Ur modern days and ways have brought; the word “Escapism” into use as a definition of the constant pursuit of enjoyable diversion by the vast majority of people. For them, the continual round of pleasure and, entertainment at theater, sport, radio, television and fiction reading is an effort to “escape from reality”. All that “reality” means for them is the daily boredom of unwelcome tasks and duties, so that any form of distraction is welcomed that gives even temporary relief from worry and fear.
But sometimes you hear a voice that is expressing their deeper need—”To gain relief from the stress and mean monotonies of life, we need a refuge that is a sanctuary for the renewal of strength.- It is the need that compels some minds to attempt forming a “self-made sanctuary”, that often means developing an “inner citadel” of thought and feeling, recognizing and responding with delight to the pleasure and uplift of mind and heart in contemplation of the harmony and colour that nature’s scenes and strains of music can supply. Life is then lifted to a higher plane and wider outlook, but at best is still confined to human effort and limit of duration. And there is no hope or promise of a real “escape” from the thraldom of an existence that fades eventually into oblivion, when all the dreams and longings are forever perished.
But there are a few though, only a very few, who have really found their “sanctuary”, and, having found, can never give it up.
Their life and words reflect a confidence and strength ; that the self-centred pleasure seeker never knows. These are the ones who heard and listened, and then found out why Jesus could distinguish the false from the real and how He could draw
“a contrast between the Gentiles with their consuming anxiety for material needs, and the disciples, for whom “these things” take a subordinate place because their main thought is filled with the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.
Men with a single eye to the Word of God live in reality and are filled with light. . . . The only final reality is the Mind of God, and men cannot destroy the future of those who live in His “purpose—life and its needs in the present order of the world are the shadow, God and life in Him are the substance.
The future Kingdom is the governing reality”.
Whenever these, who are Christ’s disciples, assemble at their Memorial meetings they have availed themselves of a God-given “escape, not from, but to reality”—and the more that fact is realized, so the more will their joy and zeal increase.
Reflections on the Potter and the Clay