The Incarnational Tradition
Excerpts from G. K. Chesterton, Athanasius, Annie Dillard, Soren Kierkegaard, Dag Hammarskjold, Kathleen Norris, and Brother Lawrence
The final tradition in Devotional Classics is the Sacramental Life Tradition. Richard Foster describes this tradition by invoking the words of Paul, “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”[1] Building on this description, I have identified three themes associated with the Sacramental Tradition: finding God in everything, knowing Jesus, and using prayer as a sense of God’s presence.
Finding God in everything
When I was a younger girl, in my pre-teen years, I would spend time with my family at Big Bend National Park in Texas. Reading Psalm 104, brought that memory to the forefront of my mind. In verse 16, “The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.”[2] When you go tent camping, there is nothing like looking up at the stars in the stillness of the night. It is quite breathtaking and peaceful.
I imagine this is how G. K. Chesterton felt as a child when he viewed the world. He describes it as magic. If you think about it, God creating the heavens and earth out of dust is magical in a supernatural, spiritual way. Chesterton says, “For the universe is a single jewel, and while it is a natural cant to talk of a jewel as peerless and priceless, of this jewel it is literally true.”[3] He goes on to say that he felt the world may be a miracle with a “supernatural explanation.”[4]
He first felt that the world does not explain itself. He felt there was something personal in the world, “like a work of art.”[5] He thought that the earthly work of art was “beautiful in its old design.”[6] “That the proper form of thanks to it is some form of humility and restraint: we should thank God for beer and burgundy by not drinking too much of them.”[7] Lastly, his childhood memory was a “vague and vast impression that in some way all good was a remnant to be stored and held sacred out of some primordial ruin.”[8] The idea that God was in everything is shown through his childhood eyes. He did not know it then, but the world he saw was closer to reality than the beliefs of his modern culture.[9]
Annie Dillard draws our attention to our internal dialogue. “The world’s spiritual geniuses seem to discover universally that the mind’s muddy river, this ceaseless flow of trivia and trash cannot be dammed, and trying to dam it is a waste of effort that might lead to madness.”[10] I find it intriguing that she calls it the “mind’s muddy river.” When I think of a muddy river it is a big mess of dirt and grim all over the place, yet that description of the mind fits my mind. I do have to add a few twists and turns as my river is not a calm and straight stream. Instead of trying to dam the river, Dillard explains to let it flow, acknowledge it, and look at it without interest.[11] By doing this we raise our sights, and our gaze becomes clearer, God is found in our muddy rivers of the mind, we just have to adjust the sight.
Kathleen Norris draws our attention to looking for God in the less-than-spectacular events of everyday life. She says, “we must look for blessings to come from unlikely, everyday places—out of Galilee, as it were—and not in spectacular events such as the coming of a comet.”[12] The coming of a comet is a spectacular event, but that is just it; it comes, and then it goes. When we look at our everyday life and see the blessings in the most mundane parts of our life we are truly blessed. We are content. 1 Timothy says, “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.”[13]
This all reminds me of a Bible study I did nearly a decade ago. It was about recognizing the gifts God gives you in your everyday life and being thankful for them. I didn’t understand at one point what was so great about bubbles in a sink full of dishes, but now as I am older, my children love playing with bubbles. I have flashes of them being little buying those bubble wands and the resultant joy they would feel. Finding those moments we see God celebrating in the simplest ways.
Dag Hammarskjold remarks on the clear interaction between God and ourselves. He wrote, “Your won efforts did not bring it to pass, only God—but rejoice if God found a use for your efforts in His work. Rejoice if you feel that what you did was necessary but remember, even o that you were simply the instrument by means of which He added on tiny grain to the Universe He has created for His own purposes.”[14] I made a choice while getting my bachelor’s to study Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism Management. I had walked away from the Church and wanted to do something that I felt was far from God. Since I made my prodigal daughter return, I have often felt it was a waste of a degree. I couldn’t get a job because of our constant moving. Then once I started to have kids. I knew the long hours that any job in that field would require. While I was pregnant with my middle child, I got a chance to work with the chapel on post and then I was asked to do other events for my husband’s unit. God used my choice to work for Him. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”[15]
Jesus, He is known to us
Colossians 1:15-20 NIV gives a clear idea of how and why all things have been created. I look specifically at verse 16, “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him.”[16] Athanasius states “God knew the limitation of mankind, and thus He provided the works of creation also as means by which the Maker might be known.”[17] He gives us three ways God makes himself known to us. The first is looking up to the heavens and “pondering the harmony of creation come to know its Ruler, the Word of the Father, Whose all-ruling providence makes known the Father to all.”[18] Secondly, speaking with holy men and through this action learning to know God, “the Artist of all things, the Father of Christ, and to recognize the worship of idols as the negation of the truth and full of all impiety.”[19] Lastly, “leading a good life by knowing the law.”[20]
Looking at these three ways, I think God made himself known to me in the first two. It is hard for me to not see God in the stars. God created heaven and the earth. We see his beautiful creations walking the earth, why not in the heavens as well. The other is through holy men and women. I find myself listening to others and watching their actions as a sign of God. I have met some truly humble people, that pour into others all that God has shown them. Athanasius’ description of Jesus, the image of God, and why GOd felt the need to save Him people through sacrifice is thought-provoking.
“what could he possibly do, being God, but to renew His Image in mankind. How could this be done save by the coming of the very Image Himself, our Savior Jesus Christ? Human beings could not have done it, for they are only made after the Image; nor could angels have done it, for they are not the images of God. The Word of God came in His own Person, because it was, He alone, the Image of the Father, Who could recreate man made after the Image. In order for this re-creation, God had to do away for death and corruption. He assumed a human body, in order that in it death might once for all be destroyed, and that men might be renewed according to the Image. The Image of the Father only was sufficient for this need.”[21]
Athanasius
What a powerful description of Jesus. Athanasius’s words helped to clarify the doctrine of the incarnation, during a time of the heresy of Arianism claiming that Jesus was only human.
Prayer: a sense of God’s Presence
Brother Lawrence writes in The Practice of the Presence of God, “I imagine myself as the most wretched of all, full of sores and sins, and one who has committed all sorts of crimes against his king.”[22] He continues, stating that God, the King, is full of mercy who embraces him with love. He invites him to feast at the table and feeds him with his own hands.[23] These are the images that he thinks of when he wants to be focused in the presence of God.
At one point he imagines he is a stone, before God the sculptor. Brother Lawrence had a true picture of who God is: a King and a sculptor. Taking a lesson from Brother Lawrence in simplicity, he was able to invite God into all the tasks and obligations he had.[24] Thus, I do not need a set specific time of day to invite God into conversations. An aspect of Brother Lawrence’s writing that I admire is his acknowledgment that what he was reading in books concerning all the different ways of practicing a spiritual life where God is in the center only stirred confusion.[25] He had the wisdom to stop reading what others were saying and find his own way of going to God.
In reading Soren Kierkegaard’s excerpts from The Prayers of Kierkegaard, he opens each one of them with excitement, I would say almost like a proclamation. He makes these proclamations before he asks for something as if he is reminding himself who God is. I think sometimes we forget that God is almighty and powerful, he destroys walls and creates boundlessly. We should humble ourselves in the presence of the Lord. “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”[26]
“Father in Heaven! You have loves us first, help us never to forget that You are love so that this sure conviction triumph is our hearts over the seduction of the world, over the inquietude of the soul, over the anxiety for the future, over the fright of the past, over the distress of the moment.”[27]
Creatures of God
I enjoy sitting in my backyard, even more so now that it is getting cooler. We have several trees where we can see the birds fly about. One bird, in particular, has caught my eye: the pileated woodpecker. It is a beautiful creature with its distinguished red crown head. He doesn’t come close to the house and mostly stays at the top of the tall pine trees. The intricacy of its black-and-white pattern is just astonishing. That God created a creature with such detailed markings is astonishing to me. When I hear there is no God, I look around and say that it is impossible. God is everywhere. The beauty and detail of His creations surrounds us. He is an artist with amazing supernatural abilities of which we can only dream.
The Rainbow Game
My middle child introduced me to a game a few weeks ago. We play it on the way home. One of us calls out a color of the rainbow and we look for something outside the car with that color. At first, I thought it was silly and yes it kept them from complaining on the long ride home. The more we did it though, the more we noticed different things and the more detailed those little things became. At first pointing out different colored cars, signs, or markings on the road was the norm. This evolved to noticing the different types of flowers and how the trees are now a multitude of colors. It is amazing that, as time went on, our attention to detail became keener and we began to look beyond the initial colors.
[1] Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Essential Practices from the Six Great Traditions of Christian Faith, (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), 263
[2] Psalm 104:2 NIV
[3] Richard J. Foster & James Bryan Smith, Devotional Classics: Selected Readings for Individuals and Groups (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 335
[4] Foster and Smith, Devotional Classics, 335
[5] Foster and Smith, Devotional Classics, 336
[6] Ibid, 336
[7] Ibid, 336
[8] Foster and Smith, Devotional Classics, 336
[9] Ibid, 333
[10] Ibid, 347
[11] Ibid, 347
[12]Foster and Smith, Devotional Classics, 363
[13] 1Timothy 6:6-8
[14]Foster and Smith, Devotional Classics, 360
[15] Romans 8:28 NIV
[16] Colossians 1:16 NIV
[17] Foster and Smith, Devotional Classics, 340
[18]Ibid, 340
[19] Ibid, 340
[20] Ibid, 340
[21] Ibid, 314
[22] Ibid, 373
[23] Ibid, 373
[24] Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, (Christian Books Today Ltd, Lancashire, UK. 2009), 29
[25] Foster and Smith, Devotional Classics, 370
[26] James 4:10 NIV
[27] Foster and Smith, Devotional Classics, 351