The Glorious Impossible: Christmas!

Giotto. Nativity.  Scrovegni Chapel. c. 1304.

Giotto crafted three dimensional, multi-hued images with often naturalistic, emotional portraits.  His work created for us a bridge between medieval and Renaissance expressions.  The walls of the Scrovegni chapel reveal both this artistic genius and a passionate unfolding of life-Truth told in the Nativity.

It is a peculiarity of humanity that we are intensely affected by a desire to make sense of our world through the arts or by science, by way of philosophical constructs or mathematical explanation, or by a submissive seek-yielding to Truth.

Giotto's paintings connect both our temporal sensibilities and our seek-yielding to Truth.  Madeline L'Engle describes this well in the title of her book, The Glorious Impossible.  L'Engle draws the connection:

     And so he was born, this gloriously impossible baby, in a stable in Bethlehem...

     Holding the child in her arms, rocking, singing, Mary wondered what was going to happen to him, this sweet innocent creature who had been conceived by the incredible love of God and who had been born as all human babies are born.

     God, come to be one of us.

Immanuel, God with us!  

This is the unfolding of life-Truth 

And seek-yielding to Truth.  

This is Christmas!

A Glorious Impossiblility!

The Truth Reality.

Jesus.

Blessings to you this Christmas!

Embraced

For Allie Osborne and his family as we remember Hope and know The Embrace.

Individual Exceptionality

I don't recall his name, but I recall his words.

We washed dishes together during the summer I enjoyed at the YMCA of the Rockies. It was a glorious job. I didn't start work till mid-afternoon, just before the often daily thunderstorms would roll about the mountains, darkening the skies, freshening the air and scattering hikers to lower elevations and places of relative refuge. All morning I could run on the trails in the National Park that bordered three sides of the camp, exploring the bridle paths or wander about the camp enjoying the beauty of the surrounding mountains.

It was an extraordinary setting. So I felt rather privileged. I suppose many people would sneer at my sense of privilege; I lived in a primitive bunk-house with shared bathrooms and showers and had a top berth of a bunk shared with a Japanese exchange student who liked to have a guest now and then. My work duties were similarly unglamorous; afternoons and evenings were spent in a steamy room dominated by a large dish-washing machine or alongside another smaller but still sweat inspiring machine close to the kitchen.

From childhood I've been drawn to people from other places. Perhaps this is a legacy of my father who befriended the German survivor of a Soviet prison camp, my mother's far-flung friendship with a Lebanese family separated from their homeland by war, or my grandfather's Odyssey stories of leading groups of young people around the world. So one morning before our shift I found myself listened to his story.

He was going to school in Chicago, preparing to be an engineer. I suggested that perhaps he would return to his South American nation and serve in an influential role. His reply was emphatic.

“I'm just an ordinary person.”

I argued with him saying that this sentiment was anathema to me. No one is “just an ordinary person.” We are all exceptional. We are all individuals with the potential to exert influence and bring about change, to accomplish deeds of significance and importance. To consider one's life as ordinary was a horrible acquiescence to mediocrity and insignificance. To consider one's self exceptional is to have a ealistic expectation that we are each uniquely important, not to advocate a delusory self-concept like that of the protagonist of Sinclair Lewis' Babbit.

He would not agree with me and seemed content as an insignificant man.

For years I have remembered this conversation with the man I shall call Jose. Years of working with young people convince me that all students wish to excel and to be exceptional individuals. Mastery is an innate desire that educators are called to nurture, cultivate, and awaken if necessary. A persistent pursuit of mastery, an enduring desire to excel, and a sense of significance are goals attainable for all students.

These pursuits point to a quality I term individual exceptionality. This is a dynamic quality of individual uniqueness, importance, and potential for creativity, influence, and relationship. Each person is characterized by individual exceptionality though it may be dormant, suppressed, unrecognized, or underdeveloped.

In an unintended manner, Jose's denial of individual exceptionality is evidence of this quality in his life. Our interaction exerted a significant impact on my life, leading me to embrace the imperative of individual exceptionality; living that unleashes creativity, active charity, and depths of worship latent within each person.

Embrace individual exceptionality!

Tree Born Trust



Fountains on Lafayette?

 Today, before I set out for New York, I read the first phrase of this passage, posted on the IBS website:

"This is what the LORD says: 'Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD. He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. 'But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.' "

Jeremiah 17:5-8

"...like a tree planted by the water..."

Trees begin with a single seed.

Growth occurs with nourishment, with water.

This water is here, now, amidst us, but not us.

These are the fountains that water, the truths of the Lord: words, thoughts and meditations prompted by scripture, and revealed during meditation, reflection, listening, considering, incorporating these truths as I roll these words through my mind and allow them to permeate -- as water soaks the soil and nourishes the tree.

Your statutes are wonderful;

therefore I obey them.

The unfolding of your word gives light;

it gives understanding to the simple.

I open my mouth and pant,

longing for your commands.

Turn to me and have mercy on me,

as you always do to those who love your name.

Direct my footsteps according to your word,

let no sin rule over me.

Redeem me from the oppression of men,

let no sin rule over me.

Make your face shine upon your servant

and teach me your decrees.

Streams of tears flow from my eyes,

for your word is not obeyed.

Psalm 119:129-136