C.S. Lewis speaks of a “World of Shadows.” Is that what we have become, a world of shadows? A sort of reflection of the ghost of who we were created to be? An “almost nothing?”

Is life, or death, the place where things are forgotten? Death seems to encompass much of our living, when we should be getting about the business of living—while we are alive.

There are hopes and anxieties, goals and failures, truth and lies, happiness and great sorrow, and there is living and existing.

I confess to many days of forgetting to live, so bogged down in matters that truly did not matter.

It is difficult to maintain a steady course when you are drowning in the storm. But what if while you were still in the storm, you were “still” in the storm?

 Is it possible that, that, training brings the hint of revelation, where you learn the right point to begin with, where the impossible seems possible and exciting…where your true future comes to light?

I have often been struck in the pangs of misery with an indomitable hope, with an innocent imagination that drives the nightmares away. C.S. Lewis says, “Most of us find that our belief in the future life is strong only when God is in the center of our thoughts.”

And yet, we try in some stumbling fashion to ford the great seas alone. Opinions and experiences and heart aches and joys shape our thoughts; speak into our hearts with relentless positions. In many ways that is what makes our stories…our stories.

But, if my value was determined by my own views, or by others, I would be woefully disappointed.

C.S. Lewis spoke of old poets, of simple melodies, of…a longing. He goes on to say, “I find an experience fully God-centered, asking of God no gift more urgently than His presence, joyous to the highest degree and unmistakably real.”

In this season, may we look not at the gifts we are to receive, but the gifts we have, and the gift that has already been given.