shape

"Believe in the holy contour of life"

Jack Kerouac

Strangely Brilliant

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely brilliant,
In the light of His glory and grace.

I apologize to the hymnist for turning her poetry inside out. What Helen Lemmel penned was,

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim…

Her intent was to accentuate the unequaled beauty of Christ by casting all else in dull, muted tones. Fair enough.

But closeness to Jesus has mostly heightened my awareness of life’s beauty.

…Setting sunlight turning trees and trail to gold
…The glide of a canoe across a mountain lake at dawn
…An ancient marriage proposal sung in Gaelic
…Rhodies blooming
…The crack of a bat on a 98 mph fastball
…A full night of sleep
…The summertime incense of charcoal
…Saltwater and coconut oil
…Friendships rekindled

In my experience, the baptism of the Holy Spirit is a baptism of all things into their intended glory.


Copyright Scott Burnett 2006

John 12:1-11 (premeditation)

In the first part of John 12, the religious power brokers are so afraid of Jesus and Lazarus that they begin to plot their murders in earnest. Why? It makes sense that they’d be irate at Jesus for exposing the emptiness of their illusion. And I can see why they’d want to destroy the evidence, so to speak, by erasing the resurrected Lazarus from the scene.

But I don’t see how they could unequivocally dismiss the possibility that Jesus was telling (and living) the truth. How could they be so sold out to their own propaganda that they couldn’t see the sense-making beauty in what Jesus was saying and doing?

One of the reasons I’m so bothered by this riddle is my uneasy feeling that I could do the same thing. What am I guarding? What am I dismissing? What are the fears in me that skew my perceptions? Whose ideas am I ready to erase in order to protect my own?



Copyright Scott Burnett 2006

Thanksgiving Blessing

Even as we express our gratitude for God’s good gifts,
We receive the gift of gratitude itself;
Pressed down and overflowing.

Let us seek the way of pure kindness…
In the name of the Father.

Let us shut the door on anxiety…
In the name of Jesus.

Let us remember beauty…
In the name of the Holy Spirit.

Even as we express our gratitude for God’s good gifts,
We receive the gift of gratitude itself;
Pressed down and overflowing…
Pressed down and overflowing.

Amen

Rooted

For me, there are three essential dimensions of Spiritual Balance [see table].
1) Beauty must be celebrated, and Wonder relished.
2) Upright is an old-fashioned word, but I like its imagery: spiritual balance means I stand up in my full stature, walking tall. Dignity.
3) It also connotes Grounding – having my feet solidly beneath me. Rooted.

“Plant your roots in Christ and let him be the foundation for your life. Be strong in your faith, just as you were taught. And be grateful.”
Colossians 2:7, Contemporary English Version


Copyright Scott Burnett 2006

eSphere revisited

"Your descendants will spread over the earth in all directions and will become as numerous as the specks of dust. Your family will be a blessing to all people." Genesis 28:14 (CEV)

Those words from the Book of Beginnings (Genesis) articulate God’s covenant with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, et al (in this particular instance being spoken to Jacob, also known as Israel).

all directions - spherical, radiating
specks of dust - multitude of particles
family - relatedness, connectedness...common point of origin (in this case, faith)

I can’t help but see a connection to Particle Theory, which Wikipedia describes as having to do with elementary constituents of matter and radiation, and the interactions between them. It describes the radiative and scattering processes of those particles. Furthermore, these phenomena do not occur under normal circumstances. In other words, an extraordinary interruption is required.

It looks an awful lot like a prefiguring of the eucatastrosphere (eSphere) decribed a few posts ago: a soul-scape shaped in the ripples of divine interruption...

From the beginning, God has challenged people of faith to be his blessing - to everyone, everywhere, all the time... infusing their communities with beauty, strength, generosity, affirmation, health, balance, patience, hope...

Eucatastrosphere

The twin piercings of humanness are the Incarnation & Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. One interrupts human life; the other, human death.

According to J.R.R. Tolkien,
The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy.

Tolkien created the term eucatastrophe to fill a hole in the English lexicon. It’s meant to convey the notion that God has planted a seed of infinitely concentrated joy in the soil of human existence. It is a potent goodness, always becoming thinkable, visible, tangible through people saying yes to the Spirit.

The-way-things-ought-to-be exploding redemptively outward into the void of the-way-things-ought-not-to-be like a Big Bang of meaning, beauty, honor, grace...

The space created by this phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the Kingdom of God. Building upon Tolkien’s word, I've started thinking of it as the Eucatastrosphere -- a soul-scape shaped in the ripples of divine interruption...