Turn, Turn, Turn

Sometimes I wonder if there is unimaginable beauty in the midst of monotany. Everytime the sun shines down its rays, the beauty and profound intricacy of the light is a pouring out of God's life and creativity. Yes, the sun has, for thousands of years, shone down on every person alive. It rises and sets, rises and sets, over and over again. And yet, every time it does, its luminous glory remains unfaded. We humans live as if all transformations are positive to our lives, every metamorphosis an alteration for the better; that variety and growth are not only good, but central to our human condition. Surely there is a seed of truth in such a thought; but is God Himself not unhcanging? Surely the true miracle of life is its constancy. The sun's beauty is unfading and remarkable, not because we fear it's future distruction and change; no rather, it is the fact that it rose today, and will, in all expectancy, rise again tomorrow.

The sun's rays are especially bright this afternoon, reflecting off the newly fallen snow outside. As it filters in through the blinds on my window, dividing into varying blinding strips of light, I wonder at my own tranquility. I could have easily missed this small miracle; I am prone to menial distractions, empty illusions of enteratainment. I am feeble and weak, oftn unable to see beauty and truth staring me in the face, much less reach out to it. But we are made with an imaged stamped onto our souls, and I am no more able to reject that identity than I am my own name. Even engaged in a life-long struggle to free myself from my fallibility, when I take hold of my own identity, endowed by a father's hand from which I cannot disown myself, I am free.

We are created for constancy. Nature knows this; it repeats itself again and again, like a relentless shout of praise going up to heaven. We too know this, deep in our hearts, even if we stumble and fall all over our own foolish free wills. When we grasp order over chaos, constancy over pointless change, we glorify God even great than the natural world around us. Nature praises God in sacred monotany because it can do nothing else; if we fail, the rocks themselves will cry out. But when we, as humans with frustrating free wills, struggle over our own falleness and blindness, we have something greater: Communion. The word is often understood as coming together to praise God. But perhaps it is something more. Perhaps communion, just like the act associated with the word, namely the eucharist, is about an intentional, meaningful choice to come back, to do the act again and again. The most common of elements, bread and wine. Take this body, broken for you; take this blood, which was spilled for you. I will not forget; I will remember. I will do it again and again. Bread of life, common and average, of little variety. Bread of life, I will come back.

As the sun fades behind the foothills, leaving a brilliant line of fire streaking across the treeline, I know in my heart that I will praise again. I will stop for a moment again. Monotonous, but increasingly sacred and beautiful with each repetition. I will come again. I will come again.

Post Script
Many thanks to G.K. Chesterton for inspiring me to write this post. :)