Look Up

June brought in warm evenings like summer's heralding banner, and the rich woolly sky blanketed the sleepy house where some friends and I were cuddled up for a late night.  My phone suddenly buzzed at me with a message from my mama, but not the one I was expecting: "Go look outside!"

"Girls--listen to this!" I cried, and we all jumped up, heavy eyelids instantly opened in wonder.

We leapt outside in our bare feet, spiraling in circles with our arms outstretched and our eyes heavenward, trying to spot Jupiter and Venus converging into one visual spectacular.  Desperate to beat the expiration of a perhaps once-in-a lifetime sight, we ran down to the golf course, but trees shut us in on every side.

We charged back up to the main road and sprinted down the asphalt, past dark houses that scowled at our wakefulness at such an hour.  When I rounded the last bend in the road, coming to where it sprouted off from a busy street, the sky unrolled across the horizon above a treeless field, and there the great conjunction of the two planets shone in a star-of-Bethlehem-like brilliance.

The two planets danced so closely together that their brightness was mesmerizing to anyone who laid eyes on the sight.  And we were no exception.  The four of us made a rock our arm chair, and I sat in awe with my hands clasped around my legs.

There was no clock to fetter the flitting moments down.

There was no rhythm ticking an impending deadline besides the unison beating of our hearts.

So we watched in reverent silence, our backs masked by the darkness, but our faces lit by the light of the star.  With such a sight glittering in our eyes, we couldn't help but sing hymns of praise to the Morning Star, and there was something special about that worship by the roadside that I won't ever forget.

Time lapsed...cars streaked by...but the star, my friends, and I remained.

It struck me as we sat how odd we must have looked to the passersby.  But when a busy, harried soul drove by and saw four women with their eyes rapturously fixed on the sky, I wondered if he would follow our gaze and look up, even if just out of curiosity.

In that moment on that warm June evening a chill went down my back.  For through my wondering I found a rich nugget that I've carried with me these past six months.

Shouldn't my eyes perpetually be fixed with equally rapturous delight on Jesus the Morning Star?

And shouldn't I be so enthralled by and illuminated with His light that all who pass me can't help but follow my gaze and stare, not at me, but at Who I am looking to?

Yes and yes.

And if at the end of my days it is said that the best analogy for the thrust of my life was that beautiful, worshipful evening of looking up, I will be satisfied.  If it is said of my life that all who looked at me couldn't help but look to Jesus because of me, my mission will be complete. 

“We Choose to See Vol. 002,” © 2013 AMRenault, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/.

Small Beginnings

Life these days is measured not so much in dates or days, but weeks. Every week brings prosaic tasks and ordinary living, and in those tasks and living I find new awe, for each week also brings new milestones for the baby and I and brings Joel and I closer to the day when we can meet our baby and hold him* and love on him. This week, he has grown to the size of a peach, which is adorable. I am told that my morning sickness should begin to dissipate (would someone please alert my stomach?). We're creeping through a baby name book (there is no short list of favored names yet; all we have is a very long list of mostly girls' names since we have yet to reach the boys' name section); I'm adding to my maternity clothing stash (thanks in large part to Mama!); and I've read enough on baby feeding, umbilical cord clamping, and labor and delivery to know that I have a huge amount to learn in the next six months. It's a happy task!

Joel and I have also been taking advantage of the quietness of DC in the winter to visit museums (Smithsonian Postal Museum was excellent!) and monuments (we're partial to the Lincoln Memorial, since it was the location of our engagement almost two years ago). Truly, "the world will never starve for want of wonders, but for want of wonder {G.K. Chesterton}."

Snow has been a regular occurrence of late, and three beautiful inches currently cover the ground outside. I've been highly tempted to go build a snowman!

This city continues to entrance me with its 250 year old buildings and adorable tea shops. Exploring is always an adventure, and while I've gotten pretty good at walking anywhere within a 3 mile radius, please don't ask me to navigate the multitude of one-way streets by car!

I'm looking forward to teaching music again--I've missed teaching and my dear students so much! So it is with great delight that I'm taking on three siblings from a sweet family at church.

Small beginnings, these. And yet God is so faithful to grow them. He grew a childish admiration into a marriage more wonderful than I could have imagined--and which long-married couples tell me will only grow better. He is growing me to rely upon Him in a place so far from where I called "home" for the first 24 years of my life and so removed from everything comfortable and familiar. Yet He is also growing my friends, activities, and familiarity here, so that I no longer find new and overwhelming experiences every week. And, of course, He's growing this precious child of ours. From two small cells, full of life and humanity even then, to three inches long now and more complex than man can understand.

These small beginnings are beauties to me--miracles which "are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see {C.S. Lewis}." What small beginnings and miracles have you experienced in your life lately?

*We’re not planning to find out his gender until the birth, but I refer to the baby as a “he” for no other reason than ease of communication (grammatically speaking, the masculine pronoun is always used when the gender is unknown).

Gullible

Did you know that Shakespeare didn't actually write Shakespeare? That, in fact, he isn't the author of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet and every other piece of writing attributed to him? The first time I realized this was when I was taking my SAT years ago. The essay question was on this very subject, and I found it fascinating, but never got around to researching it further. I saw, a few years later, that a movie had come out about the same topic (but never bothered to watch the film). And so a seed of doubt was planted. Based upon two very small pieces of information, I believed that there was definitely reasonable doubt as to Shakespeare's authorship.

It wasn't until last week, as Joel and I looked through the decade-old pictures of a trip he took to Great Britain with his family that I voiced aloud my doubt when we reached the photos commemorating his visit to Shakespeare's house. He looked at me with great amusement, and I realized to my consternation that I didn't know anything for certain. Research was definitely in order.

What did I find? Well, there is indeed loud controversy surrounding who wrote Shakespeare's creations. There's been many books on the subject, organizations formed, movies made, Wikipedia articles created, and more. And yet, the first suggestion of such a trick being played upon the whole world did not occur until 1857--241 years after Shakespeare's death! No contemporary of Shakespeare ever suggested such a masquerade; no written evidence has been uncovered corroborating the controversy; and the leaps of logic required to reach such a conclusion (certain bits of the plays match events in Francis Bacon's life, or Walter Raleigh's life, or--most recently popular--Edward de Vere's life) are hotly contested by academia. Indeed, award-winning scholar William Hunt said, "No, absolutely no competent student of the period, historical or literary, has ever taken this theory seriously. First of all, the founding premise is false -- there is nothing especially mysterious about William Shakespeare, who is as well documented as one could expect of a man of his time. None of his contemporaries or associates expressed any doubt about the authorship of his poems and plays. Nothing about De Vere (Oxford) suggests he had any great talent, and there is no reason to suppose he would have suppressed any talents he possessed [1]."

I had to laugh at myself for so glibly assuming such a conspiracy to be true, and to wonder at the people who are so avidly attempting to rewrite history while blindly ignoring facts, evidence, and truth.

And yet, I shouldn't be so surprised. A very many people do the exact same thing with God and His Word. 

"For since the creation of the world His invisible [attributes] are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify [Him] as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened." {Romans 1:20-21 NKJV}

There are those who--like I did with Shakespeare--need only a few suggestions about evolution and the impotence of a god to believe the alternate theory that the world created itself or that Scripture is a literary gem, but not authored by God. They may not realize that "I choose to believe the Bible because it is a reliable collection of historical documents, written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. They report supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies, and they claim to be divine rather than human in origin [2]," as Dr. Voddie Baucham so brilliantly put it.

The good news is that many of these people are no more truly educated in the matter of spiritual things than I was about Shakespeare. It may take only a look--only a question put in love, to cause them to reconsider the lie they have so unconsciously believed. It may take only a statement to cause a lifetime of assumptions to vaporize.

New King James Version, © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

[1] Blakemore, Bill. "'Anonymous': Was Shakespeare a Fraud?" ABC News. ABC News Network, 14 Oct. 2011. Web. 12 Nov. 2014.

[2] Baucham, Voddie. "Why I Choose to Believe the Bible." The Ever Loving Truth. 30 June 2005. Sermon Audio. Web. 12 Nov. 2014.

The Miracle of Not Knowing

Our green tomatoes have nearly finished fattening up on their vines.  In fact, the chubby little cherry tomatoes nearly explode in my fingers when I pluck them, so juicy are they.  Leaves potpourri the grass, sending the message that we had better hasten to finish hemming summer up before we are blanketed in rain.  Apple cider is in the freezer, and gallons of fresh chipotle salsa, too.  All of this plentiful harvest that signals change ahead is comforting, because I know exactly what to expect.

I know the first frost will soon appear, and with it our dog Bentley’s fur will thicken, the garden will be put into hibernation, and Thanksgiving and Christmas will soon thread through the tapestry of the year.  For me, the turning over from one season to another is like the thrill of opening the door to a well-loved and memory-filled vacation house which I have not seen in a year.  Welcoming. Nostalgic. Warm.  

But I like to wonder if the first seasonal change brought trepidation or curiosity for Adam and Eve?  For this would have been before God’s promise to Noah: “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease. {Gen. 8:22}” So when the days began to shorten, or when change began to cloak the familiar garden, I wonder if Adam and Eve looked at each other in awe or in dread?  

In my mind’s narrative, the story surely progresses with awe.  They knew this new world was all the great masterwork of the God they loved.  They surely would have run to confide in Him the changes they saw and to ask what other changes they could expect in the garden.  For it was God’s unconditional goodness that made the garden a paradise, and as long as they trusted in His goodness, paradise it would remain.  

The irony is that the moment they gave a home in their minds to the vagabond of doubt in God’s true goodness, the moment they began to fear the paradise was not as good as they had trusted, that was when they began the destruction of paradise with their own hands.  

The psalmist said, “Oh, how great is Your goodness, which You have laid up for those who fear You, which You have prepared for those who trust in You In the presence of the sons of men! {Ps. 31:19}”  

Oh that we could return to that childlike, untainted trust of Adam and Eve before the fall!   

With that kind of trust, we would look at the changing seasons of life, not with a fatalistic dread of what unexpected bomb is going to drop next, but with an uncomplicated awe at watching God’s plan unfold. 

I love the changing seasons because I know what is going to happen next, but what would happen if I dared to love the changing seasons of life because I don’t know what is going to happen next?  That’s the attitude that takes a red maple leaf from mundane to miraculous.  

 

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“This Must Be the Place-explored!,” © 2008 Bridget H, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.