bouncing off Mr. Stowell...

[reflecting on Ethan's most recent post]

i think that love is an inevitable response to recognizing humanity in another person. when the static of our imperfect communication and communion is mercifully broken, for a rare moment, one person gains a momentary glimpse of the quite literally glorious, glory-filled truecreated eternal self of another.

what response can there be to such beauty but worship to god upon viewing the creator's art, and what response but horror and sorrow at every mar and wound laid upon than creation and every noisome wrack and noxious fume that obscures it from perception?

i follow the creed that love is first and most important, and all faith and morality follow. remembering the concealed glory bourne by every human individual, it's difficult to want to be one of the ones burning the library of Alexandria, chiselling the fingers off of Michaelangelo's "David" and spraypainting the Sistene Chapel. remembering each other's all-too-obscured and confused humanity becomes the hard work of love, and self-sacrifice an act of nurturing and restoring that which is truly important: the work of a master artist, the rebirth and life of dead souls.

maybe this is why Paul spoke of heaven as a place where none marry or are given in marriage: when the kingdom of heaven comes, and we no longer see through a glass darkly, maybe we will have no preference. the veils will be pulled back and the Sons and Daughters of God revealed in full glory, for which all creation holds its breath. each and every one of us will finally be able to see and hear each other's true self beyond the misunderstanding, pain and hatred that alienates us in this world.

we will love all of us with the depth of knowledge that blows away even the intimacy grown with eighty years married progress peeling away the loneliness and miscommunication of our present condition and drawing near to each other.

we will no longer need to continually remind ourselves of the hidden glory in our neighbors because we will be too busy drooling and reeling at the revealed beauty that was present and unfinished all along in tax collectors and good friends and annoying co-workers and great-aunt martha. and we will spend all eternity not being able to get enough of each other.