"Of the three operations of the mind - apprehension, judgement and reasoning - only one of them is distinctively human, and it's not the one most people guess. It's not reasoning - primates do that - and it's not judgement (all animals know what they prefer), no, the uniqueness of our minds lies in simple apprehension - in our ability to form concepts, to extract essences, by means of words...It is not far-fetched to see our ability to name, to define, as another intimation of being made particularly in the image of the Word". Robert Farrar Capon - Words.
Very good. Model: Erin.
It was wonderful here on Friday evening - one of those truly gorgeous, mellow moments, pivoted between summer and autumn, that beckons you to come and encounter it's ravishing calm and taste it's exquisite tranquillity and enrichment. I have never been able to resist such splendour, so as the heat of the sun gave way to the cool of the day, I found myself, reflecting, as I often do, as I walked a favourite path, on the beauty of nature and the marvel that must have been Eden.
Genesis 2 speaks of how God had furnished this place with the manner of elegance I could see on my excursion - lush, green pastures, clear waters, and spaces abundant in fruitful trees; surely, enough to fill the eye and feed the soul, but all was not good in this realm of delight. However splendid and engaging it's rich provision, God knew there was a void in the heart of paradise.... Adam was alone.
Anyone who has ever deeply cared for another knows how deep that void can be, but Adam's awareness of his need grew, as he began to comprehend and inter-act with the new world around him - nothing that had been made to that point could complete, could assuage, the growing understanding with him that there was a terrible capacity and need within him - to be one with someone, to truly apprehend and know someone like himself.
I often wonder what that moment, when he awoke from sleep, to see Eve for the first time, must have been like. It was certainly profound in regards to true affection, perhaps something like this...
The only genuine response is one of affection, for our whole being is affected by such wonder.
In the days and ages which were ahead, both for Adam and Eve, and the rest of us, life teaches that, even amidst thorns and thistles, pain and anguish, all that we apprehend and engage with in this realm is only truly seasoned well when our engagement with it is sourced from an essential understanding - true well-being belongs to the soul that is not alone. At the very core of our endeavours is meant to be a love which creates, encourages and assists us to live and know a richness of life that makes our engagement replete with value and meaning.
"The will of God", notes Capon, "may well not be His recipe for my life but rather His delight in my recipe... We often look upon the love of God as a Father for a child, but the true image is precisely that of lover and beloved, bride-groom and bride - it is the marriage of the church to Christ that is the (true inaugural) moment in the love-affair between God and creation".
Contemplation. Model:Erin.
It is because such 'romance' is at the heart of all things that art matters. Creativity is part of our true apprehension of all things. Science often causes us to stagger at the universe, but art allows us to join with creation in seeking to celebrate, to honour, the splendour.
The Friday walk allowed me to consider all of this, and those considerations made the beauty of the 'art' (God's handiwork) which surrounded me a balm in my current situation - having known what it is not to be alone, in the wonderful years with Kay, but finding myself alone now... the joy and the pain, as Lewis notes, are entwined. The setting sky gives way to darkness often in our presently broken world, but there is indeed a love stronger than death, and all of His good gifts woo and entice us to see, to smell, to taste, the goodness of that approaching union for ourselves, in the wonder of our apprehension.
Harmony. Model: Magenta.
