The Mineshaft | The Master

On Sunday Father Aaron opened with a mineshaft outside Yellowknife — a picture of how darkness becomes normal when we adjust to it one step at a time. Today we re-enter that image and ask the week's hardest question: what do you reach for first?

Transcript

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Good morning. This is Northword.

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Good morning. This is Northword, the Word, the North, your Week, a daily podcast from St. John's Fort Smith, in collaboration with the Anglican family. I'm your host, Father Aaron. Picture a mineshaft, you know, like one of those ones outside of Yellowknife. You're standing at the top on a summer's day, sun is shining, everything is light, everything is clear, and then you take one step down. The light gets a little smaller, your eyes adjust, the darkness becomes manageable. And the further you go, the more manageable it becomes. Until the darkness feels normal. Until the darkness feels comfortable. Until the darkness feels like home. That image is the image that we're going to use this week when we talk about Paul's letter to the Romans. He isn't describing a dramatic fall into sin. He is describing an adjustment, a slow, incremental settling into a darkness you stop noticing. And here is the thing Paul wants us to understand. It's not neutral. It never was. You are always moving in a direction. You are always serving something or someone. The moment you reach for that thing, whatever it is, instead of the one who could actually help you, you just took a step down. And I can share with you personally. You know, as a millennial, the first thing I reach for when I feel uncomfortable or anxious is my phone. You see that all the time. There's a conversation happening. Someone feels uncomfortable. What's the first thing they do? They reach for their phone. You see people in public spaces scrolling on social media because they're uncomfortable with the surroundings that they're in. And so instead of turning to the one who can actually give you peace, we look for simple and easy ways to avoid anxiety. One act of yielding leads to another. Yielding becomes service, and service becomes slavery, and slavery becomes identity. So one day we're yielding to the desire to no longer feel anxious in a certain situation, and the next thing we're a slave, and that slavery leads to an identity. That's not a metaphor, that's the mechanics of a life moving in the wrong direction. So this Monday I want you to sit with this question, not answer it quickly, just sit with it. What do you reach for first? Not when things are easy, but when the pressure lands, when the anxiety hits, when the loneliness sets in, what is the thing your hand moves towards before you even thought about it? That's your master right now. You become what you serve. The only question is which master has you. This has been Northword, the Word, the North, your week, a daily podcast from St. John's Fort Smith in collaboration with the Anglican family. If this was helpful, follow us and share this episode with someone who needs it. There's a text us link in the description. We'd love to hear from you. Until tomorrow, God be with you.

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In the name of Flower, the Sun and the Holy Spirit. Amen.