Cottage
On the wall above my desk hangs a picture drawn in pencil, an old gift to my wife from a dear artist friend who, along with his wife, became Allison's second parents while she was in college. I like this picture because the artwork is so elegantly simple and beautiful. Every time I look at it I think of Dale, a rare kindred spirit to my creative soul.
The winter is cold. Cloudy skies cast a shadowy gloom over a snow-covered meadow. Two wind-stripped beech trees, sketched in intricate detail, reach upward in front of me, with a towering evergreen forest far behind. The land is bare. Tufts of grass poke through the snow in the clearing. And the cottage, squatting below the pines like one of those Lincoln-log houses I built as a boy, lay in the distance with a rugged fence around an empty pasture.
But where is God in this picture? That is what I want to know. My first thought leaps up instantly, "God is in the cottage, of course!" And it makes sense that He would be there. He is our home, our eternal rest, our haven of warmth in the midst of winter's chill. But the cottage is so far away! God is there, and I am here. He is within, but I am without. He is warm, I am cold. And I do not know if I can span the distance, for I have traveled far and am weary from the journey. If God is in the cottage, what if a blizzard comes? Alas, I am lost.
This cottage has been long forsaken. The firewood is neatly stacked but none of it used. No smoke billows from the chimney. There is no barn for livestock, and the pasture is barren. The clouds have obscured the sun and moon, no light remains to rule either day or night. The stars are scattered throughout the cosmos and offer no guidance, no comfort, no granted wishes. Where, then, is God?
God is not in the cottage.
God is not in the snow.
God is not in the trees.
God is not in the clouds.
God is not in the picture.
Where are you, God?
Labels: Vignettes
posted by Joel @ 9:29 PM
2 Comments:
Powerful, dark, and elegant stuff, Joel. Actually, your post left me wondering if lately I have forgotten to even ask that question: am I aware of God's presence? Thanks for that. You might be interested in something I carry around in my wallet; it's a laminated card with a prayer from Mother Theresa on one side, and a few stanzas from Tennyson's poem, "In Memoriam," on the other:
"Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds, At last he beat his music out. There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds.
He fought his doubts and gather'd strength, He would not make his judgment blind, He faced the spectres of the mind And laid them: he came at length
To find a stronger faith his own; And Power was with him in the night, Which makes the darkness and the light, And dwells not in the light alone..."
That's cool, Sam ... reminds me a lot of Lewis' "house of cards" in A Grief Observed. Thanks for sharing!
You know, I wasn't writing this out of what I was especially feeling right now but rather trying to capture the message of the art itself. The scene speaks. As I pondered it, I wondered where God was. And it dawned on me that God wasn't there at all. Naturally, this begs the question, "Where, then, is God?" I suppose everyone who views the picture might have a diffedrent answer to the question.
Of course, the surprising irony is that this "God-forsaken" landscape is so astonishingly beautiful.
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