Once again, my brother Stephen concisely articulates an idea that I've often thought about in a very blurry, non-verbal way, but never could have said:
"Given the universe we live in, its richness of detail and endlessly changing variety, given the quantity and quality of the characters, the Mandelbrot fractal of a shape their relationships make and how each of us fit into all of it, with our five plus different ways of sensing the world, I can only conclude that the reason any of us (even occasionally) find ourselves bored has to be some deep-seated and profound blindness that is, in a way, more mysterious than anything else."
Just for the record, I don't know what a Mandelbrot fractal is, but I think the blindness he speaks of must be because we are fallen creatures, who have sinned. We are not quite what we were meant to be, so it is too difficult for us to fathom the wonderful universe and even more, the God who made it. I am so excited that that will change when we get to Heaven!
These thoughts bring to mind something C.S. Lewis said in The Weight of Glory:
The faint, far-off results of those energies which God's creative rapture implanted in matter when He made the worlds are what now we call physical pleasures; and even thus filtered, they are too much for our present management. What would it be to taste at the fountainhead that stream of which these lower reaches prove so intoxicating?
In this essay, which I always think of when I am trying to figure out Heaven (I did a post about that once), Lewis also speaks of the peculiar craving that beauty awakens in us; how beautiful music or a sunset, while we enjoy them so much, still leave us feeling that something is missing, or that we did not enjoy the beauty as much as it could have been enjoyed. I cannot remember exactly how he put it, but he speaks in the end of how, when we are with the Lord, we will be able to fully understand and appreciate the beauty and complexity of the universe. He calls it "getting in."
Every time I think about these sorts of things, I am so overwhelmed and happy. Happy that God is so good and that He will one day allow us to enjoy Him fully.
2 comments:
"...the peculiar craving that beauty awakens in us; how beautiful music or a sunset, while we enjoy them so much, still leave us feeling that something is missing, or that we did not enjoy the beauty as much as it could have been enjoyed."
Very well put! I can't tell you how many evenings at the beach, after a surf session, with the sun setting, that I have felt this very same thing. :-)
THanks! You would really like The Weight of Glory then. Have you ever read it? Lewis, of course, says it all brilliantly, and it's a short read. :)
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