“The Cave we fear entering holds the Treasure we seek” (Joseph Campbell)
Mission begins before the suitcase is packed,
before the road opens,
before a border is crossed.
It begins in the heart,
where something stirs beneath the furniture of our lives.
There, we discover a room grown small:
windows closed,
doors guarded,
the self-seated at the centre.
We mistake comfort for peace,
possession for security,
our own wellbeing for the good of all.
Then grace disturbs this comfort.
A neighbour’s sorrow enters.
The wounded earth cries out.
Christ stands at the threshold,
calling us towards a wider dwelling.
Repentance is the first departure:
the slow turning of the heart
away from its own reflection
towards the faces of others.
We loosen our grip.
We learn to listen.
We make room.
What once belonged only to me
becomes bread on a shared table.
Paul knew this unsettling road.
The persecutor became a brother;
the hands that threatened
became hands that built communities.
His journeys carried the fire
of a heart first interrupted by Christ,
who changed name from Saul to Paul,
representing an interior transforming movement.
So we cross seas or land
learn unfamiliar words,
enter another people’s story.
Yet our feet may travel farther than our hearts.
We can arrive in distant or near lands
carrying the same narrow room within us.
Mission asks that the heart keep moving
until the stranger becomes neighbour
and the neighbour becomes kin.
But every arrival brings a temptation.
Israel left Egypt,
yet freedom required more than leaving Pharaoh behind.
In the land of promise,
injustice found shelter.
The prophets called again:
remember the poor,
release the oppressed,
return to the covenant.
The heart can build another Egypt
wherever it settles.
Perhaps the nomadic life teaches us something:
Carry lightly,
Pack and unpack,
Receive each resting place as a gift.
Let possessions serve the journey.
Let belonging deepen hospitality.
Let roots draw nourishment
without becoming walls.
We need homes where love can flourish,
and hearts willing to rise
when love calls us beyond the gate.
Mission returns us, again and again,
to this holy restlessness:
the willingness to notice
where generosity has hardened,
where service has become power,
and where the earth and its people
bear the weight of our comfort.
Each return opens another beginning.
Each beginning demands another surrender.
The road winds through the heart
and out into the world.
Lord, keep opening our windows.
Keep drawing us beyond ourselves.
Teach us to dwell in communion
and to travel with compassion,
until every outward journey
carries the inward movement
of your love.
