Dear one,
It’s beautiful, I thought, as great, white, fluffy flakes fell. Leafless trees soon glistened white; evergreens softened, freshly powdered; and a great quiet shrouded the undulating landscape. Oh, but it complicates life—even so, it is beautiful.
As I beheld this wondrous transformation, and noted my own responses, I was reminded of the following experience:
“Has it been a good day, Amy?” her father asked his five-year-old daughter, as he tucked her into her sleeping bag. Together they had shared her first, overnight camp out, replete with mac-and-cheese, skewered hotdogs, and cindered marshmallows.
“Oh yes, Daddy—but would you read me a story?”
“Sure. What would you like?”
“Read when God made the world.”
“Really?” her pastor father asked, immediately marshaling within his mind the various arguments surrounding Genesis 1, its creation account vis-à-vis evolutionary thought. However, seeking to satisfy her sincere desire, he began to read:
“In the beginning God … and He said … and there was … and God blessed … and it was very good.”
As he finished reading, he looked upon his cherished little one, her eyes were closed, her breathing quiet:
“Are you awake?” he asked her, turning to dim their lantern.
“Oh yes, Daddy, how could I not be awake?” she sighed deeply, her eyes now wide. “Isn’t it beautiful what God did? Out of the deep dark, light and then the stars, and bright blue sunshine, and the so-green grass, and the talking streams, the mountains and lakes, and all the fish and fawns … Wasn’t it beautiful to see?”
Looking upon his daughter, he too sighed, but his was the sigh of disbelief:
How have I never seen what she saw? Why have I only seen and heard complications: What about dinosaurs and the ice age? What about “ex nihilo” or the “law of indeterminacy? How plausible is …?
I first heard this recounting over forty years ago, but its import has remained with me, as has the lingering question: What have I routinely failed to see? Most especially, when I look upon that created world and, according to Genesis, the pinnacle of that creation, humankind, I need to ask, Whom do I see? A morose matron? A germ-bearing toddler? A gangly misfit? A sharp-tongued clerk? Or even, a “wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner”?
When I travel to Uganda or to the grocery, I pray that I have the people-eyes of the One who, when He stepped out of a boat, ”saw a great crowd, and had compassion upon them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd” (Mark 6:34).
What and whom do you see?
Stan