Something About Beauty...

"This is the position we are in when confronted by beauty. The world is full of beauty, but the beauty is incomplete. Our puzzlement about what beauty is, what it means, and what (if anything) it is there for is the inevitable result of looking at one part of a larger whole. Beauty, in other words, is another echo of a voice - a voice which (from the evidence before us) might be saying one of several things, but which, were we to hear it in all its fullness, would make sense of what we presently see and hear and know and love and call 'beautiful.'"

Simply Christian
by N. T. Wright

To me, this section raises the question if we are able to fully apprehend/comprehend, or even appreciate, beauty. Wright seems to be saying that if we could see beauty in its fullness, then we could fully grasp it. But I'd like to raise the question:

Can we do that?

When we see beauty, many times we do not ponder its incompleteness - we try to appreciate it, however we may do that. It may not be until some time later that we realize its incompleteness for the first time. And when we do, the object itself becomes no less beautiful. We just understand it more fully.

And can we understand enough to find the missing ingredient that will make us appreciate and know beauty to its fullest? I don't think so. It doesn't seem to be a matter of understanding. At this point, the awesomeness of beauty is in just that - awesome being: "Extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear." Beauty can be all of these things. Which makes me realize:

Beauty is bigger than us.

I can only handle it in small doses. Anything more would make my head explode. I simply cannot take beauty in its completeness.

But oh my, what a gorgeous explosion it would be...

On That Funny Thing I Feel In The Morning

Maybe you feel it too. Have you ever opened your eyes to a feeling of great expectation, mixed in with a small dose of joyous dread? Kinda like when you were a child, perhaps. Think back to Christmas morning. You were excited because you were going to get presents. Nothing could be better. You were also just a tad worried that you weren't going to get what you asked for. Maybe Auntie Matilda had a nasty habit of getting you monogrammed hankies every year instead of giving you a gift card to the nearest retailer who sold various and sundry wicked awesome items, and you're a tad concerned that she failed to pick up on your thinly veiled hints for the fifth year in a row. But that's probably okay, because she's not the only one giving you presents. Hopefully.

But you get the idea. Something big is going to happen today. I can't put my finger on what it is. It's probably good. It's possibly bad. But I'm expecting something. Looking over my shoulder, trying to figure out what comes next. Going into situations with a feeling of shaking the box and trying to guess what's inside. Rather on edge, but in a good way.

So that's the feeling. Let's push things a bit further.

Let's suppose that every day is Christmas Day. You wake up expecting something. The tree is set up, there's snow on the ground, carols are playing on the radio, the calendar confirms that today is indeed December 25th. And you jump out of bed, sprint down the stairs, and crash-land in the living room, where you find...

Wicked awesome presents? Every once in a while. Bad presents? Occasionally. Lumps of coal? More than I'd like, but not more than I'd admit to.

Nothing at all? Almost every day, it seems.

What gives? Despite the obvious fact that today is Christmas Day, nobody seems to have gotten the memo. Dad just left for work. Mom's telling me that I'm going to be late for school. I forgot my algebra homework. Someone canceled at work tonight and I have to cover their shift.

Wait! I thought today was Christmas! Happy, joyous, exciting, unexpected, spine-tingling revelry of enjoying gifts and seeing what the world held for me!

But no... Today is a day just like any other, and I'm the odd one out for feeling this way. Every day. And to make matters worse, I can't take the tree down. I can't put the snow back in the sky. I can't change the songs on the radio. And I certainly can't change what the calendar says.

So I wake up feeling very certain that today is going to be a fabulous, life-changing day. And then I end the day feeling bummed and tired because it wasn't. Oh, sometimes it is. Once in a blue moon. But almost every day... It doesn't seem that way.

I can't expect every day to be super-awesome. I know that. Life just doesn't work that way. But I do wish that I could wake up feeling content with whatever the day holds instead of biting my nails day after day in a state of mental anticipation.

Or maybe the days are great, and I just can't see it. Either way, it's pretty tiring. Maybe things will be better tomorrow...

Gone For So Long...

Sorry, Tank.

Apologies. I have let this blog fall into almost-nothingness.

Life has been wild. In the past months since I have blogged here, I have gotten a full-time job at the church, I have been accepted into Asbuy Theological Seminary, I turned 23, I got a girlfriend, and I lost said girlfriend. I'm coming to the realization that at this point in life, the only constant is change.

I don't like that. You know those people who say "Change is good?" I wish I could toss them off a moderately sized skyscraper. They can enjoy flying.

For a change.

However, I continue to believe that God is watching after me and guiding my steps. I've come to realize that I can never feel that in the process; I can only look back and say, "God was there."

I guess that has to be good enough. It's all I get for now... But there is grace here. I know it. I can feel it.

Everything's gonna be okay.