Reflections by the Pond
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Between the Soil and the Stars |
My fault and my fate is to be an incurable romantic. Where others see a squirrel burying acorns for the winter, I see nature's epochal struggle for survival. Where others see only the inconvenience and mess of a spring downpour, I see the life-giving element that will nurture this year's crops. Where others see the loss of chlorophyll in the leaves of summer and their inevitable littering of the ground, I see signs of a fading year sprinkled liberally with the exuberant shades of heaven's glory. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. And there's the rub. An energetic and creative God has gone out of His way to reveal Himself in the components of His handiwork. He has surrounded all my senses with the beauty of His mind and hand. Yet often the result is only an unrequited longing in my breast, and a sensation of being in the wrong place at the wrong time--a feeling of belonging not to the low, or to the high, but neither. I cannot yet reach up into heaven. I cannot yet soar with the angels or kneel and worship alongside the Elders. I do not yet tread the soft pathways of gold that crisscross my God's home. But neither can I be at peace in a place of earth and mortal impermanence. This flesh is a cumbersome cloak that seems odd apparel for my God-tinged spirit. "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You, how much less this house which I have built!" 1 Kings 8:27 nasbu That which displays the handiwork and personality of the Father must remain, until The Day, only a beckoning foretaste of what lies ahead. As God in my mind can only be a faint, gossamer surrogate for the substantial glory of His literal presence, the glory of His earthly creation cannot compare to the wondrous mysteries of my eventual home. So I make the visual riches of His grace into a promissory note. He has promised me life everlasting in the now-unimaginable wonder of His presence. For the moment, because I am still small and earth-bound, I have a foretaste of that wonder. All around me vibrates the fresh wonder of an extravagant spring--trees laden with exploding life, fields rich with new grass, the beasts of the field exultant--a sight at once uplifting and melancholy: an experience filled with joy, yet tinged with homesickness for another place to which I truly belong. But it will do for now. |
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