A Broken Hope- A Weak People (Interlude)
December 14, 2009
“Will you now restore the Kingdom to Israel?” Is today the day you’re going to fix everything, cut the powers that be down to size and show them that Love and Mercy are the true powers and that Love itself is You?
I think not…and for that very reason I am angry with you. I don’t understand your choices, I don’t understand how you claim to Love so powerfully yet allow us to continue in our foolishness and idolatry day after day. Sure you’re self-emptying and all-loving, but this makes no sense. If you loved us, wouldn’t you rather set all things right as soon as possible?
What reason for the delay? Is it some divinely ordained plan to just wait until we’re so exhausted that we can no longer continue? What majesty is there in silence, in weakness, and in being trampled upon? What power can there be in allowing the world to fall ever increasingly into chaos? What justice is there in a world where money rules and corporations decide the events of our lives?
What justice can there be in a world where those who bear your name don’t bear your likeness? What justice can there be in a world where we are persecuted, abandoned and destitute? We are forgotten, just like you.
Men sing your praises with their lips and women clap their hands in exultation, people rejoice at your magnificence, but there are starving people down the street, abandoned buildings in our midst, and suffering children’s cries in our ears.
And yet, you sit in perfect passivity. You contemplate your own glory, and your perfection is unceasing. Maybe we should praise you for being the most contented narcissistic being ever. Mayhap we should be content that everything that happens is in your divine will, and that you’re just a beneficial dictator. Maybe you’re the all-loving Hitler in the sky, at least that’s the way that they paint you. They show you to us as a cloud of glory, an all powerful yet wholly apathetic and unsentimental being, so unmoved that we might burst for the compassion you’ve given us that you seem to lack, because everything is in your plan.
Your words do not rage in the hearts of the prophets, instead, they are drowned out by hushings and sighings. Your cries for justice on the lips of the autistic child are silenced or put out, your cries of love reach deaf ears when they come from the hungry and the poor. The woman in that pew is not sure how she will feed her children tonight, and the couple next to her is sated beyond their ability to spend, what manner of family is this? What honor can be had among a people mighty and sated with their own power?
Your “prophets”, your “apostles”, they ask us to believe that we too should be empowered, powerful, mighty, successful, monetarily wealthy. They tell us to seek these things, and as an afterthought mention that we might want to seek the kingdom first, because these things are irrelevant in so many ways. Your prophets maintain the status quo, they hold fast the barriers, and they’ve made a mockery of you. They’ve cast lots for your garments, but only to exchange them with an american flag. They no longer clothe you in purple, they clothe you in the seamless garment of patriotism. They crown you with lady liberty, and place the declaration of independence as a sign above you. They give you the sword, and nail it to your beaten hands, they take your beaten teeth out of your mouth and replace them with bullets, they take your wounds and fill them with the ichor of bitterness and pride. They give you to drink hypocrisy and mix it with the blood of their enemies. They lay you in the tombs of their great heroes, they inscribe your name on their war memorials and fail to see that you undo their idols. You yourself are the weakened voice that in its very weakness and suffering destroys all idols.
You do not raise your voice, you do not defend yourself against these abusers, these pilates, these caesars.
NOTHING makes me angrier than the words “It must be the will of God”. As if you haven’t clearly shown us that which you desire. I am angered, furious at your lack of standing up for yourself at times. You just sit there on your beaten tree, breathing, gasping, blood in your eyes, and you ask for our forgiveness. Let me join you, in praying for this broken world, for I cannot bear to stand outside it another moment, and at least in joining you, i may find life and hope. If all I see is darkness, at least I know you gave your life that they might have life, and that your will is life, over against the chaos of death that has usurped your good creation.
Teach me to forget my anger and forgive, that we might have heaven on earth.
Let us bear this together, for your body is life, let me be found in your wounds, and let your wounds be found in my body. Teach us to rightly stand with you, not in power, but in weakness. Teach us to surrender our power, frustrate all our plans, show us we’re all pretentious, that we might experience the joy of being dependent children, utterly lost without you.
Pope Benedict XVI’s Meeting with Artists
November 23, 2009
This Past Saturday the Pope met with Artists in a special address in the Sistine Chapel.
I think you will find in the words that follow, an exhortation that many artists have been dying to hear. I know that as a charismatic, and a once ultra-Charismatic, i hated that we had no way to talk about beauty really. Worship services came in mass produced packages with the trappings of lights and smoke machines, all attempting to recreate something that the church has always been about and failing horribly. While comfortable, pretty, or even quaint, these scenes are not scenes of undying beauty, they will pass with cultural fads and something else will take their place.
It is my hope that you’ll take the time to read the whole address, since in it are words of profound insight, with quotes from some of my favorites, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and even a lesser favorite worthy of respect, Plato. The Holy Father launched this address on the 10th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s address to artists, attempting to reestablish a stronger communication between the arts and the church and highlight the interdependence of each on the other.
It is my hope that these words encourage artists, theologians and the faithful, because they encouraged me, and have lifted my spirit.
Just some highlights from the address before I give you the full text:
“Unfortunately, the present time is marked, not only by negative elements in the social and economic sphere, but also by a weakening of hope, by a certain lack of confidence in human relationships, which gives rise to increasing signs of resignation, aggression and despair. The world in which we live runs the risk of being altered beyond recognition because of unwise human actions which, instead of cultivating its beauty, unscrupulously exploit its resources for the advantage of a few and not infrequently disfigure the marvels of nature.”
“Indeed, an essential function of genuine beauty, as emphasized by Plato, is that it gives man a healthy “shock”, it draws him out of himself, wrenches him away from resignation and from being content with the humdrum – it even makes him suffer, piercing him like a dart, but in so doing it “reawakens” him, opening afresh the eyes of his heart and mind, giving him wings, carrying him aloft”
“Too often, though, the beauty that is thrust upon us is illusory and deceitful, superficial and blinding, leaving the onlooker dazed; instead of bringing him out of himself and opening him up to horizons of true freedom as it draws him aloft, it imprisons him within himself and further enslaves him, depriving him of hope and joy.”
“What is capable of restoring enthusiasm and confidence, what can encourage the human spirit to rediscover its path, to raise its eyes to the horizon, to dream of a life worthy of its vocation – if not beauty?”
Here is the Full Text of the Pope’s address to artists:
Dear Cardinals,
Brother Bishops and Priests,
Distinguished Artists,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
With great joy I welcome you to this solemn place, so rich in art and in history. I cordially greet each and every one of you and I thank you for accepting my invitation. At this gathering I wish to express and renew the Church’s friendship with the world of art, a friendship that has been strengthened over time; indeed Christianity from its earliest days has recognized the value of the arts and has made wise use of their varied language to express her unvarying message of salvation. This friendship must be continually promoted and supported so that it may be authentic and fruitful, adapted to different historical periods and attentive to social and cultural variations. Indeed, this is the reason for our meeting here today. I am deeply grateful to Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture and of the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Patrimony of the Church, and likewise to his officials, for promoting and organizing this meeting, and I thank him for the words he has just addressed to me. I greet the Cardinals, the Bishops, the priests and the various distinguished personalities present. I also thank the Sistine Chapel Choir for their contribution to this gathering. Today’s event is focused on you, dear and illustrious artists, from different countries, cultures and religions, some of you perhaps remote from the practice of religion, but interested nevertheless in maintaining communication with the Catholic Church, in not reducing the horizons of existence to mere material realities, to a reductive and trivializing vision. You represent the varied world of the arts and so, through you, I would like to convey to all artists my invitation to friendship, dialogue and cooperation.
Some significant anniversaries occur around this time. It is ten years since the Letter to Artists by my venerable Predecessor, the Servant of God Pope John Paul II. For the first time, on the eve of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, the Pope, who was an artist himself, wrote a Letter to artists, combining the solemnity of a pontifical document with the friendly tone of a conversation among all who, as we read in the initial salutation, “are passionately dedicated to the search for new ‘epiphanies’ of beauty”. Twenty-five years ago the same Pope proclaimed Blessed Fra Angelico the patron of artists, presenting him as a model of perfect harmony between faith and art. I also recall how on 7 May 1964, forty-five years ago, in this very place, an historic event took place, at the express wish of Pope Paul VI, to confirm the friendship between the Church and the arts. The words that he spoke on that occasion resound once more today under the vault of the Sistine Chapel and touch our hearts and our minds. “We need you,” he said. “We need your collaboration in order to carry out our ministry, which consists, as you know, in preaching and rendering accessible and comprehensible to the minds and hearts of our people the things of the spirit, the invisible, the ineffable, the things of God himself. And in this activity … you are masters. It is your task, your mission, and your art consists in grasping treasures from the heavenly realm of the spirit and clothing them in words, colours, forms – making them accessible.” So great was Paul VI’s esteem for artists that he was moved to use daring expressions. “And if we were deprived of your assistance,” he added, “our ministry would become faltering and uncertain, and a special effort would be needed, one might say, to make it artistic, even prophetic. In order to scale the heights of lyrical expression of intuitive beauty, priesthood would have to coincide with art.” On that occasion Paul VI made a commitment to “re-establish the friendship between the Church and artists”, and he invited artists to make a similar, shared commitment, analyzing seriously and objectively the factors that disturbed this relationship, and assuming individual responsibility, courageously and passionately, for a newer and deeper journey in mutual acquaintance and dialogue in order to arrive at an authentic “renaissance” of art in the context of a new humanism.
That historic encounter, as I mentioned, took place here in this sanctuary of faith and human creativity. So it is not by chance that we come together in this place, esteemed for its architecture and its symbolism, and above all for the frescoes that make it unique, from the masterpieces of Perugino and Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Cosimo Rosselli, Luca Signorelli and others, to the Genesis scenes and the Last Judgement of Michelangelo Buonarroti, who has given us here one of the most extraordinary creations in the entire history of art. The universal language of music has often been heard here, thanks to the genius of great musicians who have placed their art at the service of the liturgy, assisting the spirit in its ascent towards God. At the same time, the Sistine Chapel is remarkably vibrant with history, since it is the solemn and austere setting of events that mark the history of the Church and of mankind. Here as you know, the College of Cardinals elects the Pope; here it was that I myself, with trepidation but also with absolute trust in the Lord, experienced the privileged moment of my election as Successor of the Apostle Peter.
Dear friends, let us allow these frescoes to speak to us today, drawing us towards the ultimate goal of human history. The Last Judgement, which you see behind me, reminds us that human history is movement and ascent, a continuing tension towards fullness, towards human happiness, towards a horizon that always transcends the present moment even as the two coincide. Yet the dramatic scene portrayed in this fresco also places before our eyes the risk of man’s definitive fall, a risk that threatens to engulf him whenever he allows himself to be led astray by the forces of evil. So the fresco issues a strong prophetic cry against evil, against every form of injustice. For believers, though, the Risen Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life. For his faithful followers, he is the Door through which we are brought to that “face-to-face” vision of God from which limitless, full and definitive happiness flows. Thus Michelangelo presents to our gaze the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End of history, and he invites us to walk the path of life with joy, courage and hope. The dramatic beauty of Michelangelo’s painting, its colours and forms, becomes a proclamation of hope, an invitation to raise our gaze to the ultimate horizon. The profound bond between beauty and hope was the essential content of the evocative Message that Paul VI addressed to artists at the conclusion of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council on 8 December 1965: “To all of you,” he proclaimed solemnly, “the Church of the Council declares through our lips: if you are friends of true art, you are our friends!” And he added: “This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. Beauty, like truth, brings joy to the human heart, and is that precious fruit which resists the erosion of time, which unites generations and enables them to be one in admiration. And all this through the work of your hands . . . Remember that you are the custodians of beauty in the world.”
Unfortunately, the present time is marked, not only by negative elements in the social and economic sphere, but also by a weakening of hope, by a certain lack of confidence in human relationships, which gives rise to increasing signs of resignation, aggression and despair. The world in which we live runs the risk of being altered beyond recognition because of unwise human actions which, instead of cultivating its beauty, unscrupulously exploit its resources for the advantage of a few and not infrequently disfigure the marvels of nature. What is capable of restoring enthusiasm and confidence, what can encourage the human spirit to rediscover its path, to raise its eyes to the horizon, to dream of a life worthy of its vocation – if not beauty? Dear friends, as artists you know well that the experience of beauty, beauty that is authentic, not merely transient or artificial, is by no means a supplementary or secondary factor in our search for meaning and happiness; the experience of beauty does not remove us from reality, on the contrary, it leads to a direct encounter with the daily reality of our lives, liberating it from darkness, transfiguring it, making it radiant and beautiful.
Indeed, an essential function of genuine beauty, as emphasized by Plato, is that it gives man a healthy “shock”, it draws him out of himself, wrenches him away from resignation and from being content with the humdrum – it even makes him suffer, piercing him like a dart, but in so doing it “reawakens” him, opening afresh the eyes of his heart and mind, giving him wings, carrying him aloft. Dostoevsky’s words that I am about to quote are bold and paradoxical, but they invite reflection. He says this: “Man can live without science, he can live without bread, but without beauty he could no longer live, because there would no longer be anything to do to the world. The whole secret is here, the whole of history is here.” The painter Georges Braque echoes this sentiment: “Art is meant to disturb, science reassures.” Beauty pulls us up short, but in so doing it reminds us of our final destiny, it sets us back on our path, fills us with new hope, gives us the courage to live to the full the unique gift of life. The quest for beauty that I am describing here is clearly not about escaping into the irrational or into mere aestheticism.
Too often, though, the beauty that is thrust upon us is illusory and deceitful, superficial and blinding, leaving the onlooker dazed; instead of bringing him out of himself and opening him up to horizons of true freedom as it draws him aloft, it imprisons him within himself and further enslaves him, depriving him of hope and joy. It is a seductive but hypocritical beauty that rekindles desire, the will to power, to possess, and to dominate others, it is a beauty which soon turns into its opposite, taking on the guise of indecency, transgression or gratuitous provocation. Authentic beauty, however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond. If we acknowledge that beauty touches us intimately, that it wounds us, that it opens our eyes, then we rediscover the joy of seeing, of being able to grasp the profound meaning of our existence, the Mystery of which we are part; from this Mystery we can draw fullness, happiness, the passion to engage with it every day. In this regard, Pope John Paul II, in his Letter to Artists, quotes the following verse from a Polish poet, Cyprian Norwid: “Beauty is to enthuse us for work, and work is to raise us up” (no. 3). And later he adds: “In so far as it seeks the beautiful, fruit of an imagination which rises above the everyday, art is by its nature a kind of appeal to the mystery. Even when they explore the darkest depths of the soul or the most unsettling aspects of evil, the artist gives voice in a way to the universal desire for redemption” (no. 10). And in conclusion he states: “Beauty is a key to the mystery and a call to transcendence” (no. 16).
These ideas impel us to take a further step in our reflection. Beauty, whether that of the natural universe or that expressed in art, precisely because it opens up and broadens the horizons of human awareness, pointing us beyond ourselves, bringing us face to face with the abyss of Infinity, can become a path towards the transcendent, towards the ultimate Mystery, towards God. Art, in all its forms, at the point where it encounters the great questions of our existence, the fundamental themes that give life its meaning, can take on a religious quality, thereby turning into a path of profound inner reflection and spirituality. This close proximity, this harmony between the journey of faith and the artist’s path is attested by countless artworks that are based upon the personalities, the stories, the symbols of that immense deposit of “figures” – in the broad sense – namely the Bible, the Sacred Scriptures. The great biblical narratives, themes, images and parables have inspired innumerable masterpieces in every sector of the arts, just as they have spoken to the hearts of believers in every generation through the works of craftsmanship and folk art, that are no less eloquent and evocative.
In this regard, one may speak of a via pulchritudinis, a path of beauty which is at the same time an artistic and aesthetic journey, a journey of faith, of theological enquiry. The theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar begins his great work entitled The Glory of the Lord – a Theological Aesthetics with these telling observations: “Beauty is the word with which we shall begin. Beauty is the last word that the thinking intellect dares to speak, because it simply forms a halo, an untouchable crown around the double constellation of the true and the good and their inseparable relation to one another.” He then adds: “Beauty is the disinterested one, without which the ancient world refused to understand itself, a word which both imperceptibly and yet unmistakably has bid farewell to our new world, a world of interests, leaving it to its own avarice and sadness. It is no longer loved or fostered even by religion.” And he concludes: “We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past – whether he admits it or not – can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love.” The way of beauty leads us, then, to grasp the Whole in the fragment, the Infinite in the finite, God in the history of humanity. Simone Weil wrote in this regard: “In all that awakens within us the pure and authentic sentiment of beauty, there, truly, is the presence of God. There is a kind of incarnation of God in the world, of which beauty is the sign. Beauty is the experimental proof that incarnation is possible. For this reason all art of the first order is, by its nature, religious.” Hermann Hesse makes the point even more graphically: “Art means: revealing God in everything that exists.” Echoing the words of Pope Paul VI, the Servant of God Pope John Paul II restated the Church’s desire to renew dialogue and cooperation with artists: “In order to communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ, the Church needs art” (no. 12); but he immediately went on to ask: “Does art need the Church?” – thereby inviting artists to rediscover a source of fresh and well-founded inspiration in religious experience, in Christian revelation and in the “great codex” that is the Bible.
Dear artists, as I draw to a conclusion, I too would like to make a cordial, friendly and impassioned appeal to you, as did my Predecessor. You are the custodians of beauty: thanks to your talent, you have the opportunity to speak to the heart of humanity, to touch individual and collective sensibilities, to call forth dreams and hopes, to broaden the horizons of knowledge and of human engagement. Be grateful, then, for the gifts you have received and be fully conscious of your great responsibility to communicate beauty, to communicate in and through beauty! Through your art, you yourselves are to be heralds and witnesses of hope for humanity! And do not be afraid to approach the first and last source of beauty, to enter into dialogue with believers, with those who, like yourselves, consider that they are pilgrims in this world and in history towards infinite Beauty! Faith takes nothing away from your genius or your art: on the contrary, it exalts them and nourishes them, it encourages them to cross the threshold and to contemplate with fascination and emotion the ultimate and definitive goal, the sun that does not set, the sun that illumines this present moment and makes it beautiful.
Saint Augustine, who fell in love with beauty and sang its praises, wrote these words as he reflected on man’s ultimate destiny, commenting almost ante litteram on the Judgement scene before your eyes today: “Therefore we are to see a certain vision, my brethren, that no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived: a vision surpassing all earthly beauty, whether it be that of gold and silver, woods and fields, sea and sky, sun and moon, or stars and angels. The reason is this: it is the source of all other beauty” (In 1 Ioannis, 4:5). My wish for all of you, dear artists, is that you may carry this vision in your eyes, in your hands, and in your heart, that it may bring you joy and continue to inspire your fine works. From my heart I bless you and, like Paul VI, I greet you with a single word: arrivederci!
Here’s an image just to remind you of the context of these words: 
The inner life of the trinity as love can be recognized by us as love only through our participation in that life as it already is and draws us into it. To know the inner life of the Trinity requires that we participate already in the kenotic and self disclosing Other seeking love of the Trinity. There is no epistemology apart from participation. To believe otherwise is blasphemy. Only love understands itself, and only love can disclose itself, and it shall only disclose itself to love when speaking in the epistemological framework. Love is the truest reality that has been revealed to humanity, and it is inescapable. To be a Christian one must believe in and be shaped by their understanding of Absolute Love. In concrete reality love will overpower even non-love, but it will only do so by conforming non love into love through a Taboric experience, through a transfiguration that in the self disclosure draws non love into encounter and thus opens its eyes. Love is always the apriori, and it will always necessarily apprehend and invite the situation before releasing itself and its disclosure into the encounter with the Other. -Eli
Sunrise Girl
February 27, 2009
Sunrise girl, passing from one morning to another, a morning caught in his arms, only to leave the impression of beauty before fading into another memory in another recollection, preempting the emptiness to be left behind. The void though is a fond one, an emptiness that is a transfigurative one, leaving a light behind it, even if only for a moment. It is a light that leaves longing on the lips. Sunrise girl you enlighten the world, but leave it in shadow when you leave, the day you leave behind is the longing of twilight.
You bring the morning sun, you lay out the clouds and scatter them to the four winds that they might carry them in the shapes of dreams and revelations, and they carry your impression, approved by your charming whisper, carried into the early twilight before the breaking of dawn
You bring the day, but you bring it at the expense of twilight, of lasting ignorance, and in shedding light on something less than alive, you yourself have brought its own death before it. Your light is a terror to those who are asleep, those who would have remained if not for your touch
With every sunrise that you bring, you bring your own death keeper of dreams. You disseminate them among the weary, and in instilling hope into the weakened, betray your own hopelessness as you bring dreams out of shadow. With the evanescing shade comes reality like a putrid corpse in the form of sunrise before the perceptions of an unwitting night.
Haunted by the memory of sleepless nights, by broken hearts left in the recollection of your tears, the guilt you run from sunrise after sunrise, enlightening and illumination after illumination makes your countenance darker and darker. Feeling the pain just as equally as they do, knowing the subtle sense of loss that comes as the day brings commonality back into perception. As your dawn casts them into even deeper shadows.
Mortality blurs in your memory and you become cold, as the mirror shows you less and less of yourself, and more and more of a citadel, a fortress to protect a bleeding heart enshrined on a throne of tears, the weakness of which causes such great strength, inverted, perverted, true. The cold icy sting of your eyes, protects your weakened gasps, as you stand tall you rasp for rattling breaths in your dissatisfied and weary lungs, a mighty fortress with weakened and empty halls, derelict and void. A silent citadel seemingly forsaken, yet blooming with life.
Sunrise girl looks into herself and sees death, yet her touch blooms with life. She looks at the effects of her own impartations of light and wonders whether she has scorched the earth beneath her, but she cannot judge for in seeing her path she is blinded to what it truly looks like, mindless of what truly exists beyond her perceptions.
Sunrise girl, bathed in light, touched in darkness, look into this mirror, meeting my eyes we assume it’s just another sunrise, another fleeting escape another sense of loss, another moment in another set of arms. It’s not. The eternal sunrise begins tonight, it ends now. We’re the same, the coin’s sides are the illusion, it’s just like us to make our own luck. It’s just like us to make our own way, but we know that already.
You call me out into the light, you dance your dance in another direction, but as children of the mind, we can bear to do no other. Two sides of the same thing, one perceives light, the other darkness and both are right, it’s twilight after all.
Your eyes meet mine, and I see a mirror, you see a mirror, we look into this moment and perceive an event that makes us tremble. We’re not like this, not anymore. Sunsets and shades of dusk are not our beginnings, not anymore. Cloudfall and storms, we welcome them, but they welcome us no more.
This event, it shakes and shapes us. You’re afraid, sunrise girl, afraid that sunrise might go on into everlasting day, into everlasting light, into an Eden you can’t anticipate.
Go into that Eden, and don’t knock at the edges of the River Styx anymore.
What Does the Resurrection of the Son of God Mean Today?
September 2, 2008
I was thinking about my Christian experience today, and as I was considering the implications of a certain emotional state, I got to thinking about the Victory of God in Jesus, and the idea that despite all things God has won a victory in this world and that ultimately, I am participating in that victory.
Sure, today I am not in the best state, but I have hope. Hope reaches into me, to lead me towards the victory of God. I am the essence of all consciousness, being constantly resurrected from a fallen state. I am baptized into the body of the Risen Lord, and united with him by one Spirit, made one flesh with him by that same Spirit. I am not forsaken, but am embraced by this beloved who ushers me into his presence with glee, as I approach with trembling reverence.
My tears are merely prayers in a different language. In them is the hope of glory, as true suffering somehow brigs true redemption. Our ideals are not God’s ideals. The Risen Lord shows us that in suffering is the cosmos replaced where the chaos once was. Idealism is ultimately backwards, and in those ideals I am further from the Resurrection of the Son of God than closer.
So it occurred to me that in order to truly experience the meaning of this great and glorious resurrection, it means that I must not shed the ideas that I have thought were ideal, I must also embrace those which are seemingly backwards to me.
Suffering is not the emptiness of dejection, though that is experienced, it shall prove to be more integral to the resurrection of my person than should I never have suffered. The world, I can’t speak for, but for me, for Eli, this suffering is my invitation into God’s plan of redemption.
So, as I enter into the lower depths, I know that my war with the forces of evil is not in vain, as I leave behind those things which would lead me from the narrow path, I find pleasure in the backwards ideals of God. Sipping a Lady Grey tea blend and wondering about all this gives me pleasure, and as I pursue my future, I realize that in time I will get there, regardless. Today is a day, tomorrow shall be another, and ultimately, it is completed in such a way that my purpose will be accomplished, I have faith and hope that the path set before me is not in vain and that which I feel called to complete will be completed because I have dedicated myself to it and to enjoying today.
I am enjoying beauty, the joys of mentoring, and being mentored, the beauty of togetherness, the bliss of separation, the ebb and flow of presence and absence.
Beautiful.
As you read this, I don’t think you’ll understand half of what was said here this day, and for that I am sorry.
I don’t blame anyone or anything for these things which we pass. We are all journeying towards something, and I am whole in the redemption of my body. I am whole in my expectation that this is going to be well.
So, brothers and sisters, my little children, remember that suffering causes the redemption of things outside ourselves, and in the end, it is not about how God is going to save me. It’s about how God is going to save the universe through me.
Love one another, as I remember to do the same. Hold fast. Stand strong.
The Resurrection shall live through me today, and in this we are well pleased.
Resurrection and Beauty
May 11, 2008
Do you ever just stop and wonder at the beauty of the world? Catching if even for a moment a glimpse of something truly beautiful? Do you ever just get the feeling that somehow things are going to work out alright? This is not to paint a wondrously idealist picture of reality, but sometimes, standing in the light of the sunset, I can look over my shoulder, and feel a sense of comfort, like everything that was created will be put in place. I can hold my girlfriend’s hand and appreciate the heavens, knowing that something beyond her, or me is coming. Standing there in the sunset, I can catch a glimpse of the eschaton, enveloping my heart.
That feeling, that endless comfort tinged with longing, I would argue, is the resurrection. Today, I sit at rest, and know that the world is being set to rights and I am an irreducible part of the reconciliation of all things, because God made it that way. That sense of beauty, of wonder, I feel to be the knowledge within me about the coming goal of the universe. Just like if you’ve lived in the south, or anywhere where it rains a lot, you can feel a shift coming. I think that beauty does the same thing. We can feel the grace of God in His creation, and can feel a need to develop the beauty that we have a sense of.
God created us and began the work of creation in us, and will carry on our createdness, until its completion. There are brief moments, when we stop and pause and think “I think the universe is good.” Or “Is everything really ok underneath it all?” Resurrection says that these glimpses of the beauty and rightness of things is what we’re really really waiting for.
Resurrection is the belief that while we are wanderers in the current age, traveling across endless landscapes of deserts. We are faced with things that are sometimes dark, leaving us weary and hopeless we take step after step in seemingly aimless direction at times. Resurrection answers that wandering with the belief that we are steadily approaching something new on the horizon, a new city, a new mode of bodily existence ,a new beauty which awaits us as we travel. Resurrection answers the desperation of our hope with a solemn assurance about our longing, no we are not yet perfect, no the world is not yet perfect, but it shall be. The God Man sit bodily upon the throne of grace, steering the world from the hearts of his saints, claiming from within creation a place for himself that will spread into all things.
This is the resurrection of our God, this world is loved and has been rescued, and will not be abandoned. I see something so beautiful that I want to approach it steadily. No matter how long the night gets, even if at the end of the journey my faith is fragile and weak, in the light of the resurrection I can find strength, by looking to it, i have hope.
The “progress” I’m talking about is personal, not political. It will not be found in the deification of leaders, or have an answer in politics. It is when the I and thou relationship between human and God adopts a face, the thou becomes the “You” becomes the “Jesus” as a person and not an idea. The approach is not just to declare the Lordship of God, nor merely his love. But when we look to that Great Savior, we see resurrection, beauty, life, and from those flourish all other things, that is when we have a taste of home upon our lips, and a prayer in our hearts.
“Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be Done, On Earth as it is in Heaven” is the cry of this beating heart, and as I pause today to think, I remember the way in which that kingdom first reached me. In the arms of my mother, tenderly holding me and overflowing with divine love, she embraced me, and in those arms was a sacrament, a symbol of the love of God, conveying grace to the little child, who would grow up and turn away, only to be forgiven time and again. Parenting is a sacrament. As I close this thought, I would like to reiterate that God loves this world, and refuses to leave it, as we can see in the love we share, in the people we love, in the less fortunate we care for.
Resurrection, is about surprises, and I know that what awaits at the end of those glimpses is more surprising, more shocking and more beautiful than even I can imagine.
Thanks for Tuning in,
