So Beautiful It Hurts

Kris MacQueen, Apr 23, 2018, 2:26 PM
Kris MacQueen National Catalyst of Vineyard Creative

There is beauty in this world that's so stunning there is pain in the beholding of it. Beauty that makes my eyes leak and my knees quiver. More often than not this beauty is clutched and shaped in the fire of suffering.

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Image by Scugog Artist Bill Lishman

A few kilometres south of where we live is a region of rolling hills and (mostly) sleepy rivers, marshes and lakes. It's hard to imagine that thousands upon thousands of years ago a mountain of glacial ice, upwards of four kilometres thick (that's over 13,000 feet high, y'all... half way to Everest), was bearing down on this land. Its slow recession left behind a landscape that was crushed, scarred and bruised.... Our stunning hills, rivers and lakes. A drive through that area is breathtaking, particularly in autumn and spring. Sometimes it's so beautiful it hurts.

I don't love the fire or the ice, certainly not their destructive force. But the beauty wrought in the aftermath of their presence is undeniable, and it's this kind of beauty that most convinces my heart of the reality of God. Let's write the songs, tell and enact the stories, paint our imaginations and dance with the Divine, come fire, come ice.