Thursday, September 23, 2010

In The Image of God

Every so often I come across something on the Internet that I experience as so moving that, for me, it's a religious experience, and act of worship to watch it. This is such a thing.

A friend of mine posted it on FaceBook, and in my comment to her I said that such things give rise in me to two immediate thoughts. The first is that while I know that we humans are capable of acts of unspeakable barbarity and unimaginable cruelty, when I see something like this I am reminded that we're capable of incredible beauty and wonder as well, and I am given hope once again. 

And then I think that perhaps these things give us a glimpse into the meaning of the words, "made in the image of God." We cannot create the Grand Canyon, or a supernova, or mitochondrial DNA, but we can take an oversized hula hoop, the sounds of a piano and a cello, and a warehouse floor, and create, this:


How does someone "see" this before it's been done?  Surely no one has ever done anything quite like it.  This performer was literally creating a new performance style.  So how did he develop it?

And, for that matter, how did Beethoven "hear" the 9th Symphony?  Or how did Van Gogh "see" the Starry Night?

"We are made in the image of God."  That means, as I understand it, that we are compassionate, loving, wise, and creative.
Every so often I come across something on the Internet that I experience as so moving that, for me, it's a religious experience, and act of worship to watch it. Amen.

In Gassho,

RevWik
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Erik. Your words continue -- as they have done before -- to capture some of what "I wish I'd said" or, more to the point, what I need to think!
Rev. Maureen Killoran (interimlyyours.blogspot.com)