The High Countries

Caedmon's Call sings a song called The High Countries. I have listened to this song probably over 1,000 times. It's one of my most favorite songs, and for the longest time, I had no idea what the song was about, but it was just so beautiful that I didn't care. Then last year when I went to Africa, I read C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce, and within the first few pages, I began to realize that the song was about this book. Almost every line from the song is a line in the book, and the song began to take on a new meaning.  

I've been listening to it a lot lately. I've been thinking about the book and trying to understand its deeper meaning. It's a very beautiful poetic story about the Great Divorce between Heaven and hell. It takes shape at a bus station in a grey town (hell) with a line of strangers who are angry and frustrated as they all wait to get on the bus. The bus then takes off on into the sky towards the high country (heaven). The people on the bus are ghosts and are offered the chance to explore the countryside with all its green lush grass, waterfalls, etc. And there are solid people that come out from far within the high country to welcome them.  It is very difficult for the ghosts to walk on the grass. Each blade cuts their feet like a knife, the water slices through them most painfully. Everything hurts them. It is VERY difficult for them to stay. Many give up and flee back to the bus which will soon depart back to the grey town where anger and hatred reside. Few remain curious and decide to withstand the pain. The longer they stay, the less painful it becomes as they will become solid if they withstand for just a bit longer.

It's only just this week that it hit me how that is just like our walks with God. It really hurts when we first get here. So much so that sometimes we want to run back to when things didn't hurt and we didnt have to be held accountable for our actions. The more I grow, the more I realize how incredibly pitiful I really am and how I am nothing without God. I am only strong because of Him. Everything good inside of me is a sign that His spirit is in me. My mentor Virginia told me recently "the lower you become, the higher He becomes". I love this, but it is very difficult for someone like me who struggles with pride. But I am determined to not let the devil win the battle against me. God has come so that I can have life more abundantly, and I intend to tap into that power. It's a daily choice. I can allow life to run me over, or I can get back in the car, roll my windows down and sing my heart out. 

"Out on the green plains, I am but a ghost. 

Bound up with all that I call mine, but still the light grows. 

Would you fall to pieces, in the high countries" ~Caedmon's Call

We're only here once. The fight between Heaven and hell is real. And the devil wants to make our lives completely miserable so that we give up and hopefully go back to our sinful ways. This is God's Kingdom. Right here, right now. We are part of the most amazingly wonderfully massively huge eternal story. So let's stop fighting, hating, lusting, boasting, crying, pretending, isolating, judging, accusing, fearing, worrying and lying, and start LIVING, LOVING, CHERISHING, SACRIFICING, REJOICING and work together to bring glory to the One and only that gives us each breath.  

"But what, you ask of earth? Earth, I think, will not be found by anyone to be in the end a very distinct place. I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in hell; and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself"~C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

Let's not put earth before Heaven. We are here MAYBE 80 years or so. We are there forever. It is our lives here that will determine our lives there. Let's open our eyes to see the plan that God has placed before each of us. And let's make every attempt to follow it.