Glory in the Passing Garden

Though I've been thinking political thoughts lately, the Lord reminded me of something wonderful the other day in the yard of the parsonage. Several spectacular lilies, some from our friend Helen in England, have begun to bloom. You just can't beat daylilies for a plant; almost impossible to kill, they double or more every year (these were from Seawright Daylily Farm, where I had the privilege to serve for one summer about 20 years ago).

The thing is, of course, that these images can't give you the full experience of the beauty of these flowers. The nature of a photo is that it turns the three dimensional into something flat and removes all of the context around what is seen. Rather like the difference between listening to a CD and attending a performance. One step removed from a genuine experience. The colors are about right, the proportions are right and there is a glimpse of the beauty. Similarly, in our culture, we are more and more pressed to these mediated experiences. They are more convenient, easier, and they feel more safe (like internet relationships). But they are not the genuine experience. Some parents, it seems, only view their children through the lens of a video camera, instead of being fully present and soaking in the moment. Photographers and videographers are today allowed to the distract from the solemn and joyful covenant service that is a wedding. Aunt Alexandra somehow seems to think that her ability to capture what is happening during the service requires that she step into the aisle and "assist" the professionals by taking a flash photo of some part of the service.

Here is one of the spectacular blue-green hosta beside our front door. These, too, are wonderful, and ideal for all the shady spots we have. And look at this close up of the delicate columbine from an arrangement given by the Women's Bible Study to my wife:


All of this attempt to concretize, to capture, to try to snare what is passing away, all that is so temporary, can be a sentimental way of thinking of the past. Trying to remember a past once present, but passing away as soon as the shutter clicked, and which is only slightly captured by the photo we view. Israel's God, the eternal, never-changing God, could never be pictured in static forms like statuary or images. The commandment proscribed it. A concrete image could only hint at all that God is; it's inability to express Him in all His context could only result in an inadequate description of him, a "lying" image. Later, Jesus was that living, breathing photograph of the Father. Now, (aside from the certainty that no apostle thought it good to draw his picture except in words given by the Holy Spirit) no picture, no image, no crucifix, no ikon of Jesus captures all that He is in His manifold glory as the God bound eternally to humanity, ascended, His humanity united to His deity, unpictureable. Any pigment would be too poor to paint it. No hand can have the skill to craft it. Now, the wonder is that it is the disciples of Jesus who are together the image, the ikon, the photo of Jesus. No one of us enough to be a picture to our world of all the excellencies of Jesus, but husbands show how Jesus is to His wife, the Church, in the way they love their wives. Snap. Earthly fathers are an imperfect and incomplete picture of the perfect heavenly father. Snap. But he doesn't just call us to be these things. That's what we are. Every day in the way we are fathers, we say, "That's what the fatherhood of God looks like." Every day in the way we husbands love our wives, we say, "That's the way Jesus loves His wife the church." Well, there you have it, a wandering discourse prompted by a morning photo shoot in the garden at the Chelmsford parsonage . . .

A closeup of one of the columbine flowers!