Hushed Awe

2 Cor 4:17-18 For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.

---

A few weeks ago, I was biking in the darkness of the very early morning heading directly into a setting harvest moon at its fullest. As it approached the horizon, it was clothed in cold bluish white and silver gradually warming to creamy yellows and gold. It seemed to grow larger and larger and come closer and closer as I cycled along deserted streets and bikeways. In its last moments, it exploded into fiery oranges and reds as the sun rose behind me and took its place as a new source of light in a crystalline dawn. I felt something that cannot be described but is a "hushed awe" experience I am sure is shared by many.

I had a similar experience a few days ago as the setting sun shined through a maple tree resplendent with autumn color. The translucent leaves glowed as if they were made of the thinnest amber or golden topaz. I felt as though I could reach in, grab a bunch, and watch them drip with honey.

Transcendent beauty is so very difficult to describe. I am merely one of myriad past writers, poets, lyricists, and psalmists who have attempted to carve it into the shape of a paragraph and have come up wanting. But these two experiences were different, for I was drawn not as much to what was seen, but to what was unseen. I was drawn to the Eternal — to what the Welsh and Irish call the "thin places" between this world and the next.

I love the way C. S. Lewis put it in "The Weight of Glory" which originated as a sermon he preached in 1942.

We are to shine as the sun, we are to be given the Morning Star. I think I begin to see what it means. In one way, of course, God has given us the Morning Star already. You can go and enjoy the gift on many fine mornings if you get up early enough. What more, you may ask, do we want? Ah, but we want so much more — something the books on aesthetics take little notice of. But the poets and the mythologies know all about it. We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else that can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.

I was not satisfied with the understanding that humans are in a unique relationship to appreciate these moments. I was not satisfied with my praise of Him who created this splendor and created me to enjoy it. I was not satisfied with simply being an observer, a mere spectator. With my physical body firmly locked in the gears of time, my spirit yearned to merge with something timeless in what my eyes were beholding. I wanted to become part of the unseen lying within what was seen.

Then it dawned on me. I CAN do that! Every time I say "yes" to God's will for me, I can play a part in His redemptive plan for us and the rest of His Creation. Every time I hear my marching orders and faithfully execute them I become part of this timeless work.

But in eternity there is no past or future, there is simply one great present moment. Therefore, the events we experience in eternity are never anything we have to wait for, they are always what we are ready for, what we are spiritually prepared for.

So, do I just sit here and wait for Jesus to come again? I should say not! Do I just sit here doing MY work and ignoring the work He wants me to do? Or would I rather open up the thin place that lies within me, right here, right now and become a conduit for what can flow through it (to the extent that I allow it)?

I think what it comes down to is this: as my life work, would I rather create an entire forest of autumn beauty that dies with me … or a single leaf of gold on the forest floor that endures forever?