The journey of becoming who you already are

I'm currently reading a novel by Australian author Chris Hammer. He writes Australian noir — regional stories set within a place, a community. Stories about people and place and life, exploring who we are and where we belong, usually held together by some form of mystery.

This one, The Tilt, is set in rural Australia down near the Murray River on the New South Wales side, not far from Albury. The main character is Nell Buchanan, a young homicide detective who works in regional New South Wales. She's drawn down as part of a team to investigate two skeletons found in a creek bed — murders separated by many years but tied together through family and people.

This is her home, and her story is connected to it. As she's investigating the background of one of these men, she's given a map to a shack deep in the forest around the Murray. The shack belonged to a man who died several years earlier. He'd gone off grid, disappeared around the time of the murder. Maybe there are clues in his shack.

She goes deep into the forest and finds her way. But walking the last part of the track, she realises the shack is on an island. The creek is up, surrounded by water, and she can't get across. She's about to turn back when she sees a canoe coming around the bend through the trees.

It stops and beaches near her. Out steps a woman older than Nell, late sixties. Her name is Willow Jones. She introduces herself, and Willow knows Nell's family and many of the people. She's grown up in this shack. The man was her father, and this has been her home — except she's gone off and explored the world and done her thing.

They get in the canoe and cross to the island. Two simple rooms, very rustic, simple furniture. A bookshelf with books and art supplies and canvases — she's an artist. A solar cell and a battery for a little bit of power, a gas cooker in the corner. Out the back, a little garden and a greenhouse, and a place to sit and look out across the creek into the forest.

Nell sits and is filled with the peace and wonder and beauty of this place. The sounds of birds and wildlife and creatures. There's something about it that is just beautiful.

And then Willow shares her story. Her own self-discovery. Going out into the world, rebelling against her father and this simple life, experiencing everything, trying anything. Coming back and going out and coming back. Finally coming back to look after her father as he was dying. Going out again. Then returning for good. This is her home. She's found her place. She belongs.

There's a simplicity, a contentment, a peace about Willow that touches something deep in Nell. The yearning in her own life for identity and meaning and a place to belong.

Nell, like all of us, is on this journey of life. Discovering who she is amidst all the expectations and noises of family and friends and colleagues and society and media — all the pressures to become and to be what she might be. She's part of the police force with its politics and male domination, its ambition and drive and striving. Who is she? Where does she belong? What's life about?

And in this encounter with Willow, something touches her. Something draws her about this simplicity and contentment.

That is our story. That is the story of each of us. Some people, like Willow, find that place of contentment. They return home after the journey outwards and they find that place. But many don't.

The garden and the serpent

This week in the scriptures, we have stories of temptation. The story in the book of origins — Genesis — of man and woman in the garden, this paradise, told to eat of any fruit except from that one tree in the middle: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This symbolic tree with its luscious, seductive fruit.

And this personification of temptation, the serpent, comes and says, "Why won't you eat that fruit? Look at it." And they eat, and their eyes are opened to see what they couldn't see before. Innocence has left them. It's a story of growing up, of leaving adolescence and becoming adult. Of time beginning, when pain and reality and life begin. We're drawn into this deeper, darker place of life with its joy but also its pain and struggle.

The garden is no longer the garden of paradise. It's the harsh place of life, and we're struggling to understand who we are and where we belong and what life is about.

The wilderness

That's also the story Matthew tells. Jesus' own story of awareness, of opening, of becoming.

He's baptised in the Jordan by John. As he comes up, the spirit descends on him, and a voice says, "You are my son with whom I'm pleased, my beloved" (Matthew 3:17, NIV). That's the story before today's story.

After that, he's taken into the wilderness. A wilderness very different from Willow's forest around the Murray. The Judean wilderness of desert — equally beautiful and wondrous in its own way, with creatures and wildlife, solitude and silence. The sounds of the world, not the sounds of people and humanity.

As he fasts and prays and contemplates, perhaps on this sense of identity: Who is he? What does it mean to be this child of God? What does it mean to find his being, his sense of who he is, in God? What does it mean to trust in this way?

When the fasting and praying are over, this personification of temptation — named Satan, the tempting one — comes. And we're given three temptations.

He's hungry. "You're hungry. Turn these stones into bread. If you really are this child of God, you can do it. Do something relevant, spectacular. Do something for yourself. Take control."

The second: taken to the top of the temple. "Throw yourself down. Surely if you are who you think you are, God will send angels to save you. He won't let you die or be hurt."

The third: seeing the kingdoms of the world spread out before him. "If you bow down and worship me, all of these will be yours. You will have power and authority. People will look up to you. You'll be famous, well known. Go for it."

Words from the wandering

To each of these temptations, Jesus responds with words from his scriptures — words that come from the time when his people were wandering in the wilderness, led out of Egypt by Moses, on their way to the promised land. The promised land that we all seek. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, perhaps. The promised land we're on the journey towards.

As they grumbled and winged and whined and complained, they were given these words:

"Humans don't live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God" (Deuteronomy 8:3). The words of creativity and life and beauty and wonder. And of identity.

"Don't put the Lord your God to the test" (Deuteronomy 6:16). Trust. Have faith. Believe. A bit like in the twelve-step program, where having recognised we can't save ourselves and do it alone, we trust in the higher power. This power that comes from beyond. This strength of the one beyond everything. Presence beyond presence, beyond everything, that comes to us.

And the third: "Don't bow down and worship these other gods" (Deuteronomy 6:13-14). Gods that can't deliver. Give yourself into the life of the one true God who is the love and life at the heart of everything. Trust in this one and you will find life.

And that's what Jesus does.

Letting go of the life we think we're living

This is the beginning for him. This journey of letting go of the seductions and temptations and lures of the world that would push him into belief systems and ideologies, or into taking control for himself.

I'm reminded of the words of James Finley, a psychotherapist and student of the great spiritual teacher Thomas Merton. He says: "We're afraid to lose the control we think we have over the life we think we're living."

We're afraid to lose control. The control we think we have over the life we think we're living.

In this, Jesus lets go of the temptation to be in control. To be relevant or spectacular. To be powerful. To follow the ways of wealth or fame or power. He trusts in God. He recognises that he is who he is in God.

And I guess at the heart of these stories is the story of identity. Who am I? What is my life? What is life about? How can I live more truly, deeply, and fully? How can I find that contentment and fulfilment of being home, of being in the place where I belong, of living the life that is the gift to me?

Coming home

That's what Willow had found. That's what Nell was looking for, as we all are. That's what man and woman in the garden were lured away from — and then the journey is backwards, to find where home is.

This is the way of Jesus, who finds his identity as a child of God. Out of that, everything else flows. He doesn't have to prove himself. He doesn't have to chase the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He doesn't have to be lured and seduced by the words and seductions of the world seeking to make him into something else.

He's free to be who he is. A child of God. Loved and loving.

How about you and I?