Eyes Wide Open

The following is a copy of the Thomas Question email devotional. You can subscribe to the email edition from our website and tune into our podcast.

Years ago I visited a friend who’s house backed onto a railway track in London, Ontario. And it was at some point during the odd hours of the first night – some unholy time like 2:36 or 3:01 or something like that that the train roared it’s way into the safe, quite place of my dreams and left me bolt upright with a racing heart. It was absolutely unbelievable to me that anyone could actually sleep through such a thing. But they did – and every night, too, and by my last night, so did I…

In The Magicians Nephew, CS Lewis describes a place wrapped in a thick, sleepy magic that lulls it’s occupants to daydream. It’s called “the wood between the worlds” and anyone arriving there almost immediately forgets where they came from, why they came and almost everything else of importance. It’s a place where it’s possible to sleep with your eyes wide open – and sleep your whole life long.

That’s become a favorite mental image for me, because I’ve wondered if such a place doesn’t exist around us right now. Do you remember where you came from, why you came and anything else of importance? Or is your life a steady drifting from one familiar thing to another without any real awareness? Are you fully awake? It’s truly amazing what we can learn to sleep through – even with our eyes wide open.

It’s the process of habituation which makes it possible. We have an amazing ability to adapt to a wide range of environments over time. We can get used to loud noises (IE trains), strange routines (IE shift work) and even the taste of a beverage which likely caused us to recoil the first time we tried it (IE coffee – and now you may even like it).

But this isn’t always a good thing, this ability to sleep while wide awake and tune almost anything out over time. It means we can sometimes get used the sounds of things we need to respond to. And what if the noise you’ve learned to “tune out” is something like a smoke alarm or a warning sign or even just the sound of a life gradually breaking down? People who live next to breath taking mountains often lose sight of them because it’s hard to have the same thing take your breath away every single day.

The reason I’d care to bring all this up the week before Christmas has to do with the very “reason for the season”. Why? Because I wonder what happens when you get used to the sound of a story or the sight of a manger or the very idea that God has been among us? Maybe we’ve heard it so many times we no longer hear it even when we’re listening… Maybe it’s become like a freight train we could sleep through… Maybe it’s a part of what we’ve forgotten in our “wood between the worlds”…

This Sunday I’d like to try to come to a familiar story with a brand new set of eyes and I invite you to do the same. There is another Christmas story that’s hardly ever told and I’d like to get into it. So let’s not merely hear this wildest tale of the last 2,000 years – this bit about God actually among us, as one of us – let’s not just hear it, let’s actually listen to it with a brand new set of ears (if we can find them).

I hope to see you there and I hope you bring someone with you.

…And one more thing… Monica and I would like to thank all of you for the kindness shown to us in the form of our “Christmas surprise” and at the same time wish you a very merry Christmas as well. This has become our church and a thing we look forward to each and every week…

Cheers,

CSW

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LAST SUNDAY
A final question: Is it really even actually possible to love someone in the God spot?... Visit our website and tune into our podcast.

THIS SUNDAY
The Other Christmas Story (see devotional above...)

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