March 2004

A Look Beyond the Surface: Imagine the Image of God - by Samuel Smith

1st

Springtime Refreshment

by Josiah Smith

Spring time is here or at least coming. I for one am looking forward to the warmer weather and longer days. It's difficult throughout the winter months to get out and enjoy the outdoors, but now I have no excuse for sitting idle indoors. Nature needs the refreshment of spring rain and warmer weather and so do we. I'm planning to take some time as the days warm up to get outside and be refreshed in the spring air. I hope you can too!

- Josiah

2nd

A Look Beyond the Surface: Imagine the Image of God

by Samuel Smith

“Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire”

This is a glimpse into the insightful observations of the poet Thomas Gray. It was taken from his poem entitled “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”, which was written, um, in a country churchyard. He looked at the simple graves and invented endless possibilities of the people whose bodies rested in the dirt. He saw worth and value in their unheralded lives and wrote an elegy to honor them. I always admired this poem and the imaginative spirit of the poet, and today it has reminded me of something important. Like the unheralded dead in the country churchyard, I tend to ignore the right-in-front-of-my-eyes living that I see every day. Sometimes our thoughts and dreams take such precedence in our minds that we forget about the people right in front of us. But people are valuable. It seems silly to even say that. But we live in an age where human life is not that valuable. Some of the most vulnerable humans today are the most in peril. But we have a responsibility; joy even, to love and respect the people that God puts in our paths. That may mean seeing something in them that they are good at hiding. That something is the image of God, in which all people are made. As image-bearers we have intrinsic value, not because of a “spark of divinity” or a basic goodness, but simply because we are made in God’s image. The Bible doesn’t teach that people are basically good, quite the opposite. But the closer any human gets to God, the more he or she must necessarily recognize their own weaknesses and faults. So there is no room for looking down our “holy noses”, our noses aren’t really very holy. We are called to love each other, and sometimes that might require using a little bit of an imagination. So let’s look around and notice what the people around us can become. We might just see the poetry of God.

- Samuel Smith -

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