Prophecy

See But Not See

by Terry Barlow
10/03/17
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Nobody is on porch or deck or balcony as my neighbor rounds the lovely lake below his home. There is a larger lake nearby with even more elegant homes decorating its shores, but none can be seen there either gracing their patios, rarely can anyone be seen outside enjoying the picturesque setting regardless of the season. Why, he wondered. These lakes and their surroundings were like little fore glimpses of heaven. “People don’t seem to appreciate beauty if it stares them in the face everyday, the novelty wears off after a short while,” someone explained. After all, heaven is not primarily external visual wonder, heaven requires the inner capacity to appreciate it as heaven. That’s the internal component of  heaven, the internal component of the eternal one could say. If there is no peace in one’s being, no stillness, then it’s hard to enter a state or condition of rest in and from which beauty can be perceived and celebrated. It’s the difference between being driven through and by life and being led or drawn into life.

In a nearby classical concert shortly after that the violinist and his piano accompanist seemed to be circling in on the most exquisite part of the melody. They played one variation of it after another building the expectancy, but the anticipated flowering of melody never arrived. Was it only similar to another melody altogether that perhaps had been inspired by it? Was it an inferior imitation of a sweeter,  nobler melody that was only reverentially nibbled around the edges but never wholly violated by being plagiarized? So it circled and circled but never quite arrived at the core of the anticipated melody, at the heart and soul of it. Maybe many of our lives are lived like that, never quite fully plumbing the potential, or sinking the teeth into the essence of the meaning and purpose and hence the beauty of the life. Its artistry was there all the time in front of our noses like the view of the lake, but we were driven along preoccupied by pursuit of pleasure possibly or possessions or so-called success.  Looking for something else, we were mistaken about what beauty and fulfillment were going to look like when they appeared.

(See Psalm 135, v.14-18)