On the Way to Wonder

Last night Sr. Wantabee was watching “Black Hawk Down” with her husband and just as the pilot of the second Black Hawk was taken prisoner, her daughter called to be picked up from her babysitting job. As she drove to get her daughter, Sr. Wantabee remembered the Friday a week ago.

A week ago Friday, Sr. Wantabee was at a retreat with the Deaconesses. Friday morning they had opened their session with a Lectio Devina reading of Ephesians 4:1-6. Listening to the passage read through several times prayerfully, she listened attentively for what impressed her. The first words, “I, therefore the prisoner of the Lord,…” grabbed her heart and tears started flowing, uncalled for. She was not upset. She was not anxious. She was not afraid. She was crying. What was going on? The second time through the passage, she could picture herself standing in a prison cell, looking through the bars. The third time through the passage, the vision continued and the jailer walked in and with down cast eyes she could see his nail pierced hands open the jail door and invite her out. To do what, she asked. What change did this vision imply, she pondered.

She, a prison of Christ, her Lord, and this pilot, a prison of the soldiers of warlord Eidid. What a differences, she thought as she drove. She did not experience fear but was being invited to life. The pilot was prepared to die and fingering the picture of his wife and child, showing grief at the thought of leaving them. Was she a trophy of war, a token of power, even as Eidid’s men had stepped in to claim this one man after killing others? Was she isolated from her companions as the pilot was? No. And yet there is a similar release of freedom and recognition of the authority of the person in charge.

Somehow the acknowledgment of the reality of the situation, freed the pilot to focus on important issues, his family and his life. Sr. Wantabee too was called to answer for the dynamics of her life as she stood before the jailor. All she could do was respond, “I’m yours, Lord. Do with me as you see fit.”