Seeing the Unseen

Spirituality Column #141
July 21, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Seeing the Unseen
By Bob Walters

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
- 2 Corinthians 4:18 (NIV)

I spent three decades of my life – from my mid-teens to my mid-forties – not going to church.

I couldn’t see the value in an active faith life, couldn’t see the divine Light in the Bible, couldn’t see the Truth of Christ on the Cross, couldn’t see the point of going to church … and couldn’t see the point of view of people who did.

Oh, I knew the Jesus story and the general Christian doctrines. I’d grown up Episcopalian and was an Acolyte (altar boy) in my early teens. By seventh grade or so, I knew the Anglican Communion service by heart.

Then, I drifted away. My pastor retired, plus the Episcopal Church changed enormously in the late 1960s. It brought in a “New Liturgy” that pretty much killed what I knew about being an altar boy.

So the church changed and, being a teenager, I changed. Church and religion, for me, became a thing of the past.

My eyes, to paraphrase the verse above, were definitely fixed on things seen. Like too many people, I only believed what I could see.

And one thing I saw was how many different directions Christians seemed to be going. It was easy to criticize the appearance of Christian hypocrisy and the tangled mess of controversy that too-frequently visited preachers, churches and entire Christian denominations.

How easy it was to stay away from these imperfect Christians, and think better of myself for not being part of the “religion” problem. I would find my own truth, thank you very much. I could occasionally see love and grace and beauty in the world around me; all I had to do was figure out where that goodness came from.

What a surprise when I finally found it one Sunday morning in 2001, sitting in church with tears streaming down my face. “The eyes of my heart,” inexplicably, thankfully, opened to the Light, Truth and bigness of God’s eternity.

I’ve learned since then not to sweat the small, confusing temporal bits.

“Christian hypocrisy,” for example, emanates from the fact that while Christ is perfect and eternal, in this mortal coil none of us is. Controversy, however benign or horrible, generally amounts to failed human expectations.

So when what we see is not perfect, let’s thank God it is not eternal.

Hallelujah for the glimpses of eternal perfection God provides.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) was blind, but now can see.

Life, Time and Giving

Spirituality Column #108
December 2, 2008
Current in Carmel
Current in Westfield

Life, Time and Giving
By Bob Walters

And the Word became flesh … John 1:14

Time is a funny thing.

We rely on clocks and calendars and seasons, are immersed in a life that resides in time, and yet have no greater obstacle to understanding God than the fact that we are inside the constraints of time and He is not.

God operates in eternity; we look at our watch.

Lucky for us, Jesus Christ stepped into history – into our time – and in a very profound way eliminated the barrier of time in our relationship with God.

Christ’s incarnation – the very Word of God stepping into the flesh, mess, passion, confusion and time that is humanity – is the true meaning of Christmas and the greatest reason and cause for celebrating the birth of Jesus.

It is to our perpetual – what shall we call it … diminishment? – that the Christmas season is reduced to merely a time of year. We are in error if we focus only on this moment in time, when what God has handed to us – and put within us – is the perfect bridge from the confines of our earthly lives into the vast, inexpressible, and timeless glory of His eternal love.

Christmas is fun; and it’s a great publicity stunt for Jesus. The Christmas holiday creates community and helps us love one another … at least a little better, for at least a little bit of time.

But if we stop there, with celebrating a season, then we miss the unique and important part of “the Word” – God, becoming “Flesh” – Human, and how that frees us from the earthly shackle of time. The incarnation of Christ, and the resulting indwelling of the Holy Spirit within us, unites the one divinity and all of humanity for all time. That’s Christmas.

Time just got trumped for a larger world; eternity is as big as it gets.

We may think time is our most precious commodity, our most precious gift. But our time, in our own hands, is absolutely a non-renewable resource.

God’s eternity, given to us in the gift of Christ becoming man, means that God’s love is with us always. Not at this time or that time or only when we pray or buy Christmas presents … always.

Think about that the next time you look at your watch.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) figures that even if we still don’t understand God or God’s timing, we can find peace in not needing to be in a hurry.