WHEN A LOCKED CHAIN OPENS A DOOR

Fireplace in Cabin @ Petit Jean State Park, AR (02JUL2022)

Every fireplace-equipped cabin in which we have stayed in Arkansas during parts of the last three summers has had us discover the fireplace locked shut for the summer. While completely understandable given that even in the mountains around here temperatures do not normally fall into the range where one might want to build a fire for comfort or ambiance, it is always a little jolt to see the doors secured with a wire or chain. As I looked at the fireplace immediately to my left from the couch tonight, my mind started to wander, and it came to me:

What if the locking of the fireplace is less about the lack of need for the warmth of the fire and more about the implied invitation to be outside exploring the natural beauty of these mountains?

Understanding that with children aged 4 and 6 there is no way I would be staying in the duplex we are sharing with my parents for the next couple of days even if the fireplace was not locked, looking at the above picture has me realizing that part of what I suspect is at the core of much of the resentment and anger that seems commonplace in our world is that we focus more on what is NOT available to us and less on what possibilities are open to us because other things are closed to us.

Now please do not misunderstand - this is not a riff on the old cliché that where a door is shut God is opening a window. (There are several major problems with that well-meaning but quite dangerous theology, none of which I will go into here.) No, indeed!

What this is, friends, is a call to a different mindset about life. We live in a society that is fueled by outrage - left, right, middle, sacred, secular, gender, sexual, and so forth and so on - where we are called to get up our dander about every possible conceived slight or denial of that to which we are entitled.

(DISCLAIMER: I am not saying it is ok to discriminate.)

I don’t know about you, but I find that kind of life exhausting. To be angry and bitter all the time, full of anger and resentment - I don’t know where you might find life when you are “always on.”

(DISCLAIMER: I understand there are marginalized and oppressed in the world, and I am NOT saying the truly marginalized should just take unjust behavior and treatment.)

I will, however, extend to you an invitation: What might be possible in your life if instead of focusing on that which is closed to you, you instead focused on what opportunities might be there for you precisely because that which you want is not available to you?

In other words, might that locked chain be opening the door to something even more majestic, grand, and transformational that you would never discover if you did not have to confront said locked chain?

Grace and Peace,
Lamar

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