The Contradiction of Cantankerousness

In times of success, when sorrow was a distant memory, the people of God celebrated. They feasted, danced, sang songs, laughed and smiled till they were too tired to continue the party.

But at their best, God’s people have always been a people of joy, even when their circumstances weighed them down. People who felt the weight of sorrow, nevertheless found a place of optimism within them. People who endured great adversity somehow brought joy into their present circumstances, as they contemplated a future hope. Prisoners song songs and wrote letters urging others to rejoice. “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” Paul wrote those words while incarcerated, the prospect of death always before him.

I do not know what I will face today. But if the grace of Christ touches me, I will be a person of joy. A core of optimism will remain within my reach. And he will keep me from the contradiction of cantankerousness. With his hand on me, I will set grumpiness aside, and my joy will be visible, unambiguous, contagious.

© 2006 | http://web.mac.com/jamesplong

The Crowd Beyond the Blur

I stepped off the plane, walked down the jetway, entered the terminal, caught up in the crowd. The voices around me rose in an unintelligible roar. No one was speaking English. Were it not for international symbols, the signs around me would be meaningless, incomprehensible.

For some reason, I paused. I looked into the faces of passersby. I listened to their speech, heard their laughter. For one brief moment, behind their eyes, I caught a glimpse of soul. In this airport, in all this chaos of humanity, there is not a single individual unknown and unloved by God.

I board a bus, enter a subway, walk the mall, step into a restaurant, cross the path of an old enemy, meet a friend for coffee, greet my sister, embrace my wife — I will never encounter another human being who is loved any less or any more by the God I call my friend.

And that is why anything less than kindness is not enough. Anything mean-spirited will disappoint my Father, who loves all individuals — and loves them unconditionally.

© 2006 | http://web.mac.com/jamesplong

Unanticipated Friend

“Be holy,” the stellar writer says, “because I am holy.” He might just as well say: “I am something that you will never be, can never be; now, get on with the task of being just that.” Which is sort of like saying, “Walk on water! But shoes with floats don’t count.”

The mystery is that he is always fiddling with impossibilities, twisting the unlikely into the probable. I read wild tales of God teaching paralytics to sprint, and blind folks to gawk at their newly enlightened world.

Does God perform moral tricks, too? Can he pull perfection out of my life as an illusionist might dip into a top hat and yank a bunny out by the ears?

The moral mystery unfolds. If God’s lips seem to curl at the corners into a faint smile as he urges me on toward the impossible, it may be because he plans to offer his moral strength at the very moment he shows me my moral weakness.

But if I didn’t first see my weakness, I might never accept his strength.

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Someday I Will Share Your Nature

Father, someday I will share your nature. Someday someone will see me and be reminded of Jesus. Someday the distraction of imperfection will be set aside and forgotten. I will finally be what I have been so slowly becoming these many years.

Lord, when finally you have completed the good work you have started, I will stand with Jesus your Son and my brother, and I will not be embarrassed and he will not be ashamed.

Amen.

Tolstoy on Change

"When I came to believe in Christ's teaching, I ceased desiring what I had wished for before. The direction of my life, my desires, became different. What was good and bad had changed places."

The Girl and the Tree

I noticed the tree, naked against the sky. Twisted, leafless, grotesque beauty, reaching out of the packed earth. The sun was setting, the sky streaked amber. Gnarled fingers of bark grasped, empty-handed, at the fading sunlight.

She paused there, by the tree, her face golden in the dying light, and mopped the perspiration from her brow with the red-plaid flannel of her sleeve.

She was young, perhaps 20. With both hands she lifted long, thick hair off her neck — dark hair, black as the approaching night. Her slender fingers brushed sweat-dampened tendrils from her face. Then, her palms flat against the small of her back, she stretched — cat-like, I thought — and smiled, the features of her dark, tired face suddenly radiant.

Where was that smile born? In a memory? A dream? A hope? A face remembered, a joke recalled? Or was it simply this moment of wonder? The sunlight fading, the night approaching. A tree dying, yet alive, holding some mystery, a memory, caught like a kite in its withered branches.

She had worked since dawn, the young woman. Hard work. In the field perhaps, or the nearby packing shed. Doubtless, every muscle ached. It showed in the slightest stoop of fatigue, in the way she walked, in the relish of so brief a break, pausing in the sunset to mop her brow, brush her hair, stretch her back, smile.

Had she noticed me, sitting there on the earth, my knees up, my chin resting in my hands? I don’t think so. But even if she had, still she would have paused, wiped her brow, brushed her hair, stretched her back, smiled. The magic of the moment was hers and hers alone, just as it was mine and no one else’s.

She walked on, and the sun descended beneath the horizon, pulling the blanket of twilight up and over the naked form of a dying tree. And everything was alive.

Dorothy Sayers on Christ's share in the human experience

"God has himself has gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, death."

Sky-sized Portrait

In my mind I need a picture of God, a mural as broad as the sky. If I could open my eyes wider, wider, I could see all creation on his canvas. From the swirling brushstrokes of galaxies to the artful blotches of newborn aardvarks. Zinnias and canyons, hermit crabs and oaks, oceans and infants. Through what he’s painted in creation, in colors bright and dark, muted or primary, I would see something of the artist.

If I could look closer, closer, into the texture of history as he is painting it, I am certain that I would see some artistic purpose. I would see, in brushstrokes broad and fine, some hint of what he’s up to, and what he’s like. The picture would breathe with life and purpose.

If I could see the painting as only God could enable me, if he could touch my eyes to perceive his art, I am certain I would see all that is unattractive turning slowly, slowly, into beauty beneath the artist’s hand, his brush trailing crimson.

In my mind I see a picture of God. But even a sky-size mural cannot contain it!

— Excerpted from An Ocean of Endless Light | copyright © 2006