Through the Eyes of a Four-Year-Old

My four-year-old daughter and I were sitting down to play some online games together at pbskids.org when I roped her into a quick interview on what she thought was beautiful. She was game, so here's the result. (Her name is Sophia.)

Me: What do you think is beautiful? What's the most beautiful thing in the world?

Sophia: The Cinderella dress I have for my dolls. It is the most beautifulest.

M: What makes you happy?

S: When mommy plays with me.

M: Why does that make you happy?

S: Because she plays fun things with me.

M: What makes you sad?

S: Nothing!

M: What would be the best/funnest thing to do in your life?

S: To give mommy a flower.

M: Why would that be such a fun/good thing to do.

S: Because she loves me and I like giving her flowers.

M: What do you hope to be when you grow up?

S: A soccer ball player.

M: Why?

S: Because I'm so good at it.

M: Any other things you like about life or think are beautiful?

S: No ... Well Elisabeth is my best friend, but she lives in a different city than we do? [We just met Elisabeth last week during a week-long day school. Sadly she was only visiting.]

M: What made you think about her?

S: Because she's my best friend and I'm always thinking about her. [I should have asked her why!]

M: So that's all you have to say?

S: Yeah. Now can we play a game?

M. Yeah.

S: Can I show you the game I want?

M: Yeah.

S: I want to play a Caillou game.

For what it's worth!

Pride v Dignity

From the first pages of Scripture we see mankind as the apex of God's creation. Of no other being--even angels--does God say "they are made in My image." Like a masterpiece, God declares later that we were made for His glory! God made mankind so that when we were considered we would conclude that God was glorious. Nevertheless, throughout the remaining pages, we see the toxic effects of pride.

Pride is the chief source of sin in our lives, and God clearly hates it:

"I hate pride and arrogance."

"God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."

So how can we reconcile what seems to be man's privileged standing of cosmic significance with the what seems to be an equally strong biblical inveigh against pride. Have we reason for pride or not? If not, what is the real significance of such towering statements about our standing. Do we take these with a grain of salt? Or do we whole-heartedly embrace them?

This paradox stems largely from our confusion of pride and dignity. Dignity is the holding high of one's head, without the looking down of one's nose. Dignity owes its force to what is inherent in one's being, without reference to another. Pride is the exaltation of one's self over another; even God. Pride can only be established at the expense of another. To recognize the power of one's innate dignity in no way detracts from the innate dignity of another. In fact it elevates it.

Dignity fuels and supports love and even humility. Pride is the ruin of them both. The gospel perfectly restores out dignity, while perfectly extinguishing our pride. Why would God send His Son to die for one who had no worth in His sight? This infuses us with a sense of personal awe stemming from God's words and actions. Why would He need to send His Son to die? This humbles and devastated our arrogance.

This power is seen throughout the pages of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables.

Jean Valjean is a hardened convict, having just completed 19 years of hard labor. When he enters the town, no inn keeper or family will give Him lodging. Even the jail keeper will not allow him to sleep in a cell. He is denied food and is cast out of one place after another, until he enters the home of the bishop Muriel. Immediately the bishop astounds him by referring to him as "monsieur" (basically calling him "sir").

"Every time he said this word monsieur, with his gently solemn, and heartily hospitable voice, the man's countenance lighted up. Monsieur to a convict, is a glass of water to a man dying of thirst at sea. Ignominy thirsts for respect."

As they continue the meal Jean Valjean demands of the bishop (mistakingly calling him Cure, for he thinks he is only a monk) an explanation:

"'Monsiere Cure,' said the man, 'you are good; you don't despise me. You take me into your house; you light your candles for me, and I hav'n't hid from you where I come from, and how miserable I am.'

The bishop, who was sitting near him, touched his hand gently and said, 'You need not tell me who you are. This is not my house; it is the house of Christ. It does not ask any comer whether he has a name, but whether he has an affliction. You are suffering; you are hungry and thirsty; be welcome. And do not thank me; do not tell me that I take you into my house. this is the home of no man, except him who needs an asylum. I tell you, who are a traveller, that you are more at home here than I; whatever is her is yours. What need have I to know your name? Besides, before you told me, I knew it.'

The man opened his eyes in astonishment:

'Really? You knew my name?'

'Yes,' answered the bishop, 'your name is my brother.'"

The healing and restorative effects of this encounter will eventually transform Valjean indelibly. They sit down to a grand meal, and the bishop has a habit of always serving guests on their finest settings.

"Suddenly the bishop said: 'It seems to me something is lacking on the table.'

The fact was, that Madame Magloire had set out only the three plates which were necessary. Now it was the custom of the house when the bishop had any one to supper, to set all size of the silver plates on the table, and innocent display. This graceful appearance of luxury was a sort of childlikeness which was full of charm in this gentle but austere household, which elevated poverty to dignity."

This act was deeply significant. The table was to be set to its fullest splendor, even though certain settings were entirely superfluous. The point had nothing to do with the function of eating, but the function of restoring dignity.

Earlier the bishop's manner of life was expressed thus:

"As we see, he had a strange and peculiar way of judging things. I suspect that he acquired it from the Gospel."

To be a Christian is to embrace our dignity and reject our pride. It is to fight and labor for the restored dignity of those we encounter as well. This is evangelism. This is discipleship. It is going to the Scripture and discovering the sense of deep dignity which alone can dispel arrogance and haughtiness; which alone can enable love and humility.

If we reject this dignity, thinking it to be pride, we will forfeit the very thing that God has most endowed us with and we will find ourselves forever struggling to find the strength or resolve or joy to be God's agents in this world. Jesus was a man deeply in touch with His dignity, and He was the only person in history who was without a shred of pride. He loved and served like no other, and, if we are to walk in His footsteps, we too must reckon with our staggering, God-ordained dignity.

Consider what Henri Houwen wrote:

"The Christian leader is called to help other affirm this great news, and to make visible in daily events the fact that behind the dirty curtain of our painful symptoms there is something great to be seen: the face of Him in whose image we are shaped."

Doubt and Dim Sum

I traveled through Hong Kong several years ago, and, as is my custom when traveling, sought to experience something quintessentially "Hong Kong." I was told to go for dim sum. 

Dim sum is an hors d'œuvre style meal served a la cart. Servers bring around assortments of food, and you sample them until you've had your fill. Ordering is progressive. 

None of us had ever had dim sum, so we asked the concierge where to find some. He told us of a hotel in Kawloon to visit. The next day we ventured out. Around lunch time we began looking for said hotel. It took us awhile and even when we did it wasn't easy to find the restaurant, which was on an upper floor. We arrived for the late-lunch ebb. Much of the dim sum was picked over and luke warm. When we ordered, we mostly each chose something that looked good and filled our plates. (Rather than sampling.) It was fine.

As we left I said, "That wasn't a very good lunch."

Later we began to plan for the following day. I piped up, "Well I'd like to do dim sum again tomorrow."

My companion looked oddly at me. "But you didn't like dim sum." 

"I know," I replied. "So I must not have got it right. There's no way everyone talks about dim sum if it isn't any better than that. I want to get it right this time."

Sadly I couldn't persuade my companions. I've never had dim sum since.

What does this have to do with anything?

Jesus is much like dim sum. He is talked about around the world. There are songs about Him written in all generations. Grand cathedrals stand in His honor. Nevertheless, many (most?) of His follower are experiencing only a hint of what He supposedly offers.

Consider the following promises:

"If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."

"I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty."

Utter satisfaction. Rest of soul. No hunger nor thirst. How many of Jesus' follower can say these are lived out in our lives? What say you? "Sort of?" "Sometimes?" "Rarely?" "No comment?"

This stark reality can give rise to painful doubts. "Is this even real?"

Why are we still following Him? 

In the midst of the final promise, where Jesus taught He was the bread of life, many, we're told, "turned back and no longer walked with him." Jesus asked the twelve, "Do you want to go away as well?"

Peter's response is insightful. "Lord, to whom shall we go. You have the words of eternal life."

What we see here is faith overcoming doubt. Not blind faith, but progressive faith; dynamic faith. The idea is not that Peter and the rest knew exactly what Jesus meant, nor that they were perfectly experiencing it. They knew enough, however. They had experienced enough. 

They knew and had experienced enough of both the world and Jesus to continue in their choice. The others evidently returned to their everyday life, "Let's stop wasting our time following this bozo." Peter knew no one else who was more worthy of pursuit.

Later Paul spoke in these terms: 

"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on..."

Our lives are an ongoing process of applying belief in the face of doubt. It is enduring disappointment and confusion by reminding ourselves of what we know.

The Psalmist writes:

"Why are you downcast, O my soul? 
       Why so disturbed within me? 
       Put your hope in God, 
       for I will yet praise him, 
       my Savior and my God. 
       My soul is downcast within me; 
       therefore I will remember you..."

Notice how he speaks to his soul, "Put your hope in God!" What else, "I will remember you." What else, "I will yet praise Him." Present, past, future. 

Be honest with the doubt in your life and also with Jesus' promises. It doesn't mean what you believe isn't true, only that you've yet to experience it in all of its fulness.

Consider C.S. Lewis's quote:

"Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. "

Without such two-edged honesty, we'll be Christians making mud pies if we remain Christians at all. The alternatives are either: (1) There's nothing to it or (2) there must be more to it. A follower of Jesus is the one who concludes the latter--even in the midst of searching, real doubt. 

Remember Jude's counsel and "Be merciful with those who doubt," including yourself.

Some day I hope to return to Hong Kong. I will get dim sum right. 

Each day I will wake up I will seek the same of Jesus, never being satisfied with less than He allows. Doubts will serve to remind me primarily that I have only scratched the surface. 

Forgiving

These eyes weren't made for crying; This love wasn't made to waste 

These arms weren't made for battle, but to share in your embrace 

You shall be, you shall be, you shall be Forgiven 
You shall be, you shall be, you shall be Forgiven

Ben Harper

Forgiveness opens the door to restoration and beauty. It is a costly act; a costly decision. 

I'm struck by one facet of bearing this cost: forgiveness is a process.

Often we real and despair in the midst of forgiveness. Hurt surfaces stubbornly from sin we felt we had "forgiven." It is as though we push an apple beneath the surface of the water, but it bobs into sight the moment we cease exerting our pressure upon it. 

We say we've forgiven, but there's that damned apple floating for all the world to see. It surfaces in anger, fear, depression, gossip, anxiety and begs the question of ourselves and others, "So ... you've forgiven that offense?"

We find ourselves forced into a delusional denial of the apple's existence ("What apple?") or a dejected admission of our own insecurity. 

What if we saw forgiveness as what is really is, a brave, daily process to engage in? The presence of hurt doesn't mean forgiveness isn't working any more than the presence of hunger means that eating isn't working.

The fact is event-focused forgiveness never synchs with reality. Should we be allowed to acknowledge the presence of the bobbing apple by acknowledging that we are in the process of forgiving, it would be a truthful, dignified and freeing admission to make. It would also permit genuine forgiveness to run it's course. 

We have a decision: daily rebuild a facade of past-tense forgiveness in the face of it's obvious failure, or devote ourselves daily to the ongoing process of establishing real, lasting forgiveness. Here a foundation of acknowledged sin, there a deep sorrow over loss and hurt; now a sudden reminder of our heart's continued hesitancy, then an equally startling awareness of its increased freedom; finally a loving sense of wholeness and desire for restoration.

Yes Jesus commands us to forgive. This is no optional exercise. So seriously did he take it that he said: 

"But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins."

Wouldn't we do well to give up the sham of accomplishing this act, and to engage in the mortal daily battle of seeing it become a reality?

Jesus taught that we must "take up our cross daily" in order to follow and obey him. What better example of this than the daily dying to self that the process of forgiveness involves?

Scars

In the spirit of this blog, I'd like to share a searching piece by Amy Carmichael:

No Scar?

Hast thou no scar?
No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?
I hear thee sung as mighty in the land;
I hear them hail thy bright, ascendant star.
Hast thou no scar?

Hast thou no wound?
Yet I was wounded by the archers; spent,
Leaned Me against a tree to die; and rent
By ravening beasts that compassed Me, I swooned.
Hast thou no wound?

No wound? No scar?
Yet, as the Master shall the servant be,
And piercèd are the feet that follow Me.
But thine are whole; can he have followed far
Who hast no wound or scar?

Quantity v Quality

Quantity is the greatest foe of quality.

When we think about destructive sins, we tend to make it an issue of quality: good versus evil. Gambling, substance abuse, pornography, vulgarity, violence, these all register on our Family Feud-style board of vices. We tend to view our life as a mortal struggle between these toxic and destructive vices and our better spirit's of altruism, worship and justice.

Nevertheless, many of us who don't smoke, chew or even date boys (or girls!) who do, still find our selves hopelessly far from our ideals. What is hindering us? We are overlooking the insidiously suffocating swell of idle quantity.

Consider the following scenario. You've chosen NOT to watch films with nudity or egregious violence. You steer clear of seedy shows like Dirty Sexy Money, Desperate Housewives or Sex in the City. Instead you watch Extreme Home Makeover or Dancing with the Stars. You don't look for porn online--just sports and celebrity news (read gossip). You don't gamble, but you do play online games like chess or and fritter away hours on facebook.

What is going on? You're tithing your time to nothingness. You're spending 1-2 hours each day in non-scandalous idleness. It is suffocating the beauty of your life; it's quality.

The counsel of Scripture is clear:

"Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil."

That "the days are evil" implies something of a diurnal default. From this idea came the notion of "redeeming" the time. This involves great vigilance; viz. being "very careful."

I posit here that the beautiful life is the life of raw engagement in the mess of the world--a rugged life of order-bringing.

Jesus' brother James confronts us with the truth that "Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins." This is startling. We know of the priest and levite who crossed the road to avoid the dying traveler. Isn't the quantity of our amusement (muse = think/consider; a-muse = don't think/consider) only an active neglect of the world's deepest needs? When we consider such neglect on par with commission of obvious sin, it casts our time and energy spent in a searching light.

Stephen Ambrose recounts an episode in his book D Day of a group of para-troopers who, upon finding an abandoned village stocked with liquor and food, carouse away the night of the invasion in revelry. Europe was quaking under the fascist Nazi regime, millions were being killed in concentration camps and their allied comrades were being slaughtered on the beaches and plains. Meanwhile, these men were drinking themselves into a stupor--a vile decision, deserving of court martial. Would we have judged them any different if they had found season one of Touched by an Angel or a wireless connection by which they could peruse their facebook feed?

I wouldn't have. You see the point was less about what they were doing than what they weren't doing.

If you'll note my "links to vice" section, most deal not with links to qualitatively sinful sites.

If we focused our attention on the quantity of our time and activities, we might live the beautiful lives we pine for. This is in no way intended to denigrate the toxicity of the scandalous sins nor the value of avocational rest. It is intended to be a reminder of the non-neutrality of time and activity. The beauty of our lives hang in the balance.

"Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it."

A Revolutionary Illustration

In a moment of inspiration, an illustration for spiritual growth dawned on me this morning. What will it have to do with beauty? You tell me.

Our lives are like a wing-nut (shout out to Nate by changing the graphic atop this post to the mascot of the Wichita Wingnuts) and God is like the bolt for which we were machined. The threads are God's good gifts of beauty, joy, pleasure, purpose and even physical necessities like food and oxygen. 

The world is filled with the disembodied shards of God's threads. They surround us like gnarled finger nail clippings or eraser debris. Though these things--especially in their purest state--seem vaguely to fill our voids, they stubbornly fall out and leave all humanity with a nagging sense of incompletion.

These threads are God's good gifts, and have immemorially been intended to draw us to our Maker. This can only take place when thread is joined to shaft whereby, with each revolution, we remain both filled and incrementally closer to communion withe their source. The end is to rest snugly against the one for whom we were made.

Apart from the shaft of the bolt, however, these shards can only give vague hints. When we recognize that these shards of thread find perfect continuity and purpose when joined to our Maker we begin our lifelong journey along them until we see Him face-to-face and embrace.

However, we remain dinged and flawed within. Our inner threads are jagged, mangled things; a holdover from our fallen past. We are accustomed to viewing these thread idolatrously, and habitually cling to them. Each revolution of the bolt causes us to release the previous section of thread, move along it and thus be drawn closer to our Maker. When we cannot let go of any given section, our relationship does, of necessity, stall. However, the Holy Spirit continues to exert torque on the bolt. This is His job and promise. As He does so, the thread begins to buckle and fray. The longer we cling to any one section, the more gnarled it becomes ... and we with it. 

This is a mercy of God that these threads gnarl and contort, because they can never fill us in an of themselves. The gnarling exposes this truth. Through repentance God will allow the ruined thread to give way. The revolutions can continue, we can be drawn again toward our Maker and, though it may take time for the cleaving pieces to wind their way through then out of our lives, they will eventually be purged. Our inner being, too, can be repaired, and this happens gradually through the glacial-process of each revolution--rubbing and smoothing us within.

As mentioned, the Spirit exerts a constant torque on the bolt. We, in turn, exert force on the wings through prayer, obedience, fellowship and time in the Scripture. These are external practices, which lead to internal change. Should the Spirit cease His force, our activities would merely spin the bolt in vain, but He promises never to cease His activity. Should we place no force on the wings, He, too, would merely be spinning us in vain. 

Our external pressure must be matched by an internal change--i.e. the inner yielded-ness that enables the threads to continue their process smoothly. (A misnomer, because the point of inner change is that we need it and this cannot always be a "smooth" process!)

So we see in this the dynamic the concurrent relationship between human effort and the work of the Spirit. We also see how inner change must continue if external activities are to accomplish their purposes. Without this we become what Jesus called "hypocrites"--play actors.

For what it's worth.

Selah.

Order Please!

"The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters." 

What happened next? Order. Beauty. Goodness.

Chaos is not, of itself, a thing of beauty. As I've been writing, a certain theme has emerged: the rethinking of beauty as pristine and tidy. From the beauty of my love for my daughters as evinced by the holes in my jeans to the beauty of Christ's love for his bride as evinced in his wounds, it is clear that there is a beauty in that which is tattered and rent. 

Nevertheless, these tears and tears and wounds and sorrows are an ephemeral form of beauty, save the wounds of Christ! 

Jesus' wounds accomplished a new, lasting, beautiful and good order. 

"For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross."

So beautiful! Perfect reconciliation through the brutality of the cross!

"God is not a God of disorder, but of harmony," wrote Paul. So what I'm not saying is that beauty is chaotic. "The thief comes only to kill, steal and destroy." This is a great description of chaos! "But I have come that they may have life [wholeness, healing, harmony, joy, peace, stability, friendship with our Maker] and have it to the fullest." This is a picture of great order like the Gerasene demoniac who was found "sitting at Jesus' feet, dressed and in his right mind." 

Jesus was a bringer of shalom: harmony, wholeness, peace, healing, goodness, beauty! Nevertheless, it was "by his wounds" that we were healed. 

The beauty I'm referring to in many of these posts is the beauty of wounds, tears, tears and scars that come from our putting our hands upon the chaos around us. 

Why do we wear garden gloves? When you look at a manicured yard, it is these leathery gloves which alone preserve the wholeness of the hands they are on. You might look to the left upon the garden and look to the right upon the supple hands which planted it, but there between them are the mud-caked gloves and tools that mediated the thorny, muddy, thistly reality into a beautiful, orderly one.

God's Spirit still hovers over the earth. In and through our lives he is bringing about a lasting beauty. It just so happens that we are his garden gloves.

Selah.

Life Imitating Art

Sparklers are about the least fun firework. About the only thing cool about them is the fact that they can be held. Most other stuff at the fireworks stand will blow a finger off.

Actually, there is one cool thing about sparklers. Who hasn't flicked them around like a magic wand or the baton of a symphony conductor. The incandescent brilliance of the magnesium flame is resistant what scientists call our inhibitory system. That is, it resists our brain's reflexive reset button which prevents light-stimulation from disrupting our vision. It keeps things from getting blurry by constantly receiving new stimulus and rejecting old.

Sparklers leave their wake behind them, so that when they are waved in the dark our eyes see not only their current light but its path. They remove time from the equation, if only for a fraction of a second.

I was listening to NRP today as I drove around. Today was Science Friday, and they had an illuminating (pun intended) piece on "light painting" . The light painter's brush is light. His canvas is the film of a camera, which is exposed over the course of 30 seconds. As the shutter remains open, the artist waves the lights in intricate patterns. This creates a sense of depth and a preserved picture of movement suspended in time.

This occurred to me to be a modern counterpart to the tapestry illustration. The tapestry illustration seeks to explain God's sovereignty in the midst of a chaotic world by comparing existence to a tapestry. On the back side of a tapestry we see mostly loose ends and only a simulacrum of order and beauty, but on its reverse side we see a true, intricate and beautiful masterpiece. This is said to illustrate the fact that one's perspective can prevent one from grasping the order or beauty "behind" what they are viewing. Because we are limited to a view of the back and can, in this life, only make sense of what God allows us to through his revelation (general and specific) as well as our faculties of reason and sense, we will err in our scrutiny of his work.

This is the message of Job. This is what was revealed to the prophet Isaiah:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

The poet William Cowper put it this way:

Blind unbelief is sure to err

And search his works in vain.

God is his own interpreter,

And he shall make it plain.

The segment on light painting, however, presented a new twist on the tapestry illustration: time. The comment was that these paintings are created by compressing movement into a single moment. 

Spiritual transformation is enigmatic. It seems neither linear nor cyclical. At times we feel as though we have regressed only to find that we've been in the process of a deep change. At time we feel as though we've progressed only to find that hubris and unbelief had been masked by a sense of personal success. Many times we reflect on our growth and cannot discern whether we are progressing or regressing. This, in and of itself, creates a sense of inner regression as we recall how simple things seemed in previous installments of our lives.  

As I write this I am fighting off a sickness and experiencing a prolonged season of such spiritual ambiguity. At times I suspect I am simply free-falling from whatever heights I might have once attained. When I am more lucid, it is apparent that these heights weren't always as they seemed.

God gave Paul a deeper understanding of his circumstances and struggles via his infamous "thorn in the flesh." It is clear that Paul had viewed this thorn through an entirely negative lens--pleading through 3 sustained seasons for its removal. It was God who eventually allowed Paul to see the arcs and waves of his work (over time) through this affliction.

It is as though we all have a spiritual inhibitory system. This allows the present to remain somewhat vivid, but causes the past to tell a nebulous message. What we need is to be good stewards of those challenges and personal spiritual responsibilities that lie before us, but an awareness of these unknown patterns and order--this unknown beauty of our lives--may help us remain sane. At times God may give us such insight into what this seemingly arbitrary dance is producing, but always at our disposal is truth that God is bringing order and beauty about. 

We are, you see, the light in the hand of God. Compressed in time, we might glimpse what he is doing, but, in the now, we can only strive not to obstruct the motion of his hands. 

Long before light paintings, God mentioned a similar analog:

 

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: "Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words." So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.

Then the word of the LORD came to me: "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the LORD. Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand.

Selah

Witnessing II

"How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news."

The Prophet Isaiah

This statement is an example of irony. 

I have a friend who is a wonderful painter and maker of furniture. His work is creative, meticulous and exquisite. His hands are gnarled, cracked, calloused. Like the lips of a jazz trumpeter or the larynx of an opera singer, our vocations brutalize. Yet the result is beauty, substance, contribution, joy, fulfillment and the like. 

These scars are physical and emotional. The Apostle Paul wrote: of "the daily pressure on me of my anxiety" for the sake of all the churches. Paul often notes the reality of his inner turmoil in heralding the good news of reconciliation with God through the atonement of Jesus. 

There is a burning friction that accompanies anything we will lay our hands and hearts upon.

Therein lies the irony of Isaiah's statement. The bringer of good news would have been one who brought it by foot. The feet of such heralds were the tools of their trade. The feet of those who brought good news would have been blistered, swollen, excoriated things. Caked in mud and filth and blood and puss, such feet would have been a ghastly, beautiful sight. 

The herald's news would, of necessity, cast a brilliant sheen upon the surface of such feet, gilding them beautifully and indelibly in the consciousness of the recipient. 

John Piper recounts a lecture he once hear J.O. Sanders give.

"He told the story of an indigneous missionary who walked barefoot from village to village preaching the gospel in India. After a long day of many miles and much discouragement he came to a certain village and tried to speak the gospel but was spurned. So he went to the edge of the village dejected and lay down under a tree and slept from exhaustion.

When he awoke the whole town was gathered to hear him. The head man of the village explained that they came to look him over while he was sleeping. When they saw his blistered feet they concluded that he must be a holy man, and that they had been evil to reject him. They were sorry and wanted to hear the message that he was willing to suffer so much to bring them."

Would that we could see the scars--within and without--
that we come by while living for the beautiful as possessing a beauty of their own. In this world of thorns, thistles, strife and cynicism, it is clear that the beauty of such scars actually surpass the more self-evident beauty of their accomplishments.

We would do well to keep in mind our peripatetic [lit. "walking around"] Lord and Savior, whose feet were swollen and filthy long before they were pierced. He "he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near". 

It would be safe to assume that if Jesus' resurrected body bore the crucifixion scars on hand and side, that his feet, too, are thus scarred for all eternity. They, too, possess a beauty which transcends the beauty of the pristine and whole.

Are your feet beautiful in this way? How about the feet of your soul? 

If not, could it be that we have never treasured the unique beauty of our Savior's feet? Should we do so, we might be found kissing them and cleansing them with our hair and tears.

"You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet."

"Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me ... And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her."

More on this later.

Selah