Seeing One Another

   "We were created to look at one another, weren't we?" -  Degas

Place de la Concorde, 1875, Edgar Degas

Face to face, eyes upon eyes, feeling the heat and breath from another's body, smelling their clothing and perfume, watching the wind play with their hair, patting them on the arm in comfort, a teasing punch on the shoulder, seeing each other in person, this is normal human interaction.

Screens are abnormal.

And we are paying a price for our abnormality.

Unplug with me. 

Unplug from screens and walk away from fakery in comparison, forgery, manipulation, fake scripted and curated lives with unrealistic standards of plastic beauty. Succumb to the phony no more. 

Walk into real life, real living, flaws and all.

Live amongst people. Genuine people.

We were indeed created for each other.

Giving, Taking Away, Giving Back Again

It's been repeated to death, but there it remains in the Bible (Job 1:21b), the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. And here we are to understand that the Lord is blessed for doing so. He does what He does and there ain't nothing we can do about it . . . 

. . . except strive all our lives long to understand that a good God is doing what He's doing for a good reason. Always.

And He is. He really is. He is teaching and showing and growing all of us who are His children.

I remember giving my children toys to play with only to find they didn't appreciate them, might break them, weren't ready for them just yet. So I quietly took them out of play until the right time. 

I also remember many times in my life when I had something wonderful but didn't appreciate it, until it was taken away, or I lost it due to my own carelessness. I wanted it a hundred times more after living without it. How I cherished the wonderful somethings when they returned to me!

These little God lessons come to me at the weirdest times.

Like during this unusual and busy week in the middle of a huge home improvement project.

Two years ago I had something that was wonderful, that I had worked and prayed for, but it scared me. I wasn't sure how to live with it. It made me feel vulnerable, uncomfortable. I didn't appreciate its wonder and goodness. I stupidly dwelt in fear.

So, God took it away, slowly over the course of two years. I pine for it now. I kick myself for not realizing what I had, when I had it. I am frustrated for not guarding and protecting it. 

I prayed to God today, letting Him know that I understand why it was taken: I wasn't ready.

He is slowly giving it back to me, but He's making me work harder for it than I did the first time. I am humbled. And I am grateful. I am willing to work to regain the gift. 

I have every hope that the gift He gave and took away and is giving back will be appreciated and enjoyed all the more the second time around, because its value is known to me. Truly known and understood.

I love the last verse in Job 1. "Through all of this Job did not sin nor did He blame God." That's the ticket. 

I know a life-long, church-going Christian woman who regularly raises her fist to Heaven and blames God in fury when He does what I've described in this post, that is He doesn't do what she wants Him to do; He either doesn't give or He takes something away. She goes directly to anger, fury, blaming, fist in the air, "Curse you, God." I shudder when she describes these moments of hers to me. She doesn't understand her lack of perspective. "Um, He's God and you're not, and He is good and you're not, so maybe be still and know this? Watch and learn? Trust? Hmm?" 

I've always found her tempestuous reaction mystifying because, for some reason, God has kept such thinking out of my nature. I've always known that He is the boss, the One who knows all, the Author of the story, the only one who knows everything that has, is, and will happen, and He knows exactly how He wants it all to go down. Also, I know to the depths of my heart, mind, and soul that He loves me. He is the Source of love.

So I trust Him. I've had my moments - seriously hard, crushing life events - where my legs turn to rubber and the air is sucked from my spiritual lungs, but always - so far always - I have immediately turned to Him in prayer expressing my shock and weakness and hurt and pain, but I tell Him, "Lord, I don't know why you are having this happen, but I trust you. I can barely stand, but I trust you and know you are doing something good for your story. Whatever has to happen, please help me glorify you in my response. I want to understand You. I want to be good like You." (This, you see, is my long-winded version of Job's words at the end of chapter one. "Through all of this Job did not sin nor did He blame God.")

We all have our own walks and lessons. To respond in trust is the most important aspect of walking and learning. And then, to be grateful receivers of the gifts He sometimes returns to us, when we are ready

.

Spiritual Mea Culpa

Sometimes I am acutely aware that I live in a working class town with people who are, well, different from me, in manner, in presentation, in usage of the English language.

I fight the pride, man. I really do.

But today it got the better of me, and I actually said out loud as I drove home from the post office where I'd signed for and gathered my antique Italian mirror (ahem), "I really hate living here. These people!"

Feeling the necessity to meet my pride with humility, my thoughts turned to Biblical passages about believers being salt and light. Many of our Lord's teachings flowed through my pious mind.

Following resignation's deep sigh, I decided to focus on blessing the world with my presence, in order to brighten it, you know, help it out, because, well, me among them. I must stay the course and be a good little Christian woman amidst the Cretins. (Sorry, Crete. I'm sure you are populated with absolutely lovely people.)  I decided that it's best if I deign to bide my time being a godly example to these people until Jesus returns or takes me Home, whichever comes first. 

"Yes, you ignorant, unwashed, peasants, I will walk among you until God calls me out of this increasingly uncivilized world. He wants me here to help you. So I will do my best." 

More lung expulsions. 

The light turned green. I headed home. Unsettled, my mind puzzled over my hasty conclusions. I was missing something. Something crucial . . . 

 . . . . then, I realized with a gulp and a blush . . . . um, Jesus had to walk among the ignorant, unwashed peasants and also the snooty religious leaders in order to actually save their souls. And He did so willingly and with grace, love, compassion, purpose, and all His energy, creativity and talent. 

He washed His disciples feet and then told the disciples, "Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them." (John 13:14-17)

Face palm.

Right there in the car at the red light under a bright blue May sky, I got a clue.

Mea culpa. 

Looks like the biggest proudest unwashed idiot is me.

Postscript: memorize scripture all your life long. Especially teach Bible memorization to children. God uses it to teach you as an adult. Good stuff, even if it may leave a mark on your face.

Max Ernst, 1920

“Ambiguous Figures (1 copper plate, 1 zinc plate, 1 rubber cloth…),” circa 1919-20. Collage, gouache, India ink, pencil and painting over a print. Collection Judith and Michael Steinhardt, New York. Copyright 2004 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris.

Max Ernst's 1920 "collage is serious, desperately so. It is made up of cutting from pictures of machinery and other technical equipment, which have been pasted together so as to form two nightmarish 'mechanical men.' These stare at us blindly though their goggles and demand to know if we recognize them as images of modern man, slave to the machine and thus little more than a machine himself." -- H.W. Janson & Dora Lane Janson

World War One changed the world, drastically.

Things like Dada artwork erupted in response. With the aim to destroy traditional art and then replace it with new works they'd create, one of the Dada artists, Jean Arp (aka Hans Arp, 1886 - 1966), wrote this: 

"Revolted by the butchery of the 1914 World War, we in Zurich devoted ourselves to the arts. While the guns rumbled in the distance, we sang, painted, made collages, and wrote poems with all our might." 

Now, let me be clear, Dada-ists were politically very far left. I don't agree with their politics. I don't agree with their goal to destroy traditional art or culture. At all.

However, I understand that, while being very young, they felt fear and a lack of control or any sense to the War, to the destruction of life as they knew it. 

I am feeling the same things today, with the culture war drowning everything I hold dear, and at such a rapid pace. How quickly the structures of civilization are pulled down and either left ruinous or quickly replaced with evil. It is shocking.

So, while Ernst and I would disagree politically, we do agree that the barbarity of wars and the ensuing cultural upheavals need context, and art is a context that lasts.

This artwork of Ernst's comes to my mind often, because not only is it reflective of the existential crises experienced by the young in the early 20th century, but Ernst has proven himself prescient. His work reaches from the past to posit his questions to the early 21st century.

What is man becoming? Are we okay with it? How shall we respond to the blowing up of the world?