September 30, 2012 by Erin

The Already

This morning I woke up before my alarm. Just a shaft of sunlight was coming through the window, and I remembered I had pumpkin oatmeal waiting for me in the crock pot. Instead of rolling over I actually got out of bed with a sense of peaceful anticipation. In a very abnormal sort of way, I was excited to be awake.

I made a cuppa, dished out some oatmeal, and headed toward my front porch. Already smiling at my clumsy, hands-full door-opening process, I fairly giggled when I saw the morning which met me. Chilly, bright — a morning made for Erin Hill. The air was the definition of fresh, the kind you feel you must breathe deeply. I snuggled up in my adirondack chair and warmed my hands on my mug, listening to the early birds. As I looked up at the reddening leaves of my tree, lines which frequent my thoughts in such moments rushed to my mind: “The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil …”

Gerard Manley Hopkins’ immortal words were especially poignant this morning. See, over the last few weeks I’ve been a bit melancholic. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; in fact, I rather enjoy melancholy sometimes (a la “Il Penseroso”). But I’ve been feeling the weight of The Fall — weary of the trodding and longing, in a way, for Heaven. I’ve been thinking about the human ache for Something and our ill-fated efforts to recapture so much that was lost. And yet, “for all this,” as Hopkins says, the bright morning is there to remind me of a hope regained.

Yes, we are broken. But today, Sunday, Resurrection Day, I remember that my Jesus set death working backwards. An entirely new law is at work in me and in the world around me: redemption.

One day, all will be made right, and we ache for that day. We ache for Home. But Jesus brought the Kingdom with him, and redemption is at work here and now. Heaven is breaking into earth. I see it in autumn leaves charged with God’s grandeur; I feel it in a healing conversation with a friend; I hear it in the Gospel message that rings of restoration; I taste it in my pumpkin oatmeal. Life has come and cannot be stopped.

So this is the hope of life in Act IV: even in a cursed and fallen world, Jesus goes out of his way to show me his goodness. I think he too smiles with expectation at the bright morning, for he knows he is making all things new.

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Written with: Frosted Mini Wheats, Andrew Peterson, interruptions from boisterous neighbors