There is not the sense of judgment, rejection for these and other things often covertly considered sinful.  Then, their real freedom is that they take their desires and experiences seriously and look through them to what is beneath.  Reality wakes us up to what is even truer, realer, deeper.  I desire this _______ because it is good or points toward some good, and it begins to fill me and wakes me up.  But it does not fill me all the way.  So I experience, and I must ask, "Why do I desire?  What more do I desire?"

In bigger words and with a more poetic manner (that is, an Italian manner), the founders say what C. S.  Lewis said in a much more logical, linear (that is, English) manner: If I have the desire, that in itself implies the possibility of fulfillment.  There is nothing we desire that doesn't exist.  The fact that I have a desire that is never fully quenched means there is necessarily a possibility of Infinite Fulfillment.

And so we begin: by listening to and following our desires.


Giussani said of Jesus, "I'm the One you miss in everything you enjoy!  I'm the one!"

I long for chocolate.  I long for sunshine.  I really long for companionship.  (When I'm really tired after a long week of wrestling 8 year olds, I desperately long for a lot of  things.)

All of these things, in their proportion, let me taste the nature and Goodness of God.  But after they fill according to their proportion, they all come up short.  And my continued longing propels me deeper.  Thank you, CL, for acknowledging both the good of the desire, and its ultimate incompleteness.  Thank you for giving permission.  It felt good to drop a few F-bombs in the last few weeks, and let of of rigorous rules and restraints I couldn't keep up.  But as I listen to the deeper longing of all those desires, I am led through them to somewhere entirely new.

I am led to Jesus Christ.  And these things, though their offense may be little, begin to lose their taste, and some even become disgusting.  My allure is to one thing only: to Jesus Christ, in all his purity, newness, and innocence.  And I am shown what I could be.  I see that others' allure to me will only be through my purity, my innocence, my undivided heart for Jesus Christ.  All the worldly knowledge I sought to possess either of late or in former years, any roughness or toughness, even any competence or purely physical beauty for the sake of image, is a shell I've owned but must divest myself of now to become the "new man."

I am no Therese.  I have never been a stranger to sin, even mortal sin.  Your mercy, Lord!  But He is Pure, and can make all things pure.  A promise He gave me in silence 4 years ago returns to my ears. As I kneel before Him dressed in a sheer white garment, I hear, "Come back as often as you need so I can purify you.  Eventually, you will get used to being pure, and you will stay pure, right here with me."



"Behold, I make all things new."  --Revelation 21:5

"To the pure of heart, all things are pure." --Titus 1:15

"Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God."  --Matthew 5:8