This world is a beautiful place. This world is a broken place. These two paradoxical realities exist simultaneously, jigsawed together, into a big blended sphere of blueish-green humanity.
The former of these invokes a sense of delight and enchantment. The fact that this world contains qualities capable of producing emotions so visceral, so intense, is humbling, satisfying and perplexing all at the same time. Ralph Waldo Emerson quipped the following of beauty: “Love of beauty is taste, creation of beauty is art.” Over the past 9 months I’ve had the opportunity to love much of this worlds beauty. Whether found in nature, the arts, or people, beauty is an inescapable quality to this world, ubiquitous in nature, and divine in substance. From the tropical rainforests of Central America, where diverse hues of green compete with the vibrant crimsons of flowering trees, to Eastern Africa, where the countryside is carpeted in lush rolling hills, only to be intermittently interrupted by vast and fertile plains, containing serene lakes, exotic beasts, and charging rivers. And on to Europe, where the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean flicker magnificently under white cliffs, backdropped by imposing alpine mountains, capped in snow, and formidable in scale. And finally in Asia, where the fields roll forth containing a kaleidoscope of provincial farms, unruly jungles, and immaculately terraced tea plantations; all leading to a coastline fringed with white sands, crystal waters, and intensely black coral.
All of this is not to mention the alluring intricacies of the human form, in all of its variety and tribal representations; or the boundless creative expressions authored by those people, including musing paintings, breathtaking ballads, and enrapturing literaries.
Yes, this world is a beautiful place.
Unfortunately, the latter of these is likewise true. Realizing brokenness, especially when it hits close to home, or when it hits home, can fill us with overwhelming sorrow, indignance, as well as a seemingly unquenchable desire for justice. For whether we choose to admit it or not, all of us know: this world is a very broken place, both in America and abroad. Starting with my home city of Baltimore, in spite of its charm and grit, it is also battling a legacy of racial segregation, brutal gang violence, and poverty of various forms. To the time my team and I spent a month serving in a Salvadoran teen-pregnancy center, and on the final day of that month we stood in somber shock as a mom whom we’d grown to love dropped her beautiful, energetic, 3-year-old daughter off on the front steps and walked away. The brokenness in this exchange not found only in the act of maternal abandonment, but also in knowing the mom was experiencing immense brokenness of her own, including a husband in jail and prior abuse. Or in Eastern Africa, while serving at a sewing school which helped former prostitutes learn a trade to move toward financial self-sufficiency, where through daily devotionals we learned of the mental scars these women sustained from their previous mode of employment, as well as the physical scars left from Hutu assailants during the Rwandan genocide. To Eastern Europe, where the Balkan wars ravaged Sarajevo, which was once a leading cultural and economic engine of all Europe, into ground zero of the largest urban siege in modern warfare. What irony, that a city which held the ‘84 Olympic Games was reduced to a state of perdition where the once proud bobsled track was used as a sniper cover. And on to Asia, where lower class women are subjected to a system of sexual trafficking that has been developed into a remarkably sophisticated marketplace, and where, unlike drugs, the same product can be sold over and over again.
Yes, this world is a broken place as well.
It is no understatement to say that how we handle these seemingly incongruous realities determines how we experience this life, as well as how we believe we will experience the next. Many people view the brokenness of this world and conclude that God cannot be real. Otherwise, why would He have created a place where all this can occur? And frankly, this is a pretty compelling contention, with no shortage of examples to cite. I also find it intellectually incomplete. The mere fact that we can recognize brokenness, the fact that something is incorrect, that something has “missed the mark,” alone concedes that there is a correct starting point, that there is a pure design for what we see and experience. And if we accept this point of common origin, then who designed it? And did the designer simply put all of this in motion and walk away, or, does the designer stay involved, stay invested, and continue to work through His creation until a time comes to reconcile all things, to restore everything, every relationship, every physical body, every experience, to its pure and intended state.
I’ve heard it said that those who believe in God have the problem of explaining brokenness, and those who don’t have the problem of explaining just about everything else. Something that’s helpful for me in these moments, of addressing the brokenness, is that both love and brokenness result out of choice. Choice is necessary to make both real. God is love, and while there are aspects of His reality, of this world’s reality, that no amount of philosophy or scripture will ever fully explain, I find peace in knowing that because God is love, He wanted to increase that love through a beautiful creation, giving us the option and opportunity to love Him and each other.
In circling back to Emerson’s idea of beauty, that creating beauty is a work of art, then I suppose that would make God one heck of an artist. Over the years I’ve imagined God in a lot of roles, but never have I thought of him as an artist. But I suppose this could work, God the father, standing there at an easel, perhaps with a hipstery mustache and man-bun, individually speckling each star of the night’s sky onto the canvas of this universe.
And if creating beauty is art, then we must be God’s most celebrated work, his Sistine Chapel. For He recognized that his creation contained so much beauty, that he would sacrifice himself, bear on his shoulders the broken, corrupt, and immoral deeds of all humanity, because that is how much He loved us. I’ve heard the elevator pitch of the Christian gospel somewhere between 300 and 8,745 times, but there are still moments when this truth levels me in a new way. God, the creator, the artist, the author of life and of all beautiful things, killed himself, sacrificed himself, assumed a level of ultimate humility and disgrace, for me. For us.
Beauty is a quality that has prompted some of this world’s most indulgent and quixotic pursuits. Ironically, it also impossible to escape, as it is all around us. Unfortunately, so is brokenness. In everything we do in this life we have the opportunity to add to either one of these camps. We can, with each of our thoughts, actions, desires and decisions, author more beauty into this world, or more brokenness, we have that power. We have that choice.
—
In Loving Memory
A few hours after finishing this blog I received devastating news, that my cousin Jeff, who was my best friend, and the closest thing I’ve ever had to a brother, passed away untimely at the age of 32. I’d like to tell you that in the hours following Jeff’s death I spent time in prayer, reading the Word, and pursuing the Lord. The truth is, I didn’t do any of those things. The first 2 days following Jeff’s death I prayed seldom, typically only when others asked to pray for me. I didn’t want to talk to God, I wanted to talk to Jeff. I wanted to stew in my sorrow, and in my anger, so I did. I also wanted to cast blame, blame this world, blame circumstances, blame myself, so I did.
But finally, after rereading this blog, trying to figure out if I should scrap it all together, I felt God telling me, in this moment, I also have a choice. I can choose to isolate myself, to drown in my anger, to cast blame, and to think of every moment in life Jeff won’t get to experience. Or, I can choose to celebrate. Celebrate Jeff, celebrate family, celebrate the 32 years Jeff lived. Celebrate the beauty he added to this world. Celebrate the countless nights we stayed up, arguing about the Ravens and Redskins, all the nights we made fun of our redneck roommate’s thick backwoods accent, and all the nights we reminisced about childhood vacations, Pop Pop breakfasts, the time my cousin Zach (Jeff’s little brother) first beat him in a fight, and how ironic it was that our Dad’s were close friends and lacrosse teammates long before they met our Moms.
I also have the choice to celebrate the fact that Jeff served our country bravely, receiving among many honors, a Bronze Star. I can also choose to celebrate the humbling fact that Jeff was willing to invite me into that world, by sharing with me some of his best, and worst, memories from Afghanistan. There are a lot of offices and a lot honors to be had in this world, but I doubt any of them will make me feel the honor and camaraderie that I felt when Jeff called me battle-buddy. And while Jeff’s battle is now over, I have the choice to honor his life. Although I will surely fail often, I have the choice, to my best of my ability, to choose beauty over brokenness.
