This Frivolous Beauty

We in the West live in a world still immersed in the Enlightenment. We still believe that Truth is only what can be observed, tested, measured.
Wendell Berry calls this, the idea that the touchable world of science and matter is all there really is, our modern superstition. ” … we moderns dismiss this (idea that the world tells us about God’s love) as fancy and view the world with disenchanted eyes as a collection of atoms and dust – something to measure but not something that means.”
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This, of course, has left us dissatisfied. When the only thing that exists is that which is measurable, when we are told that nothing around us has any deeper meaning, we are left discontent and searching for meaning and contentment in all the wrong places.
And when the unthinkable happens, when our world crumbles and leaves us drowning in grief and pain, we have been trained by our culture and even our churches to look to facts and information to make life easier. If we can only gather enough theological information, we believe, we can solve the problem of grief and pain.
Facts are a cold comfort, though, when we are stumbling through the darkness of suffering. It is good and necessary for us to know facts about the character of God, but we will never know the presence of the Father in data.
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Our culture and even many of our churches have trained us to dismiss art, music, joy in nature, as frivolous and trivial.
The truth? These beauties are small glories offered to us as communion with our Creator.
All that exists is God’s gift to man, and it all exists to make God known to man, to make man’s life communion with God. It is divine love made food, made life for man. God blesses everything He creates, and, in biblical language, this means that He makes all creation the sign and means of His presence and wisdom, love and revelation: “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” ~ Alexander Schmemann
Art, music, the beauty of nature, all of these are God’s gift to us, one way that he enters our world of suffering and transforms it into a space where we can know his unfailing love.
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Suffering cannot be transformed by theological data. There is not much that will be made new in this life. Yet while we wait for the sure renewal of all things, it is through the “triviality” of beauty, through art and music and joy in nature, that we are able to catch a glimpse of the deeper truth that is Emmanuel, God with us.
All that exists is God’s gift to man, and it all exists to make God known to man, to make man’s life communion with God.

many of the ideas in this post are from This Beautiful Truth by Sarah Clarkson

Art credits: Wind Mountain by James Madison Alden; The Water-Lily Pond by Claude Monet; photograph of mountain stream by Kirk Sewell; all other photographs are my own

Never Outside of God

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In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
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Yet God’s creative work did not stop there.
He did not create the universe, set it into motion, then step back and let things take their course.
For by Him all things were created…and in Him all things hold together.
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never outside of Him
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All creation was brought forth out of Himself and all creation is sustained by Him.
His presence is here, all around us, intimately close to us and yet also other than us. Other than creation.
He is still creating, still sustaining. He is constantly “bringing forth”.
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This is not pantheism. God is not His creation.
Sustaining does not equal being.
Sustaining also does not equal controlling.
We still make our choices, live our lives, do what we were created to do.
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Yet on a deeper level, God is sustaining us while we do what we were created to do.
We work on different levels. God has His work and has given us work to do. He has given all of creation work to do.
Perhaps we are the only ones who can refuse that work.
For God is other than His creation.
Too often we make Him the same, just bigger.
He is not the same, and we do well to remember it.
He has given us work to do, and while we are to obey and do that work He has given us to do, we are deceived if we believe we do that work on our own.
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For while we work, doing what we were created to do, God is also at work, sustaining all things , holding all things together within Himself.
May that truth give you rest, for you are never outside of the sustenance of God.
You are never outside of God Himself.

Art Credits: Photograph of space by NASA; all other photographs copyright 2018 Made Sacred

When We Enter the Darkness

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Sometimes it happens this way.
Sometimes when you are closest to God, you feel as though you are farthest away.
It seems to happen that when you are a new Christian, God speaks clearly, you feel His presence solidly, light is all around you.
New
Fresh
As you progress in your faith, God’s voice gets fainter, His presence is harder to grasp, the clouds begin to form around you.Old
Dry
This is how it was for Mother Theresa who began her life full of fire and certainty and spent the last fifty years of her life full of darkness and silence. She continued to obey, even when the dry times outnumbered the rich times.
As a baby, you need God to discernibly carry you. When you become more mature, you need to trust that God is still carrying you.
When God first showed Himself to Moses, it was in the light.
Light
In a miracle of a fiery bush that did not become ash, He revealed Himself to a man who did not yet know Him.
Later, God showed Himself to Moses in a cloud.
Cloud
In the middle of the cloudy dimness of a pillar of cloud, God spoke to a man who was learning to trust Him.
Once Moses became more perfected, he saw God in the darkness.
Dark
In the darkness on the top of a mountain, God gave His Word to a man who knew Him.
We should not think that this is unusual. We should not despair when we must enter the darkness. We should not give up on God when we can no longer see Him.
Rather, we should continue to obey, continue to trust, continue to speak and to listen.
What you discovered about God in the fiery light does not disappear once He cloaks Himself in darkness.
He is still there, He still loves you, and He is still working to perfect you.
Perfect
Especially in the darkness.

Ideas in this post come from St. Gregory of Nissa (335-395 AD)

Art Credits: God Appears to Moses from Saint Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg; Pillar of Cloud is a Bible card published by the Providence Lithograph Company; Promulgation of the Law by Gerard Hoet; all other photographs copyright Made Sacred 2018

I have three papers to write this week for my Master’s course, so this post is edited from the archives. I hope you enjoyed it!

The Eclipse of God

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One dark night, God the Son pleaded with God the Father
and was answered by silence.
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One dark afternoon, God the Son cried out to God the Father
and was answered by the turning of His back.
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The Father rejected the Son and the Son experienced “the dark night of the soul, in which everything that makes life something living withers away, and in which hope vanishes.” (Jurgen Moltmann)
For the parents who have just lost their child
For the girl who has just been raped
For the man who has just lost his job
For the woman who is drowning in loneliness
the only answer to your cry of Why? Why, oh God, why? is not a because
it is an experience.
Lent
The reality of whatever makes you feel what Martin Buber calls the eclipse of God can only be answered by the reality experienced by Jesus.
“‘For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will gather you.'” (Jurgen Moltmann)
The Jesus whose cry was met with silence, the Jesus who was rejected by God, He is the friend to whom we can confide everything because He has suffered everything that has happened to us.
And more.
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For into our unanswered cry to God, He came.
He came and entered into the darkness and the suffering to be with us.
He came as a brother to sit with us in our fears, our weeping, our brokenness.
He came as a mother to reclaim His own. “Could a mother desert her young? Even so I could not desert you.
“He sits beside us not only in our sufferings but even in our sins. He does not turn His face from us, however much we turn our face from Him.” (Peter Kreeft)
It is the truth Corrie ten Boom spoke from the hell of a Nazi death camp, “No matter how deep our darkness, He is deeper still.”
And because He came, He can answer our cry with His reality.
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reality of the resurrection
He can answer our reality with the experience of His reality that no matter how dark the eclipse of God, it is always followed by the blinding dawn of the resurrection.

Art Credits: The Three Crosses by Rembrandt; Resurrection by Luca Giordano; Der Engel öffnet das Grab Christi by Benjamin Gerrisz Cuyp; all photographs are copyright Made Sacred 2018

Shaken Awake

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We are a drowsed and sleep-walking people.
Asleep
We are lulled by false comfort, by the false distance of God.
We are deceived into believing that we can avert danger, can assert control over the forces around us.
We have no such power, and some have been shaken to their core by that realization.
 They have woken up.
Awake
Wake Up
We must wake up.
Only if we awaken from this sleep that claims us will we be able to truly live.
Only when we do not cling to false securities can we raise our eyes to Him who is our only security.
God allows our world to fall into difficulties and ugliness so that we may awaken to God’s healing presence in our world.
God is Here
It is time to wake up and get to work.
It is time to put things to rights, time to work to restore our world, to bring God’s kingdom rule to bear in our world.
Those who have experienced an awakening know that it is time to repent, time to change.
Those who have been roused by the quaking of their world become unshakable in their decision to stay alert.
Stay Alert
We who remain asleep build our imaginary worlds in which we dream presumptuous dreams of comfort and security.
We must be shaken.
We must be shattered so that the light of God’s coming pours through every crack.
Light of the World
Only when we awake to our own frailty and failings can the Light of the World reach us and give us a taste of the glory and abundance that can be ours,
the abundance and joy we can have in Christ if we will only remain awake to His presence in our lives and alert to His work through us in our world.
Awake
We must wake up, we must watch with readiness and work with fervor for the coming of our God to put things right and banish the night.

Art credits: photograph of light streaming through the trees by Kirk Sewell; all other photographs copyright Made Sacred 2018

When You Cannot Believe or Feel or Care

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Suffering is not always great pain.
Sometimes suffering is a great numbness.
A deep loneliness or a fog of discontent.
A feeling that you are not doing much with your life or a lack of emotion in general.
Suffering is sometimes an absence of the felt presence of God.
My God
My God, my God!
A cry of despair toward a seemingly empty heaven.
An emotion of not-caring which you feel should be frightening but is not.
Sometimes this is the cross we are asked to bear.
It is not as flashy or book-worthy, yet is just as real.
Just as difficult.
If this is you, may I believe for you until you can believe again?
God is here.
He is with you, even in the cloud.
Presence in the Cloud
He is with you, even in the dark.
Presence in the Dark
Even when you cannot feel Him, when you cannot believe,
even when you cannot care,
just do the next right thing.
Behave as though you feel, believe, care.
I believe, I know.
He is here.
Even in the dark.
He is with you
Perhaps especially in the dark.
He is with you.
And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
No matter how long you must continue to live this suffering that is your cross.
So He has promised.
So it shall be.
So take courage and keep walking.
He is with you.
Always.

Art credits: Moses in the cloud from a Bible primer by Hult, Adolf, 1869-1943; Augustana synod.; all other photographs copyright by Made Sacred, 2017.

The Danger of Obedience

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I am a lover of rules.
I have a deep belief that most rules were created to keep me safe. I cling to safety and I enjoy comfort, thus I comply with the rules.
Moses Tissot
There is an expectation when we follow rules that our obedience will bring about a desired result. When we obey the rules, we feel entitled to a certain outcome.
We have often, I fear, misunderstood the promised outcome of submitting to Jesus.
As did His disciples.
They had just seen Jesus feed the five thousand when He made them get into a boat and cross the lake while He stole some much needed alone time with His Father.
Storm Clouds
While they were crossing the lake, a storm came up. One of those storms that tends to sweep across the Sea of Galilee, swamping and overturning all boats in its path.
And the disciples were caught right in the middle of it. They clung to their boat for dear life, crying out with fear in a danger that was the direct result of their obedience to Jesus.
Storms
Has this happened to you? If not yet, as you continue to obey Jesus it is bound to happen sometime.
Whether it is physical danger or a danger of a different sort, submission to Jesus does not guarantee safety.
Quite the opposite, actually. Obedience to Jesus often brings trouble down on our heads.
Yet it also brings peace beyond understanding and joy that is made complete.
Most precious of all, surrender brings us the presence of Jesus Himself.
Jesus walks on the sea
Jesus came down from the mountaintop, walked out on the water, strode into the storm,
Christ Walking on the Waters Von Klever
and stepped into the boat with the disciples.
And immediately there was calm.
Obedience does not bring safety and it does not bring comfort.
Obedience does, however, bring the presence of God Almighty Himself.
It is worth every dangerous moment.

Art Credits: Moses and the Ten Commandments by James Tissot; storm photos by Kirk SewellJesus Walks on the Sea by Gustave Dore; Christ Walking on the Water by Julius Sergius Von Klever

Lift Up Your Head

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site. If you choose to listen, be sure to also scroll through the photos while listening…the photos are the main point of today’s post.

 

The deep darkness in this world can sometimes weigh our heads down. Our eyes remain fixed on our next step, our minds focused on not stumbling, not falling flat on our faces.
It is easy to become mired in the muck of a broken world. We struggle and strive, our backs bent under the bulk of all that is upon us.
Yet God is here.
Right here.
Closer than your breath.
The evidence is all around you. So lift up your head just for a moment.
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Beauty 5
You who are bowed down with physical pain, lift up your head.
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You who dwell under the weight of loneliness or depression, lift up your head.
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You who are crushed by a grief that prevents you from even getting out of bed in the morning, lift up your head.
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Beauty 18
You who are burdened by the venom between fellow countrymen and fellow Christ followers, lift up your head.
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Beauty 20

 

Beauty 21

 

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Beauty 23
You who plead with God to do something, to rescue you, to save you, for God’s sake doesn’t He even care,
lift up your head.
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Beauty 29
Lift up your head and take a breath of wonder. He is all around you. This beauty is for you.
It doesn’t fully dispel the darkness, at least not yet, but it will give you the strength to keep shining your own light for another day.
And that’s all you need. Just one more day.
Lift up your head.

Art credits: Mountain photos and tulip photo by Kirk Sewell; Space photos by NASAElk photo by Kevin Tuck; Elephant photo by Stella Bogdanic; all other photos are mine

God in the Darkness

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.
Sometimes it happens this way.
Sometimes when you are closest to God, you feel as though you are farthest away.
It seems to happen that when you are a new Christian, God speaks clearly, you feel His presence solidly, light is all around you.
New
Fresh
As you progress in your faith, God’s voice gets fainter, His presence is harder to grasp, the clouds begin to form around you.Old
Dry
This is how it was for Mother Theresa who began her life full of fire and certainty and spent the last fifty years of her life full of darkness and silence. She continued to obey, even when the dry times outnumbered the rich times.
As a baby, you need God to discernibly carry you. When you become more mature, you need to trust that God is still carrying you.
When God first showed Himself to Moses, it was in the light.
Light
In a miracle of a fiery bush that did not become ash, He revealed Himself to a man who did not yet know Him.
Later, God showed Himself to Moses in a cloud.
Cloud
In the middle of the cloudy dimness of a pillar of cloud, God spoke to a man who was learning to trust Him.
Once Moses became more perfected, he saw God in the darkness.
Dark
In the darkness on the top of a mountain, God gave His Word to a man who knew Him.
We should not think that this is unusual. We should not despair when we must enter the darkness. We should not give up on God when we can no longer see Him.
Rather, we should continue to obey, continue to trust, continue to speak and to listen.
What you discovered about God in the fiery light does not disappear once He cloaks Himself in darkness.
He is still there, He still loves you, and He is still working to perfect you.
Becoming
Perfect
Especially in the darkness.

Ideas in this post come from St. Gregory of Nissa (335-395 AD)

Art Credits: God Appears to Moses from Saint Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg; Pillar of Cloud is a Bible card published by the Providence Lithograph Company; Promulgation of the Law by Gerard Hoet

When You Are Desperate to Understand

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.
There is much that I don’t understand about this life we live.
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I don’t understand why good prayers often go unanswered. Prayers that even an indifferent parent would grant.
I don’t understand why young mothers die horrible deaths or why four year old little girls suffer abuse.
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I don’t understand why God often seems so distant, especially in our darkest moments.
I simply don’t understand.
Yet this thing I know to be true, even if I don’t understand why:
Sometimes God asks us to choose between understanding and Him.
This is the story of Job. Horrific things happened; God was silent.
Job’s friends offered their limited understanding; God offered the fullness of Himself.
And that’s the thing about understanding, you see. When we demand it, we usually don’t get it and in the demanding we lose the grace that God offers to us.
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If you choose God, however, you gain what you need most of all.
We will all receive understanding someday, whether on this or that side of death, but we need God now. Always.
If you have to choose, choose God.
Supernova
That was Job’s choice. He admitted his incomprehension and bowed before the God he had seen. And he was satisfied, ending his life full of days.
When we choose God, we receive the gift of His presence and that will satisfy us more than any understanding ever could.
We need God desperately. More than we need anything else.
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If you choose God, you will eventually gain understanding. If you demand understanding, you may lose the presence of God and yet never receive the understanding you gave up everything to gain.
If you have to choose, choose God. It is this grace that will get you through the hard thing you do not understand.
This grace that is the presence of God Himself.

Art credit: Photo of space by NASA