Pieces and Fullness

This is the first time I have sat down and truly devoted a good amount of time to write since I arrived last Saturday.  It might have something to do with the Internet being currently unavailable… but I think it has more to do with fear.  For me, there is something beautiful and fulfilling about describing a thing through the written word.  But it is as if I am only able to describe the pieces or the edges of a thing, and often clumsily, yet fail to capture its complete essence.  And even if I write in a way that makes me happy (which is when I know it is something worthwhile), I fear that no one will enjoy it, or that the truthfulness of my voice will falter.

As Frances and I walked to the school for Bingo on Saturday, we talked a little about Volcán Poas and how it cannot be captured in a photograph.  (I tagged along with the Tropical Agriculture and Mission class on their field trip to the nearest active volcano to the Varablanca area.)  Although I was irritated to upload cloudy photos that cannot even begin to show the swooping depth or sheer rockiness of the volcano, I was also glad.  Because to see it as it truly is, you must stand there at the edge, breathe in the slight saltiness of the sulfur and dirt, turn your face into the cold wind sweeping up from the basin’s stream, and feel your stomach drop hundreds of meters down to the core of the crater.  Writing tries to bring the reader to this core and all of its surroundings, but just as my photographs fail to depict the volcano, words too, merely act a symbol or a flimsy copy.

Maybe God created it to be this way.  You cannot perfectly paint, or photograph, or write about His creation; you must experience it.  Perhaps in our humanity, just as we cannot pin down the fullness of its beauty, we can only experience the fullness of our God in pieces.  We cannot see Him face-to-face, but we feel his spirit moving through creation, people, and in His love.  And maybe by being in His love, we can begin to experience the fullness of Him. 

It makes me think of what the Lord tells Moses in Exodus 34: “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence… But you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live."  And later in the chapter when Moses walks down from Mount Sinai after speaking with God, his face is “radiant.”  We cannot see the face of God, but when we are with Him, our faces reflect His glory.  How curious but yet how lovely, that we cannot directly see His face, but His glory can pass into us and glow through our faces.  Perhaps we are unable to look full on into the Lord’s face or completely express who He is through written word because He is so pure and powerful that we can only hold on to the edges, the mere gleaming, of Him.