Bible in a Year - Revelation (and others) - Moments
Take in this quote. Read it a few times. There’s a lot going on here.
When I was young, there was a notion among the believers I knew—and I didn’t know anyone who wasn’t a believer—that to feel the presence of God required that one seek God constantly, that one’s spiritual instincts demanded the same sort of regular exercise as the muscles of one’s body. The great fear was not that God would withdraw, but that one’s capacity to perceive him would atrophy. I think of this when I hear people say that they have no religious impulse whatsoever, or when I hear believers, or would-be believers, express a sadness and frustration that they have never been absolutely overpowered by God. I always want to respond: Really? You have never felt overwhelmed by, and in some way inadequate to, an experience in your life, have never felt something in yourself staking a claim beyond your self, some wordless mystery straining through words to reach you? Never?
- Christian Wiman - My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer
There’s a sense when reading the Bible, especially parts like the first chapter (or most of the whole) of Revelation, or the visions in Isaiah, Ezekiel, or Daniel, or even Peter’s visions in Acts, that leads many modern readers to say, “I’ve never had a vision like that! Did God change how God communicates with the world?” But what if that’s the wrong question.
Take a look at this image. What notable feature do you see?
There’s a reflection of something in the water that doesn’t appear to be from anything above it. Now, the easy (and true) explanation of this is that the building is hidden in the shadows of the treeline. But at a quick glance, there’s something fantastic and somewhat unreal about this image. But there’s nothing extraordinary about it - it is simply the boathouse at a local lake at sunrise and me happening to walk by at exactly the moment that something like this would happen. It is the extraordinary in the ordinary. That’s what I hear in the quote that I started with. There is so much extraordinary in the ordinary of life if only we are open to taking it in, feeling it, seeing it, and sharing it.
Yes, this can be explained away as an ordinary moment but in the moment and how it is seen here, it feels extraordinary to me.
I don’t fully understand the visions in the Bible that we read - wheels in the sky, cherubs with multiple faces, heavenly throne rooms, majestic or terrifying creatures, etc etc etc. I don’t doubt them because I have had experiences in my faith that I cannot fully explain. But if I am living for those moments or if I am basing the depth of my faith on the frequency of those moments, my faith is going to struggle. Instead, the more that I have opened myself to the extraordinary in the ordinary - in moments like this one where eI just happened to be in the right place at the right time - the more that I have found my faith deepen and the more that I feel I reflect the reality of God’s presence, love, and activity in the world. Like the quote above says, “You have never felt overwhelmed by, and in some way inadequate to, an experience in your life, have never felt something in yourself staking a claim beyond your self, some wordless mystery straining through words to reach you? Never?”
Think back to a moment even in the last year...when were you “overwhelmed” or “inadequate” to an experience in your life? Maybe that was a moment of a connection with the divine…