Walk in Beauty, Softly (mid-week Message)

Walk in Beauty, Softly

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

November 7, 2018

 “Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have!  You can’t worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you’ll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can’t worship God and Money both.  If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.   Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.  If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.”  Matt 6:22-34, The Message

This passage from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is about seeing things and behaving in ways congruent with faith in a loving God.  The basic idea—that putting first things first frees us from worry and behaviors that are self-defeating and harmful to others—is found in most of the world’s spiritualities and religions.  It can be as simple as the back packer’s dicta, “take it in, pack it out” and “leave the site better than you found it” or as broad as “tread the earth lightly” in modern ecological thought. 

In traditional Chinese thought, it means following the Tao, or order of nature.  In the Dine or Navajo tradition, it is expressed in the exquisite closing prayer of the Walking the Way Blessing Ceremony.  It is usually translated in this way, where “beauty” means the harmony and balance found in the natural world:

“In beauty I walk
With beauty before me I walk
With beauty behind me I walk
With beauty above me I walk
With beauty around me I walk
It has become beauty again.”

 Anglican poet Christina Rosetti talked about treading softly and seeing things with right eyes in the following poem, which takes themes of All Saints and All Souls and applies them to all creation: 

“Tread softly! All the earth is holy ground.

         It may be, could we look with seeing eyes,

         This spot we stand on is Paradise

Where dead have come to life and lost been found,

Where Faith has triumphed, Martyrdom been crowned,

         Where fools have foiled the wisdom of the wise;

         From this same spot the dust of saints may rise,

And the King’s prisoners come to light unbound.

O earth, earth, earth, hear thou thy Maker’s Word:

“Thy dead shalt thou give up, nor hide the slain”—

Some who went weeping forth shall come again

         Rejoicing from the east or from the west,

As doves fly to their windows, love’s own bird

         Contented and desirous to the nest.” 

Treading lightly upon earth and walking in beauty demand that we look carefully at the world about us and see God’s hand at work.  They come from a heart moved by gratitude and awe.   Thanks be to God. 

Fr. Tony+