Inner Return in Ruth

Neville's Inner Vision

Naomi’s renaming is not history but a moment of inner speech. In Neville’s language, Bethlehem is the inner state where the bread of life is realized; the world’s city around Naomi represents the cloud of outward thought. When she says, 'Call me Mara,' she identifies with a feeling, not with her essential self. Yet the “Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me” is simply the belief felt in the moment, not a decree of an outside power. The exile to Moab and the return to Bethlehem symbolize movements of consciousness, not geography: a drift into separation and a return to unity with the I AM. The key is to recognize that the I AM is the reality behind every event; bitterness is an interpretable stone in the path, to be laid aside by a new inner assumption. If you accept that the inner Bethlehem nurtures you, Providence appears as guidance of your own imaginative life. When Naomi speaks from bitterness, she invites a new tale: that the I AM is the source of fullness, and the return is a reclaiming of wholeness.