Day 21 of Lent - Thoughts on Pantheism, Mystery, and Asparagus

There’s nothing common about you. There is a great mystery at work behind the events of your everyday life. There’s invisible threads stitched through your soul, fastening you to divine purpose.

This thread is not a suture; it is no mere baste-stitch. Your original design is not in need of repair, and this tethering of your design to the person of Christ is no temporary fix.

It also does not mean that you become God or God becomes you - because that would be a farce and a mockery of the eternal intent that lies behind the conception of you. If you become so absorbed into God as to “become energy” in a “friendly universe”, there is no YOU left for the Living God to walk and talk with.

This is a case of the clear-cut mystery of you, as you, in a meaningful, highly consequential relationship with God, as God.

Humanism is reductionist and boring at first, and then it gets ominous and frightening. Look around at the general condition of humanity, if you doubt me.

Pantheism blends God and creation to the point that both lose their distinctiveness.

Deism separates God and creation to the point that there is no essential connection.

So let’s go back to the mystery. In Christ Jesus, the Triune God has forever safeguarded your genuine participation in the warmest, wittiest, wisest circle of fellowship that has ever been and ever will be. Everything good and noble about you exists because of Jesus; all the affections of your unique soul, the creativity, the personality, all of it is preserved…and cherished. Without the God-man, you as “you” would be forever excluded from the plans of God.

That scarlet thread of redemption is why I love my life so much. It is why I love grilled asparagus, Wendell Berry, Snicker’s bars, and abstract art (the scribblier the better). That thread tethering me to Christ is why I have green eyes, why I am left-handed, why I read too much and laugh too loud. Christ experienced life as a human being, forever sanctifying my human experience. He left His place in glory to walk in sandals, grill fish over an open flame, forgive sinners, and weep with His friends.

Far from being abstract, these thoughts charm the living daylights out of me, and insert themselves into my ordinary day, changing it for the better and the sweeter.

Day 20 of Lent

Twenty days, so far, of coming to the computer keys and the easel, every day. Twenty more days until Lent is complete…

…and I already never want to go back to who I was just twenty days ago.

When I hear the life of Jesus taught about in churches, classes, and courses, the overwhelming emphasis has been on His supernatural ministry. I understand that, but the older I get, my soul finds an almost equally great emphasis on the very ordinary life of Jesus.

Yes, He healed the sick, cast out demons, raised the dead, and multiplied food. He walked on water, read minds, and turned water into wine. He did so many miracles that they could not be numbered, and He did it all in a bit over three years’ time.

Which means, for thirty years Christ caught, gutted, and filleted more fish than He blessed, broke and multiplied. He grilled countless fish over an open flame, yet He materialized money in the mouth of one. He spent miles and miles (and miles) walking dirty, dusty roads, while spending only moments walking on water. He took delight in carpentry, flowers, and weddings. He studied the Word of God for many more years than He preached it. He made blind eyes see, but He also made a lot of tables that were beautiful to see.

And because there was that span of time that God spent making, my time spent making is made sacred. Because God took the time - no reason to think otherwise - apprenticing Himself to a master carpenter (much like He submitted Himself to the teachers of the law) the time I spend learning technical excellence in my art practice is time I spend learning to be like Jesus.

This is my theology of making.