Who is God? (The Lord's Prayer, Part III)

Priorities, son. Priorities.

"Abba, Father, all things are possible for Thee. Take away this cup from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but what Thou will." Mark 14:36

The third and final thing Jesus does in His prayer is finish with the proper posture and attitude towards God, by concluding, "Not what I will, but what You will." If Jesus started His prayer with who God is, then He finished by acknowledging who He Himself is towards who God is: the Son obedient and subject to the Father. He ended by asserting God's position and His, stating the nature of their relationship.

Now, our relationship with God is manifold, but there is one facet of it that must be stressed here: God is God, and we are not. We make our requests known, and make them known boldly, but at the end we acknowledge that He is God and we are not. His counsel will stand, and He will do as He pleases (Is. 46:9-10). Of course, the wonderful news is that God's counsel is for our good (Rom. 8:28-39), and that it pleases Him to do good for His children (Matt. 7:9-11), and so we need not fear His counsel and pleasure. Nevertheless, we ought to recognize it as supreme. Though Jesus requested it, the "cup" did not pass from Him, and it was for good, both for us (Rom. 5:1-2, 6-11) and for Him (Phil. 2:5-11).

"But I still want authentic love!"

Recognizing God as supreme is not as easy as it sounds. It is always easier to put ourselves first, seeing God as (at best) an equal to us and our wants. My generation really has a problem with recognizing authority or some supremacy that is not ourselves, but we live within contradiction. We demand self-actualization but also real love, neither of which can occupy the same space. A relationship (if it is to be successful) must necessarily be a place where you lay yourself down out of love for another; communication is not possible if each party is not willing to learn the language of the other, whether that language is foreign or cultural and emotional. It becomes worse with our relationship and communication with God, because He is not only another that is outside of us, but He is also the supreme other, one who merits (and calls for) our recognition of and submission to His supremacy. We must recognize/submit to His supremacy, or else our prayer life (and whole Christian life) will become a dead-end, narcissistic affair.

Rejoice in your smallness.

If our requests are the meat of the prayer-sandwich, then who God is (esp. in relation to us) becomes the slices of bread. To put it another way, prayer begins and ends by recognizing the nature of our relationship to the One to whom we are talking. We do this in daily conversation as well: begin and end by recognizing who we are talking to in the light of our relationship with them, whether it be a friend ("Hey, you." "Until our next meeting."), loved one ("Hey, babe." "Love you."), strangers ("Hello. Can I help you?" "Have a good day."), or even enemies ("What do you want?" "Don't ever talk to me again."). Of course, our relationship to God is unique since, as I said earlier, it is manifold: He is our Lord and Creator as well as Friend and Lover, but the principle still applies. You can begin and end by acknowledging who God is to you (i.e., who He has revealed Himself to be in your specific life), and in between those acknowledgements you make your requests known unto God.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

High and Low (Homily 53)

"For thus says the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place with him who is of a humble and contrite spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. [...] But the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace...for the wicked." Is. 57:15-21

God is the High and Holy One: His very nature is "other than" ours. He is categorically distinct and separate, sui generis. He dwells in a high and holy place, i.e., a mountain, the traditional symbol for the dwelling of divinity (from Olympus to Zion). God is above; He reached to the tops of the clouds. God is great; His size is sublime, stretching beyond the limits of our comprehension. "Beyond" is the only word for Him, for He surpasses us in ways we have neither scale nor system to measure.

Yet who dwells with Him? Who also stands on His mountaintop? Who also abides in His holy hill? The humble, the contrite, the lowest of the low. Brought lower by their own abasement, yet brought higher by the surprising love of God, for His love too is beyond us, sublime and measureless and strong. This High and Holy Beyonder loves the broken (Ps. 51:17; Is. 66:2) and takes pity on we fragile children of dust (Ps. 103:13-14), raising us up to heavenly places in Christ (Eph. 2:4-7), setting our feet on the rock, the immovable mountain, that is our God (Ps. 18:31). This too is "beyond" us, exceedingly overflowing what the cup of our mind can hold.

Can you see why there is no peace for the wicked? No peace for those outside of God and His Christ? For what can be more opposite to a mountain than the sea? The one is high, glorious, unmovable, and stable; the other low, treacherous, mutable, and fluid. To the one, storms can only hang about it like a cape or a crown, only adding to its majesty. To the other, storms are their master. Impotent before them, they have no choice but to be whipped and whorled and blown about, unstable in all their ways, broiling and spewing and foaming all of their hidden substance to the surface, bringing to light their true character and quality. The sea has not the strength to be at peace, but the mountain has strength and that to spare. It is the inheritance of the saints of God: you who are established upon the mountain shall never be moved  (Ps. 15:1-5), for the mountain shall never be moved (Rev. 1:8). But for all those who stay outside, I can only give you this: you will lie down in the midst of the sea and have no peace while you drown.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

An Accident of Language (and other follies of the times)

Sundays are a good day for me. Church in the morning, parents' house in the afternoon, and in the evening I head to a friend's house for dinner and lively conversations and debates with whoever else shows up. Those evenings are a mixed bag, mind you. Sometimes we have a lot of people with great discussion, a few people with so-so discussion, and vice versa. Two Sundays ago, we had a great discussion with an average sized crowd. We talked about the Boston Bombings, which  led to a debate on the death penalty. Many interesting arguments were made for and against, but in the end no real conclusion or consensus was reached, though many thought-provoking questions were asked.

The next Sunday, I ran into a friend of mine who had been at that discussion but had left early and thus missed the end (or non-end). He asked me how it went after he left, and I relayed it to the best of my memory, including the part about us walking away with more questions than answers. He smiled at that part: "I like leaving with questions rather than answers. It helps create a sense of wonder about things." I smiled back, hesitated, then replied: "Yes, but I like answers too."

Now, my friend is a very kind and thoughtful young man, so I understood what he was saying. It's something I've dealt with before (multiple times, actually): in a world of too much systematization, where every "t" is crossed and "i" dotted and no angle is left uncovered or stone unturned, things tend to lose all life. It is the dead, predictable boredom of the machine, with everything in order and functioning exactly as it should and exactly as it always has without deviation, now and forever, amen. Life, however, and all good things (i.e., beauty, love, joy, etc.), are not mechanical. They are full of spontaneity and surprises, bursting forth in newer and newer manifestations, like an endless array of fireworks ascending higher and higher with different colors and shapes all along the way. It is exciting. It is enthralling. It is, indeed, wondrous.

However, as sympathetic as I am to such an image, I could not help but protest to my friend. I believe he has committed an error many commit today. They confuse "wonder" with "wonder," which you also probably did just now. It's not really anyone's fault that this happens; it is an accident of language that the two words look, sound, and just feel the same. But they are not the same, and the distinction between them is vitally important to understand and maintain.

Allow me to explain this distinction. "Wonder" has (at least) two primary definitions. The first is a sense of awe caused by coming into contact with something sublime, i.e., something too great and grand for you to fully take in. We have all experienced this type of "wonder": staring at the stars, listening to a piece of music, looking out across a mountain range at dawn, watching the clouds painted by the setting sun, or even those incredible, incalculable moments when we come in contact (however minor or subtle) with the presence of God. Whatever the case or incident, we have all been struck by an overwhelming sense of humility and respect for (and joy in) the grandeur of something truly great and greater than us. In those moments, it does not matter that we cannot fully comprehend it; indeed, its incomprehensibleness is all a part of the pleasure. That is the first definition of "wonder".

The second definition is related to the first, but is also much different. It is a sense of questioning and/or confusion caused by coming into contact with something confusing. We have all experienced this too: an unsolvable puzzle leaves us perplexed, an unanswerable charge leaves us bewildered, and an unfixable problem leaves us frustrated. In those moments, we wonder, wonder how something like this could have happened? what are to do or say now? what does this mean for my loved ones? where was/is God in all this? how could He allow such things? Those moments leave us in pain and in doubt and (above all) desiring answers, and that is the key distinction between this definition of "wonder" and the previous one. In the former, you have no desire for answers, or even for further questions; the beauty of the mystery is its own satisfaction, its own answer. In the latter, however, you only desire answers as you spiral out into further questions; the terror and darkness of the mystery leaves you starving for a solution, for solid ground to land on.

This is where the error comes in: people do not maintain that distinction. They assume that the latter definition of "wonder" (i.e., the posture of confusion and questioning) necessarily leads to the former definition (i.e., the posture of awe and joy). I will admit that questioning can eventually, through many twists and turns and toils and snares, lead to awe, but it is never "necessarily" the case. In fact, questioning can have the exact opposite effect. It can harden into an arrogant skepticism that sees questioning as the only stable thing, the only true thing. That is the danger that I was trying to avert (however poorly) in the mind of my friend. It is a danger I try to avert wherever I can.

We deceive ourselves on a crucial point: we conflate together the two separate, distinct definitions of "wonder" and thereby unconsciously equate them. Thus, we believe questioning "helps create a sense of wonder about things." It is here that awe can (and often does) become a cloak for doubt. To be frank, this is an error that I absolutely hate to see happen, and it happens everywhere. It is fashionable even in many Christian circles to see questioning and the doubts they bring as some sort of unassailable good. From David Dark calling it "sacred" to Rob Bell calling it "central to Christian experience," there is a certain naivete floating about, rooted in the assumption that questioning invariably leads to awe. Such a stance is nonsense, of course. Awe is not a result of questions but rather their answer, the answer that silences all questions, for "wonder" (i.e., awe) is an end of questioning. There is nothing left to say; any and every word would be inadequate to capture or express what you are feeling, thinking, seeing, experiencing.

That is a fact sorely missed by many: it is the answers that create awe, not the questions. That is what the Bible reveals. Does it have questioners? Of course, but that is not where their awe came from; it came from the answers they either remembered or received. Think of the Psalms. Lots of despairing questions crop up, but they are never the end of the matter. There is always an answer, and that answer is always a return to the truth of who God is in spite of our situation. Job was the same way. He piles up questions upon questions that no one (save Elihu) could answer. Then God shows up, and His answer is a revelation of the truth about Himself. It answers none of Job's questions, and yet somehow it answers all of them, and Job's response is silence and awe: "Now my eye sees You." The answer was the truth, and the truth set him free, including from questions.

And that is the key: truth is the only source of awe, of wonder, because truth is a wild and wonderful thing, as wild and wonderful and alive as God. Yes, He is beyond our feeble categorizations, but those who think they can outstrip Him by piling up questions upon questions in the hope of overcoming Him with numbers and bigness will never approach His depth and breadth and height and width. To understand this in your own life is the actual "central Christian experience": not to question, but to let our questions and moments and circumstances and experiences and every aspect of our lives drive us deeper into our deep God, to step further into His presence, to come in more intimate contact and communion with His incomprehensible Being. To be there and continue there is not to question but to cease from questions, to become speechless, to place your hand over your mouth in wonder at the awesome answer that is God.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

The Beyonder (as explained by an orthodox rebel)

"To whom then will ye liken God? Or what likeness will ye compare unto Him? [...] 'To whom then will ye liken Me, or [to whom] shall I be equal?' saith the Holy One." Is. 40:18, 25

One of the main themes of Isaiah is God's war on hubris. A necessary correlation from that is the absolute incomparableness of God. Try as we might, and much to our chagrin, God is fundamentally (on principle) and essentially (in His being) beyond our categories. I say "beyond" rather than "outside" because the categories that we do have (as gathered by reason and received by revelation) can create an approximation to God, so that He is knowable to us. It is, however, only an approximation, and our knowledge, as always, is incomplete (I Cor. 13:8-9). True, yet incomplete. We will never get to the bottom of God, and all of our endless metaphors will never exhaust Him, never completely capture the fullness of His being. Thus, He is the "Holy One," i.e., the separate one who is absolutely, categorically different from us.

There is no worse hubris then that which assumes it has God figured out. Whether it is the atheist who figures out that God has no existence, or the believer who figures out that God has endorsed their personal preferences, the foundation is the same: God has become reducible to our finite categorizes. As I've said elsewhere, one of God's favorite pastimes is smashing all confident and comfortable assumptions about Him that did not come from Him. But there is another principle that we must realize here, and that is this: hubris is the dead thing, while humility is the living thing.

Hubris stagnates and rots because it has grown too big (or rather, its universe has grown too small) and it has nowhere left to go. Humility, however, recognizes and accepts its smallness, and thus it has nothing but room to grow; not itself, but its universe, and that is the key. It is not at all about us becoming bigger, but about God becoming bigger than our wildest dreams. God is not a philosophy that we figure out eventually; rather, He is the wild yet good adventure (a "comedy," as we used to call it) that we explore and enjoy forever. But hubris cannot enjoy and explore forever. It has nothing left to explore, and thus nothing left to enjoy. It has discovered all variants, understood and classified all unknowables, and dispelled all mysteries and surprises. It has nothing left but its own overbloated self in its own overbloated world, nothing more than a bubble waiting to be popped.

Rest assured, God will pop them all. He will implode all galaxies and shatter all vanities that have made no room for Him, piercing them through with shafts of Light and Truth. His Truth, the Truth about Himself, Truth unfathomable and uncontainable and inescapable. We may balk at this if we wish, but I far better fate (and life) awaits those who find good courage and take strong rest in the reality that God is greater, more loving, and more good than they could ever conceive.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

The Coward (The Six Shades of Sin, Part V)

"Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight!" Is. 5:21

You would not immediately think that pride is so very much like fear, but it is. Pride is a gnawing insecurity, a nagging doubt like a splinter in the mind. It covers your whole world in a deep darkness, with the unknown rising like walls around you. Panic sets in easily, and from panic comes the desire to end the panic, to disperse the darkness. Fear is the soil in which pride will bloom, for fear desires control, and what else is pride but the state of believing that you are in control: of your circumstances, your troubles, and other people's circumstances and troubles? The prideful are schemers and manipulators, puppet masters and control freaks, but they are not strong or brave. They think that they are strong and brave, but they are not. The prideful man or woman is the coward locked nine doors deep behind the infinite webbing of their cobweb castle. They have contingencies for every variable and defenses for every threat, not because they are strong and brave, but because they are weak and fearful and know it. Far behind that sneering veneer of smug self-sufficiency lies the timid weakling who dares not let anything out of their control. They declare themselves to be the wisest and the most prudent because they must be the wisest and the most prudent, for planning is everything with them, and without their precious little plans the wildness of real life (and the real God) will come crashing in on them, and they fear that they will not survive the collision.

The substance of real things is in paradox, and here we find another: whereas the "strength" and "bravery" of the prideful is all smoke and mirrors, so the truly brave and strong may seem to be weaklings (or at the very least fools). They have no plan, or at least no thoughts of a full-proof plan. They have no delusions of grand schemes to order all things, nor are they obsessed with the poisonous notion that they can control their circumstances. Consequently, they neither desire nor seek domination: not of their surroundings, or lives, or the surroundings and lives of others. They acknowledge their own smallness before all things and have accepted it. They also acknowledge the reality of things greater than they and thus submit to that fact. They cannot change their birth, nor whom they meet, or what comes in a day, or any of the endless surprises of ordinary life, and they do not attempt to change them.

As pride is the product of fear, so only humility can produce bravery. If you every think yourself to be greater than your circumstances, you will become controlling rather than brave, digging yourself deeper and farther away from real things. However, the instant that you acknowledge (and take joy in) your own smallness, you realize that fear profits you nothing, for it can neither add one cubit to your stature nor save you. No man takes his life into his own hands, for our lives belong to the hand of someone greater, and herein lies one of the secret beauties of Christianity. Many a pagan culture believed in the smallness of their own lives, and although it made life beautiful in a sense, it was a beautiful tragedy, full of random chaos and ending in death. For the Christian, however, life is a comedy, the deep comedy of God, and it is on that joyous rock that we live and move and have our being. Humility is not found in bowing down before the inevitable, impersonal mutability of all things but rather in resting in the love of the personal, immutable God of all things. There can be great bravery in acknowledging your own smallness; there can also be great despair. But there can be nothing but a bountiful supply of bravery and joy for those who acknowledge their smallness before the God who loves them and is for them (Rom. 8:31-39). It is the way of Christ, who, being God, made Himself small, humbling Himself before the will of His Father; and in the strength of that fundamental humility, He became obedient unto death, even death on a cross (Phil. 2:5-8), the cross that only the brave can bear (Matt. 16:24-25).

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012

The Idiot (The Six Shades of Sin, Part III)

"Woe unto those that draw along iniquity with cords of vanity, and [draw along] sin as it were with a cart rope, who say, 'Let Him make speed and hasten His work that we may see it, and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come that we may know it.'" Is. 5:18-19

Impiety is a stuffy sounding word to most, but in truth it is and has always been one of the greatest sins of humanity. Even ancient pagan cultures knew it: to fear the gods was the height of virtue (and common sense), and impiety was warned against. The impious rage of Achilles brought only death and sorrow, while the pious wiles of Odysseus brought him safely home (to slay the impious suitors). The point was simple and practical and yet profound: there is a moral order to things that is higher than and greater than you, and it behooves you to align yourself (as best as you can) with it.

That is the true idea behind piety: not arrogant or pompous self-righteousness, but humility. Piety is found in the humble realization and acceptance of our own smallness before something that is legitimately greater than us. Wisdom teaches us the truth of our smallness, and embracing that smallness is even further wisdom, for "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Pro. 1:7).

If piety is humility produced by and producing wisdom, then impiety is pride produced by and producing idiocy. The pride is obvious, but the idiocy should be even more obvious. To claim superiority over the One who holds your very breath in His hand is the height not only of arrogance but also absurdity. There is no greater farce than to see a spark speak blithely to its fire, or to watch a leaf rustle defiantly against its branch and tree, yet this is precisely what we do.

It is bad enough that we often plan in spite of God, but worse still is when we plan out of spite for God. Our schemes and dreams are no longer excusable indulgences but rather open acts of rebellion. Our utopic visions and agendas degrade from innocent ignorances to spitting in the eye of the Trinity. Our movements and politics and sloganeerings cease to be mere acts of dedication and devolve into acts of desecration. This is the point where the ignorance of fallen humanity gives way to the idiocy of human hubris. We do not believe, and we want no help for our unbelief. Without faith it is impossible to please God, for without faith there is only the slobbering stupidity and horror of humanity pleasing itself. All of human history (right up to this very day) can be summarized under a single declaration: "We will have no other gods before us."

Chesterton once said that if we are to have a large universe then we must make ourselves small. What he meant is that humility produces clarity, while pride can only produce a contracted delusion. If impiety is the greatest kind of pride, then it also produces the greatest delusion. If we are to see the truth of real things, to see reality as it is and not as we make it, then we need humility. We need piety. We need a return to the radical notion that there is something higher and greater than ourselves, our nation, our party, our denomination, our status (in both secular and religious circles), and our way. We can only kick our insane habit of hubris when we acknowledge (day by day, moment by moment, instance by instance) that God is and that without Him we are not. He is the foundation and center and energy of all things. He is the ultimate source and ground for all movement, even the movement that runs away from Him. He is the one who knows better than we, for without Him there would be no grounds for reason, or minds to reason, or brains to house minds. The point is simple enough: unless God (and nothing else) is the highest in our life, then everything is in vain (Ps. 127:1). That is the fear of the Lord. That is piety, and wisdom, and the only way to walk safely and sanely through this world.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012

The Myth of Postmodern Community (as argued by an orthodox rebel)

One sure thing you can say about postmodernism is that it loves "community". At least, it loves its idea of "community". Whether or not you've heard of "postmodernism," and whether or not you believe that the term has become irrelevant and outdated, if you've lived through the past thirty or so years of western history then you've been influenced by its ideas (whether or not you know it). You have been influenced by the notion(s) that there is no ultimate, overarching idea or "narrative" that explains everything away. You have been influenced by the notion(s) that since there is no overarching narrative that explains everything away, there is now only our individual narratives. And thus (the aged postmodernist sage says triumphantly) we are now free to share our individual "stories" (i.e., subjective experiences) in the great "dialogue" and/or "conversation" of humanity. Hence, postmodern "community".

For the average postmodernist (again, whether they call themselves that or not), all outer forces or influences are a threat to the individual self. Governments, institutions, traditions, cultures, customs, families, and even other people are all conspiring against you to try and "write" you, i.e., conscribe you into some predetermined role or identity made up out of their own nefarious (or simply different) intentions and agendas. We have all (says the aged postmodern sage) been victims of this conscription in the past (esp. minorities and women), and it is our joy and glory to break off these meta-narrative chains and dance in the limitless sunshine of our subjectivity.

The problem is this: dancing is something that you do with others. Yet "subjectivity" is a necessarily particular and individual thing, belonging solely to an individual subject. Now, dancing is surely a communal thing (at least when your dancing with someone rather than at them), but how is subjectivity communal? How can something so fundamentally individual be a basis for communion with someone else? The truth is that it can't. It's like having a "dance" where everyone danced with their own style, to their own music, at their own speed. The result would be a hilarious and pathetic mess.

Our aged postmodern sage (bellowing deeply from his decaying lectern) tells us that we must cast off all of the oppressive narratives of every outer stimuli and assert our own self, our own identity. Then he tell us the reason why: all that those oppressive narratives did was to teach us to hate others (because they were "different," "foreign," etc.) and ourselves (because you aren't keeping "the rules," "the norms," etc.). Once we finally cast off those oppressors, we can finally come together out of love and mutual respect and understanding. In short, we can finally have real community.

The postmodern sage can say that if he wants but it does not change the fact that you cannot build community around self-assertion. Community is about being a part of something bigger than yourself, based around a common, unifying factor. Self-assertion, however, cannot be that factor. It has only the power to fragment, not unify, because it is all about the self, not the group. The all-powerful "I", not the tertiary "we". It is the unconquerable will that has the courage to never yield to any outside force, and it is the center of the postmodern universe.

You see, postmodernism is fundamentally a hyper-individualistic, self-centered philosophy: it asserts the self against all comers. The "I" must necessarily be all-powerful for the individual subject because the "we" is necessarily a threat to the subject. Remember: every narrative that is not your narrative is out to conscribe you into itself, to define you, to demarcate you, to load you with the heavy burden of its set identity for you. That means that everyone who is not you is necessarily a threat to you. What community is there is such a worldview as that? There is no community. No real one anyway. Every assembly of postmodern types (both secular and religious) is not a community. Rather, it is a gathering of unconsciously narcissistic people using others as an audience to their own self-aggrandizement. It may have something like "dialogue" and "conversation," but it does not have community. All that it has is merely us talking about ourselves for the sake of ourselves, and that is not community. That is the lonely "I" gnashing its teeth in the dark. Perhaps postmodernism did in fact free us from hateful, scheming oppressors; but in doing so it has left us in the void, with only the echo of our own voice to comfort us.

Community, real community, requires humility. The humility to see all "others" (including governments, institutions, traditions, cultures, customs, families, and other people) as not a threat to the self. The humility to not live and die on the hill of self-assertion,  self-creation, self-aggrandizement, self-discovery, self-knowledge, self-love, self-fulfillment, self-actualization, and self-satisfaction. The humility to die to self and live for others. It is true that we must use our heads when surveying those others; after all, not all dance partners are equal (and only One is perfect). Yet we must live and breath in the truth that there is no love or satisfaction or knowledge or identity without others. That is why postmodern "community" is a pipe-dream. Their hyper-individualism, treating all others as a threat to the self, creates only a lonely isolationism that becomes the greatest oppressor of all.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2011

The Necessity of Darkness for the Brilliance of Light (as explained by an Original Orthodox Rebel)

The following excerpts are from Chesterton's book Heretics (pp. 69 & 128). They tie into the thoughts found in this other post. There is a tendency in conventional Christianity to dismiss visions of darkness and evil as antithetical to true Christian thought and character. What Chesterton here points out is that remembering the vision of the dark (1) is a matter of humility in that it (2) makes us fall on our knees before all that is good (esp. the God who is Good). This has rich implications philosophically, theologically, and (even more so) artistically. If evil isn't truly evil, then what's the point of heroes? If sin isn't exceedingly sinful, then what's the point of the Cross? It becomes much ado about nothing.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2011

The truth is, that all genuine appreciation rests on a certain mystery of humility and almost of darkness. The man who said, "Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed," put the eulogy quite inadequately and even falsely. The truth is, "Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall be gloriously surprised." The man who expects nothing sees redder roses than common men can see, and greener grass, and a more startling sun. Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall possess the cities and the mountains; blessed is the meek, for he shall inherit the earth.

Until we realize that things might not be, we cannot realize that things are. Until we see the background of darkness we cannot admire the light as a single and created thing. As soon as we have seen that darkness, all light is lightening, sudden, blinding, and divine. Until we can picture nonentity, we underrate the victory of God and can realize none of the trophies of His ancient war. It is one of the million wild jests of truth that we know nothing until we know nothing.

[...]

The curse that came before all history [, i.e., the Fall] has laid on us all a tendency to be weary of wonders. If we saw the sun for the first time it would be the most fearful and beautiful of meteors. Now that we see it for the hundredth time we call it, in the hideous and blasphemous phrase of Wordsworth, "the light of common day." We are inclined to increase our claims. We are inclined to demand six suns, to demand a blue sun, to demand a green sun. Humility is perpetually putting us back in the primal darkness. There all light is lightening, startling and instantaneous. Until we understand that original dark, in which we have neither sight nor expectation, we can give no hearty and childlike praise to the splendid sensationalism of things.