Always New

There once was a woman who would go to the art museum every single Saturday. And while the art museum had so many wings each one filled with countless artifacts, statues, paintings, photography, and sculptures, the woman would quietly sit looking at a single painting. She would come in each Saturday walk around for a bit, but then settle into one of the benches placed in front of this certain painting. The employees all knew about the woman, but didn’t ask questions. Then one day a younger employee asked the woman why she came back each day, if all she was going to do was look at a single painting for hours.


The woman quietly responded with a sigh, “sit and look.” After a few moments the employee grew impatient and thought, “I know this painting, it was my favorite, but there is so much more to look at!” His eyes began to wander. She spoke still looking at the painting, “It doesn’t matter how often I look at this painting, I always find something new. A difference in color that I hadn’t noticed before, a new way of understanding the artist’s point, an angle that once looked out of place can suddenly fit right in. Nothing changes from week to week, from month to month. But there is always something new, sometimes you just have to wait in the stillness, and it will then be revealed.”


God is an infinite being. Our creator and the beloved one of our lives. We will never understand him fully. This does not mean we are supposed to give up. Out of love and curiosity we need to constantly be growing deeper and deeper in our faith. Like the woman and the painting, we are supposed to be patient. As we sit in the silence, as we meditate on His love, grace rains down and we are able to see more clearly. We are able to take a step further in our relationship with Him. We begin to know our Lord as a person not a distant being. We begin to grasp the greatness of His love and power, and begin to understand our inability to ever know fully who He is. Those who are humble will be able to receive the grace. Before we can learn anything, we must know that there is something to learn.


We must not be distracted, stolen away by what is easy to understand. We are called to sit and think and grapple with what we cannot explain and do not fully understand. Sit at the painting and when you think you know what it is all about, look again from a different angle and then rediscover what was there, but you could not see it. In prayer, in contemplation, never be tepid in your want or thirst to know God deeper. Love should be what pushes us, what drives us to know him. Never stop growing, God will be there, always new, but never changing.

When does the sun stop shining?

When does the sun stop shining? When the fiery light of this world sinks below the horizon and the blanket of midnight blue comes in from the east, does the sun stop? Little ones tucked in their bed may ask the question, “Mama, Daddy, what happened to the sun?” Tired parents who are too far away from their 3rd grade class room will respond, “It went to sleep, like you should be doing,” confident that in time the young minds will be set straight by a science book. But the sun doesn’t stop shining. The fire still burns, the light is still present. The world has just turned its back and is unable to see.


When does God stop loving? When there is a void in our soul the size of a planet? When our hearts are broken down and crumpled with sin? When we sit in our churches, our grottoes, in the silence, in the music, and with hands clasped say “What happened to God’s love?” Do not doubt. He is there, loving you.


God’s love never changes. But our acceptance of it can. Like the world that turns its back on the sun, we too turn away from our God. We trade the light of his wisdom, for the darkness of the relative world. The spark of passion God invites us to follow becomes weak and we lose the pathway to righteousness. The roaring presence of the trinity becomes a faint whisper, a memory of what we used to do. God’s love never changes, we turn away, we close the door.


Like the sun is ever shining upon us, God is ever loving us. Ever dying for us. He forever is pouring graces on us, despite our inability to understand, our tendency to disobey, and the stubbornness of pride. When we feel overwhelmed, when we feel alone, He is there. We need to turn back and accept the graces. By confessing our wrongs, and seeking forgiveness, we turn back to God, and face the warmth of his love.


When the morning comes the sun rises, a new day has begun. It is fresh and it is new, with so much potential, and filled with so much love.