Peering at the Monster

Kathleen Norris, in her book, Amazing Grace, tells a story of a little boy who wrote a poem called "The Monster Who Was Sorry."  The poem begins with a confession: he doesn't like it when his father yells at him.  The monster's response is to throw his sister down the stairs, then to destroy his room, and finally to destroy the whole town.  The poem concludes: "Then I sit in my messy house and say to myself, 'I shouldn't have done all that.'" 

The confession of Saint Paul bears a fine resemblance: "I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but I do what I hate" (Romans 15:7).  Regret has a way of shining the flood lights on the mess within me.  Norris further expounds the faithful candor of the child describing his own muddled story:  "'My messy house' says it all: with more honesty than most adults could have mustered, the boy made a metaphor for himself that admitted the depth of his rage and also gave him a way out.  If that boy had been a novice in the fourth-century monastic desert, his elders might have told him that he was well on the way toward repentance." 

This year’s Lenten journey is taking me through the many rooms of faith allowing countless opportunities to peer at the monster within.  There are days in the life of faith when I question whether I am living up to the title of Christian or disciple—or even casual pilgrim.  In certain rooms of awareness I find there is no question: I am not.  Yet, as G.K. Chesterton wrote in his autobiography, I have only ever found one religion that "dared to go down with me into the depth of myself." This is precisely the invitation of Christianity.  What I find is a messy house, filled with hidden staircases built of excuses, and idols of good deeds atop mantels of false security—in short, the home of Christ in disarray at my own hands. 

If I were to remain shut up in this place alone, I might begin to wonder why I should ever hope for anything other than mess and wreckage.  Paul's confession marks the futility of my own efforts to clean the house.  But I do not make the journey to the depths of myself alone.  In fact, I should not have discovered the messes had they not been shown to me in the first place.  I am guided to these places in my consciences, to images of myself unadorned, and finally to broken and a contrite heart.  Faith in Christ is the opportunity to be searched by the Spirit of Truth, the Breathe of Holiness, the God who maneuvers me through messy rooms and sin-stained walls and exposes my monstrous ways.  It would indeed be a futile journey if I walked this path alone.

Instead, the very Spirit that shows me the monster in a messy house shows me the one who removes the mask, clears the wreckage, and makes us human again.  Recently, I downloaded The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. In a scene from C.S. Lewis's Narnia, (pages 115-117) the great Aslan is seen tearing the costume off the child in front of him.  The child writhes in pain from the razor sharp claws that feel as though they pierce his very being.  With mounting intensity, Aslan rips away layer after layer, until the child is absolutely certain he will die from the agony.  But when it is all over and every last layer has been removed, the child delights in the new-found freedom, having long forgotten the weight of the costume he carried.

This journey of my soul through its messiest rooms is not merely a drive-by glimpse of the depths of my sin and my need for repentance.  I’m being shown the weight of my masks and the extent of my messes; also I view again the One who asks to take them all from me.  "Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows... But he was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities" (Isaiah 53:4-5).  Quite mercifully, it is through the dingy windows of a messy house that enables me the clearest view of the cross.