Walking on Water
It’s very late and I should be asleep, but that has evaded me quite a few nights lately. So tonight, rather than toss and turn in bed, or watch the clock slowly change from 12:36 to 12:37, I’m checking my e-mail and blogging.
There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation.
There are two friends that I get together with on a semi-regular basis to share life journeys. At first it was a magazine club, now it has become a “life” club. At different times, we have lived, worked and traveled the world together. We have a common passion for creativity and a desire to know our God-given gifts and feel his delight when we use them, as Eric Liddell did when he ran in Chariots of Fire.
We’re reading Madeleine L’Engle’s book Walking on Water - Reflections on Faith and Art. It’s a small book but challenging. She explores the mysterious relationship between art and faith. I’m usually a very quick reader, but with this book, I can only read a paragraph or two before pausing to allow the words and concepts I’ve read to marinate in my mind - to uncoil some of my natural responses to draw up and say “That’s just not right!”
Tonight’s statement to ponder: “There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation.” If that’s true, then why do I rail against things that offend me? Is there some hint of the sacred that eludes me because I’m trying to protect Christianity?
Then should my energies be directed toward discovering those hints of the divine, rather than championing those that are held high for the world to see? Would I be more winsome for Christ if, instead of arguing morality, I would celebrate those fleeting sightings of His majesty?
Jeffrey Overstreet, who contributes a weekly column and film reviews for Christianity Today, then began publishing his own movie reviews, has written a wonderful book called Through a Screen Darkly. It takes us on a journey of discovering the divine through films as diverse as “Star Wars,” “Wings of Desire” and The Exorcism of Emily Rose.
I like what Augustine said about this, “Because, therefore, no good things whether great or small, through whatever gradations of things, can exist except from God; but since every nature, so far as it is nature, is good, it follows that no nature can exist save from the most high and true God: because all things even not in the highest degree good, but related to the highest good, and again, because all good things, even those of most recent origin, which are far from the highest good, can have their existence only from the highest good.”
Also, the old hymn, by Babcock I believe, “He shines in all that’s fair.”
September 3rd, 2007 at 7:34 pm
I love this book!
Another quote that hovers on this subject goes something like this: We fear the transfiguration for much the same reasons we believe that art is a “lie” and that stories are “untrue.” (I’m sure I just butchered that)
Being an artist, I guess I would say I am more open to the unknown…although I do have my judgmental moments. It’s unfortunate that things like fantasy, secular music, or anything that has to do with Harry Potter are burned at the stake before they are ever really explored (most people I know who call those things evil have never read or listened to the things they call evil. - Some of my most favorite music that brings me to intimate times with God are of secular origin.
September 27th, 2007 at 4:12 pm