One of the gifts that God gave me is my imagination. I’ve shared before that I had imaginary friends as a child, and I’ve always written stories in my head. Often, I’ve imagined heaven as a place where creation is perfect and unfallen (which I am pretty sure I can’t adequately imagine!) and I’ve visualized what it would be like to be able to take in that perfect creation. Am I going to be able to swim with dolphins and sea turtles? Do you think, God, that maybe I could be allowed to fly and soar with the hawks? These are often the results of my musings.
I’ve also shared before that one of my most favorite spots on earth is at the top of Bridger Peak in the Sierra Madre Mountains in southern Wyoming. At elevation 11,003 feet, it’s the tallest thing in view, and I can easily sit there and cry at the beauty and majesty around me. Usually when we are exploring at Bridger, our next destination is Haggarty Creek, a relatively small but fast running creek that somehow holds all kinds of magic and serenity for me. All I need to do when I’m stressed is picture sitting on top or Bridger Peak or on a rock amidst the moss on the bank of the Haggarty, and my soul is refreshed.
It will now seem like I’m changing subjects, but I’m not: Last week my ‘bonus daughter’ Amanda sent me a copy of a sermon by C.S. Lewis entitled “The Weight of Glory”. She sent it as part of a continuing conversation I’ve had with my son Sam and several others, including Amanda, responding to my blog of January 29th. Lewis talks about works and grace and glory and living here on earth with an eye on eternity. Many points he makes really resonated with me, but one point stands out right now. Lewis says that “most of things we call beautiful are inanimate, [and] it is not very surprising that they take no notice of us.” Then he talks about glory, and says that as Children of God we aren’t satisfied with just viewing this inanimate beauty, but instead “We do not want merely to see beauty, though…we want something else which can hardly be put into words-to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.”
I wish I’d have said that! It is exactly how I feel when tears roll down my cheeks on Bridger, or I long to dance with the water droplets at Haggarty Creek. It’s why, I suppose, that I once felt the need to fly a kite off Bridger Peak, and why I can’t keep my feet out of the creek even though the water is so icy cold. I don’t want to just stare out at the vista, I want to soar in it, drink it, be it. Lewis goes on to suggest “When human souls have become as perfect in voluntary obedience as the inanimate creation is in its lifeless obedience, then they will put on its glory, or rather that greater glory of which Nature is only the first sketch.” When we do gain eternity we will “drink joy from the fountain of joy”. He finishes by claiming what his sermon began with, and that is that our job, as saved recipients of God’s grace, is to love with a “real and costly love” to our neighbors.
I love the simplicity and total complexity of that. We are surrounded here with beauty if we take time to see it. The intricacy of a spider’s web, the pudgy knuckles of a baby’s tiny hand, the magic of a rainbow or the sunrise, eye contact with a deer on the prairie, a dusty beam of light peeking through a slightly gaping curtain, the sheer power of a hurricane, the fragility of a robin’s egg. It’s what we have on this fallen earth to cherish and nurture and to herald what is promised.
