A Clearing in the Jungle

My house was robbed a few days ago.  I don’t know exactly when, because the thief was so careful to leave everything as untouched as possible, locating and taking cash and even leaving a little cash so that I wouldn’t notice the theft until I did a thorough count.

It was enough money that I felt the loss.  But what I felt even more was a deep loss of security and confidence.  These years in the country I have believed my home secure and, although I lock the doors when I leave, I have frequently left tools about and when I’m working on the place, sometimes have not locked the house doors.

Now there are security cameras and new deadbolts and I lock up to go to the yard.  And there is a new level of cynicism that there are few, indeed, places left where one does not have to watch ones back.  I was never particularly innocent, but what might have been there ebbs.

And now I reflect on what that says about spiritual warfare.  From time to time the edges of our civilized world become scorched and we are given shocking reminder that, as Albert Schweitzer observed, civilization is at best only a clearing in the jungle.

It is as a jungle clearing I have been describing in these posts - a place, a clearing, where for ever-a-brief-moment defenses may come down and trust vouchsafed.  The clearings in the jungle are further and further apart.  But, like any clearing, they do not come accidental but by design and immense effort.