I held hands with a stranger in London a few weeks ago, and it got me thinking about freedom and belonging and connectedness.
I went to renew my passport. I was called up to be old-school fingerprinted and a man took my hands – gently, respectfully – and asked me in muted tones to relax completely in his grip. One by one, he rolled all ten of my fingers across an inkpad and smudged my uniqueness onto a page.
It was a strangely intimate moment. Not weird creepy inappropriate intimate. Just two humans getting something humdrum done for officialdom. If I wanted freedom to travel, I had to yield to the handholding.
I’ll never know that guy’s story. All I know is he works at VFS in Wilson Street, and he does the fingerprints for South African passport renewals. But for a minute he held my hands in his – our stories connecting briefly in the great belonging of being human.
It’s all about freedom.
Not the kind of freedom baying for absolute individuality and self-determination – the kind where we want to do what we like, when and where and how we like, and with whom we like doing it. You’ve probably lived long enough to know: most things promising you freedom end up enslaving you.
This book is about the deeper, wider, better freedom Jesus promised – the freedom found when God tenderly takes our hands to smudge our brief, bold stories onto the pages of history, for His glory and the good of others. The free-indeed freedom found when we relax in His grip and find true identity.
That’s where the trees – and the seas – come in.
I read recently that aspens aren’t standalone trees. They have this extraordinary root system that connects them to other aspens. They only grow in community, roots spreading beneath the earth’s surface and then freely springing up somewhere else to give expression to individual trees. All those free trees – connected, belonging, lending life to one another – are called a stand.
We’re all part of a stand. (Ephesians 3:14-21)
Our roots spread beneath ocean floors, between known and new communities across the globe. There’s astonishing freedom and flourishing to be found when we embrace the truth that we’re connected, and we belong to one another. (Romans 12:5)
Sometimes I catch sight of myself in a shop window and I think it’s my sister Mel. She’s 8,000 miles away but our aspen-root DNA – marvellously and inextricably knotted – connects us. We belong to one another.
Sometimes my phone pings and it’s a friend in Australia or Alabama or an aspen grove in the next village. We’re oceans apart – or just across the river – but the tiny screens in our jeans pockets connect us like so many aspen roots, keeping us close to our people, far-flung or on their way over for dinner. We’re a WhatsApp or a whispered prayer away. We belong to one another.
All this to say:
You’re not alone.
You’re free to know God and make Him known wherever your roots have spread – wherever on the earth’s surface you find yourself breathing out oxygen for others.
May belonging and connectedness set you free to reach beyond yourself and lean into what’s best for those around you, and ultimately best for you too.
. . .
Go ahead and grab a copy of this book for your bedside table or for someone you love. Or leave a copy on the train to be discovered and passed on.
Available where books are sold Stateside (you guys get the fancy leatherbound one) and in Mzansi (hardcover for the win, English and Afrikaans). Soon to be released in the rest of the English-speaking world.
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