In his work, “The Four Quarters,” T.S. Eliot writes, “We had the experience but missed the meaning.” In the movie OH GOD, George Burns’ character (the Almighty) says he doesn’t do many miracles anymore. The reason, he explains, is that people tend to remember the miracle and forget why, and by whom, it was done. How often do we see, really see, that all around us is composed mostly of pure glory? Eliot is particularly on target and God – well God is never wrong. In the midst of putting one foot in front of the other, people often miss out on what is good and kind and caring in our world. For resurrection to occur we have to first allow something to die. On occasion it means admitting that we have already died and do so miss life. Sometimes the brightest and best things about life are the very ones we miss.
Playwright Thornton Wilder told about a custom in a little European village in the late 1800’s. It was the practice there, on New Year’s Day to send flowers to every home where one had dined in the past 12 months. When that day came in this particular year, an impoverished painter was so poor that he couldn’t afford flowers - so he sent paintings, mostly of flowers. The upper crust residents who received his offerings had the paintings "displayed" in their barns and storage areas - if they were even hung at all! One family had so many that they held a burning party for hi works one day soon after the artist left town. A member of that family related to Wilder how, on one Sunday afternoon, he himself had helped to incinerate 11 of the painter's major pieces. He was a promising young fellow named. . . Paul Cezanne.
Unnoticed treasures, like dead people, are everywhere. This unnoticed phenomenon all depends on us (“Those who have eyes – let them see.”) Maybe the whole point of life, what God hard wired deep in our Spiritual DNA, is to connect those who are walking around “dead” with the sacred recognition of what a treasured masterpiece life is. Resurrection requires both death and a desperate recognition of the intimate blessings of life. Who would want to look back on their life and say, “I was surrounded by beauty but I hung it in a closet or destroyed it with a fire?”
Playwright Thornton Wilder told about a custom in a little European village in the late 1800’s. It was the practice there, on New Year’s Day to send flowers to every home where one had dined in the past 12 months. When that day came in this particular year, an impoverished painter was so poor that he couldn’t afford flowers - so he sent paintings, mostly of flowers. The upper crust residents who received his offerings had the paintings "displayed" in their barns and storage areas - if they were even hung at all! One family had so many that they held a burning party for hi works one day soon after the artist left town. A member of that family related to Wilder how, on one Sunday afternoon, he himself had helped to incinerate 11 of the painter's major pieces. He was a promising young fellow named. . . Paul Cezanne.
Unnoticed treasures, like dead people, are everywhere. This unnoticed phenomenon all depends on us (“Those who have eyes – let them see.”) Maybe the whole point of life, what God hard wired deep in our Spiritual DNA, is to connect those who are walking around “dead” with the sacred recognition of what a treasured masterpiece life is. Resurrection requires both death and a desperate recognition of the intimate blessings of life. Who would want to look back on their life and say, “I was surrounded by beauty but I hung it in a closet or destroyed it with a fire?”
RSS Feed