I’ve been learning recently about the life of contemplation and have (occasionally) been trying to pursue it in my life. One of the concepts that has struck me and come at me from different sources is the fact that we can experience the divine in the most mundane of our experiences - something that would be wonderful given the mundaneness of being a father of young children.
This is not to say that fatherhood is not a wonderful experience - it is, but much of what we as parents do is mundane - change diapers, give baths, tuck into bed, do the dishes. And yet it was in the last activity that I just managed to experience the divine in a profound way.
One of the ways that I have been able to experience God’s beauty has been through music. God has used certain songs to poke through the wall which separates me from himself and speak directly to my heart. And so he did tonight, as I, of all things, did the dishes. It was Mat Kearney’s Renaissance which led me into this time.
It happened fast in a flash, just this evening
As I hit the gas, horn blast, brakes were screaming
As the car crashed, broken glass, broke my dreaming
I hit the dash, so fast my ears are ringing
My sister’s on the right side just slightly leaning
I grabbed her hand hard until she started breathing
My brother’s in the back, jaw cracked from the beating
The breath in my chest has slipped and I’m sinking
Blinking through diamond spider webs of cracked glass
I’m trying to remember all the words you said in the past
Through the ash, siren screams and red beams
I hear you sing softly to me
There is such beauty in our savior, who rescues our lives from the pit. Who reaches out to us in tragedy and loves us where we are. Who binds up our physical and spiritual wounds and carries us on his shoulders. He is the God of the slums. The God who stands beside the mother who is forced to watch her child die of AIDS as she herself succumbs. The God who weeps with those who lose entire families in war. The God who brings salvation from oppression, healing from disease, and wholeness from brokeness.
I got a letter today of why she went away
She said, “It’s better this way, you knew I never could stay.”
Half empty closets and frames, all that’s left to my name
As she left in the rain and left my heart on a chain
Three years I’ve built this two-face tower for hours on a lease
You gave me one yellow flower that said rest in peace
In pieces I’ve broken open to think too much or just enough
Alone to trust midst the rubble and the dust
Humbled, it took this much to break down and understand
Spent my life this far on castles made of sand
Tossed in the breakers in the palm of your hand
Now I can finally stand
There is beauty in our Lord, who casts off his righteous judgement in order to envelop us in his Grace. A grace which can never be understood, but only received. The grace of our Father, who seeks out the lost. The grace of the One who lives with the outcast, the sinner, the Other. It is this God who loves us where we are at, not where the religious say we should be. It is He who teaches us to follow and obey, and transforms us through that process so we can lean more deeply into his love.
This is my renaissance
This is my one response
This is the way I say I love youThis is my second chance
This is my one romance
This is the cutting line
On which I stand to show you
My apologies to Mat Kearney, whose lyrics (italicized above) I have so freely repurposed here.
