20. God's Many Splendored Image

I really loved this book. She makes a case that the early Christian fathers saw being "made in the image of God" as our true nature rather than having a "sin nature." She is not saying we are not marred by sin due to the fall, but in Christ, we can go back to our true self as an image bearer of God. 

Is what I am as a human being fundamentally bad? Do I have to reject my own inherent identity in order to become acceptable to God? Is God opposed to me because of who I am? If God created me in his own image, how can what I am be opposed to God? Is it even possible to love such a God? . . . many secretly fear they are so evil inside that they can never do good for others or become the good persons they long to be. How can they hear the good news of the gospel if Christianity only confirms their worst fears about who they are? (p. 4)

The popular idea that Christianity says “human nature” is inherently bad is actually the opposite of what the earliest Christian theologians believed.  (p.5)

Throughout the ages, Christians have believed that the image of God in which we are created (Gen. 1: 26–27) is at the core of who we are and defines us as human. (p. 5)

Throughout the book we will listen to the prophetic voices of the early and Eastern Christian traditions that proclaim the true value and dignity of every human person and call us back to our authentic identity and purpose. Each chapter of this book explores a different facet of the divine image and likeness and maps out a path that can lead toward wholeness and holiness. (p. 5) 

Each chapter describes a set of gifts included in the divine image and likeness and shows both how they can be used and developed rightly and how they can be misused. Each chapter includes practical suggestions about how we can learn to turn away from past mistakes, become as God really intends us to be, and participate in God’s loving work in the world. (p. 5)

I liked most of it except her chapter on art. I was hoping she would treat art in general and she stuck to a justification for icons (she is Eastern Orthodox). I had two spiritual director during two different retreats have icons displayed during the session. I am glad my spiritual direction training does not push this. I don't object to it, but it is not my favorite type of art (I have been through so many art galleries throughout the world, and I dutifully tour this section but cannot wait to get to the art I REALLY like.) Art in general really excites me, but she didn't touch on that, and that was disappointing to me. 

After reading this book straight through in six hours, I woke up the next morning to find that the Scripture I was meditating on was Gn 1:24-31 about being made in the image of God. Perfect timing.

One more thing that was special: 

“The Kingdom of God” by Francis Thompson, is where I found the term “many-splendored.” His message is that although we cannot see it, at every point in this world the spiritual world is near. (p. 185)

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
In No Strange Land 

O world invisible, we view thee, 
O world intangible, we touch thee, 
O world unknowable, we know thee, 
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee! 

Does the fish soar to find the ocean, 

The eagle plunge to find the air— 

That we ask of the stars in motion 

If they have rumour of thee there? 

Not where the wheeling systems darken, 

And our benumbed conceiving soars!— 

The drift of pinions, would we hearken, 

Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.

 

The angels keep their ancient places;— 

Turn but a stone and start a wing! 

’Tis ye, ’tis your estranged faces, 

That miss the many-splendoured thing. 

But (when so sad thou canst not sadder) 

Cry;—and upon thy so sore loss 

Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder 

Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross. 

Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter, 
Cry,—clinging to Heaven by the hems; 
And lo, Christ walking on the water, 
Not of Genesareth, but Thames! 

This is so special to me because Dallas Willard put this poem in the first page of his book Knowing Christ Today. I love this poem and was assigned a Praxis (Practical) Exercise in the Renovare Institute based on this idea of seeing God (and the fact that seeing God in my favorite city, London, at places I have been was also very special to me.) 

Here is the Exercise we were assigned: 

Thompson...is concerned with living this “with God” life in all of life, even ordinary places, and with detecting the availability of the kingdom everywhere we look. He thinks we miss “the many-splendored thing” (last two lines of the fourth stanza).  

Thompson intentionally jars readers at the end of the last two stanzas of the poem by inserting familiar places in London and suggesting they are at the foot of Jacob’s Ladder (a passageway connecting earth and heaven with angels coming and going and the Lord himself standing beside Jacob—see Genesis 28, as well as The Divine Conspiracy, p. 69).  So his original readers pictured Jacob’s Ladder stretching between heaven and the very familiar Charing Cross Road in London; Jesus walks not just on the Sea of Galilee but also on the Thames River, the main artery of nineteenth-century London. Shocked readers probably thought: God in my backyard! Jesus is standing beside me this minute. Wow!

Exercise:  At the beginning of your day, or as you begin a new portion of your day, pause for a moment. Think of the setting where you are or will be throughout your day. Allow yourself to be jarred the same way Thompson’s readers were by considering that the Jacob’s Ladder passageway extends from heaven to these everyday, ordinary places in your life. Each day, pick a few settings and replace the words “Charing Cross” in the line below with something different in your backyard, bedroom, workplace, past, or future.  

You may use these ideas below, but you’ll eventually come up with even better ideas.  

Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder   Pitched betwixt Heaven … and Charing Cross … and your computer mouse pad.  

Or: . . . and the passenger seat of your car or motorcycle . . . and your stove or microwave oven . . . and your shower . . . and your wallet . . . and your profile picture on Facebook . . . and your favorite hillside or pond . . . and your picnic table or outdoor chair . . . and the chair you sit in during spiritual direction  . . . and the chair you’ll sit in during a difficult meeting . . . and wherever you sit or stand as you take care of: a small child, plants, databases.  

I loved this exercise, and I might even post my write up for it!