“Salvation comes by grace, and grace comes by art, and art does not come easy.”
–Norman Maclean
November and December’s dreams become January’s nightmares. Two seconds after Halloween ends an overture of urgency announces the beginning of the holiday season and blares throughout. It is filled with invitations to impulse spending and unrealistic expectations. But if we answer its call we just end up afraid of our mail and apologizing to our loved ones.
God is not only the author of life, He is the author of its pace. Beauty, meaning, and truth cannot be rushed. Since the beginning God has chosen to feed our hearts slowly, taking His time to unfurl the goodness He offers. He took seven days to create, He started with a garden and millennia later He will end with a city, and indeed the incarnation itself displays His long suffering. The gestation of a baby, the raising of a child, and when Jesus was born both poor laborers and rich kings looked up and decided that whatever had been urgent and important was no longer so and set off on foot to meet the king. We’ll get there when we get there.
It is a season filled with both music and noise. Music heals and repairs, noise distracts, and disorients. Listen to the one, rebuke the other.