Sunday Simplicity

January 21, 2002

Hello everyone,

A rose, a desert stream, a melody floating on the breeze, a windswept sky, a man and woman locked in intimate embrace, a painting of exquisite beauty: ah, clear trickling water cascading down the mountain side. This is the language of art: the language of song and metaphor, poetry and painting, the language of mystic, prophet, and poet. This is the picture worth a thousand words. This is the language of Sophia. And this was the first language God ever spoke to the human heart.

What is truth? Is a painting by Picasso true? Did Leonardo, Michelangelo, Titian: did these men tell the truth? Did Emily Dickenson portray the truth; can you “tell the truth but tell it slant”? What of Bach or Beethoven? Did they tell the truth? Does truth consist merely of concepts or ideas? What is truth?

Can you tell the truth with a paint brush? Can you tell it with a rhyme? Can you tell it with a melody cascading gracefully from the tips of your fingers? Or must it always follow some regimented formula? Must it be coldly pragmatic and logical? Ah, but what is truth?

Truth. Truth shares a common origin, firmly anchored in a Single Source; this simplicity making possible the complexity of all reality and truth. This Single Simplicity is the Origin and Object of all the paradoxes, the Reconciliation and Redemption of all the opposites. Before language, there was still truth. The newborn child knows nothing of the world around him. Everything is strangely alive; every nerve and every fiber of the infant is filled with life. Everything is new, fresh, exciting; everything is imbued with mystique, awe, mystery, splendor.

As time goes on, the child learns to differentiate between a tree and then further between a maple tree and an elm tree and the apple tree down the road. The child learns that snow is white and soft and that rain is cold and wet, unless it falls during the spring and summer season, it which case it is warm and wet. The child learns that, hickory dickory dock, the mouse is not the rat, and the cat is not the dog (and no doubt gratefully so, if you were to ask its opinion in the matter). Does the child have to know these things for them to be the truth? Was the child’s experience less real when he didn’t know the difference?

Why must logic and analysis be the only basis for real truth? Is the “really real” only real when it is explainable? Is it, as Nichole Nordeman sings, “easy to insist/on what is packaged and precise/and dismiss the clear suspicion/that You’re bigger than we’d like”? Must God be reduced to a black book to be God? What about the book of the heart versus the tablet of stone?

So then, what purpose does Logos serve? Say I show you a painting of a ship blown about on a storm-tossed sea. You take in the hues, the lines, the contours, the colors; you absorb the mood of the scene and it speaks to your soul. But if I had no words, if I had no Logos, I could not direct your attention to the tattered sail at the top and explain that the sailors gave their lives so that the emblem emblazoned thereon may fly unfettered and free. I could not clarify your misconceptions; I could not help you know that oaks are not maples and maples are not ash.

No, all truth springs from the same source. If I speak with paint or I paint with words and melodies; if I tell of the mysteries of the soul or of the raging world without, I still speak the truth. If I tell you a story that is not true, it still contains meaning—I am still speaking the truth. Meaning is found in truth, truth in the parts that resonate with reality, for even in the parts that don’t, it does. Reality occurs both within and without, both above and below, both from far beyond and from close nearby. Mood, texture, emotion: all are as much reality as tangible trinkets; in fact perhaps more so, for all things are filtered through the senses before being processed more deeply within. Pictures engage our minds, words clarify their meaning. When I was in kindergarten we had “Show and Tell.” Sophia shows us, Logos tells us what we saw.

This past Sunday in church, Pastor Rod preached a beautiful sermon, so refreshing, its message trickling down to our innermost depths, its warmth thawing through to our care-worn hearts. He showed us a vine. He told us of truth. He showed us the branches. He told how they received their life from the vine. He showed us a branch broken from the vine. He told us how when we become separated from the vine, we will bear no fruit. He showed us the leaves at the end of the branches. He told us these were things that would grow only when we abided on the vine. He spoke of fruit: how it doesn’t grow on uprooted trees. He shared his dream that he would like to be like Ms. Ova’s pear trees, so full of fruit, their boughs bent low, unable to contain their surplus bounty (and it is a real shame that Ms. Ova wasn’t there to hear his words that morning) for “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” He told us fruit only came when one abided on the vine. Indeed, there is but one source of all truth. We are the branches; He is the vine.

Before the sermon, Jeremy—choir director, chiropractor, and personal friend—read a beautiful story of a little boy and the great Polish maestro, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, composer, pianist, and statesman of the highest standing. Dignified, poised, quietly self-confident in front of the podium, the choir lined up behind him, his words spilled out, impregnating the soft strains of Diane’s melody to conceive the awakening they were to arouse. He held the paper up in his hand and, leaning forward slightly, began by saying simply: “The Master’s Music.” Pausing briefly, he began to read:

Wishing to encourage her young son’s progress on the piano, a mother took the small boy to a Paderewski concert. After they were seated, the mother spotted a friend in the audience and walked down the aisle to greet her.

Seizing the opportunity to explore the wonders of the concert hall, the little boy rose and eventually explored his way through a door marked “NO ADMITTANCE.” When the house lights dimmed and the concert was about to begin, the mother returned to her seat and discovered that her son was missing.

Suddenly the curtains parted and spotlights focused on the impressive Steinway piano on stage. In horror, the mother saw her little boy sitting at the keyboard, innocently picking out “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” At that moment, the great piano master made his entrance, quickly moved to the piano, and whispered in the boy’s ear, “Don’t quit. Keep playing.”

Then leaning over, Paderewski reached down with his left hand and began filling in a bass part. Soon his right arm reached around to the other side of the child and he added a running obligato. Together, the old master and the young novice transformed a frightening situation into a wonderfully creative experience. The audience was mesmerized.

Jeremy continued to read, his next words hammering his point home with deafening clarity:

That’s the way it is with God. What we can accomplish on our own is hardly noteworthy. We try our best, but the results aren’t exactly graceful flowing music. But with the hand of the Master, our life’s work truly can be beautiful.

Next time you set out to accomplish great feats, listen carefully. You can hear the voice of the Master, whispering in your ear, “Don’t quit. Keep playing.” Feel His loving arms around you. Know that His strong hands are playing the concerto of your life. Remember, God doesn’t call the equipped, He equips the called. Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.

Now I would not exactly say that I cried when I heard these words. And yet I found a strange lump had risen in my throat and I found it hard to sing, the printed poetry of the following hymn threatening to blur in front of my eyes, the spirit of God a powerful presence in the sanctuary around us. For a moment, time stopped, and a little boy once again stepped into the spotlight, sharing center stage with the Master.

I wish I could share my church with all of you. I wish I could introduce you to all the people that make it possible. I wish I could introduce you to Cay when she presents the moving missionary presentations once a month and we hear of our less than fortunate neighbors around the world; indeed, we hear of people who live in some of the same countries you all are from. No, I know that I cannot introduce you to them all. But I would like to believe that there will come a day when I will; when I can take you by the hand, tugging gently, urging you along, impatient to introduce you to all the wonderful people I have had the privilege of knowing over the years. No, I may not ever get to introduce you to all the people who shape my life. I may never even meet you face to face. But there will come a day when I will. Yes Dee, we will meet. If not here, there. (Is that a tear I see on your cheek?) As my friend Karla once explained to a mutual acquaintance, “Eric and I will be sitting around sipping tea together.”

No, there is more than one way to tell the truth and perhaps the deepest ways aren’t even the most direct. Sophia? Logos? Or does truth transcend them both? So many things to think about. And so much time to do it in. We’ll have all eternity you know, or weren’t you planning on coming along? There’s plenty of room at the table; we’ll have all the time in the world. Who knows? Maybe you’ll even get the room next to mine . . . then we can all have one great big giant tea party. :)

God bless,
Eric

Table of Contents | Home | About | Newsletter | Forum | Misc. | Contact | Search | Links | Random Page

.:| get up to date: newsletter :. 1&1 .: discussion forum: participate |:.

http://www.mrrena.com/2002/Sunday.shtml