Day 11, Nicene Creed, 3rd Line

Day 11, Nicene Creed, 3rd Line

maker of heaven and earth,

A few years ago, Josh and I were blessed to cross the great city of Rome off of our bucket lists, and the Vatican City along with it, of course. The Colosseum was every bit as fascinating as I thought it would be, though one does have to stretch the imagination quite a bit to get any idea of what it originally looked like. It’s a decaying skeleton of a structure now, which brought me to the sobering realization of just how completely impermanent even the greatest things of this world truly are.

While exploring the vast ruins, I noticed a single yellow flower growing in the midst of the rubble where the arena floor once stood. I’m always very impressed with (and inspired by) flowers like that, even ones that grow through cracks in sidewalks, proving that eventually God’s creation always wins over our own. In the end, everything we make succumbs to everything He has made. If this passing earthly realm of God’s can be so powerfully vital and resilient, how much more so is heaven?

Across town in the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel once had so much smoke from candles and incense caked on the ceiling over the centuries that it took years of restoration efforts to remove the grimy build-up so we could see Michelangelo’s masterpiece once again. It reminds me of the pain-staking efforts to restore the original Star-Spangled Banner at the Smithsonian in DC. Once we assign value and honor to man-made objects, we will go through so much just to preserve them as they reveal to us something of who we are, and what we are about. It makes me wonder: how much more so does God’s creation speak of who He is? Since He made heaven and earth, how much more should we learn from, honor and care for what God has made—even making major efforts to restore and preserve the integrity of His creation, if necessary? After all, when we begin to understand who God is, we begin to understand who we are as well. And God is maker of heaven and earth.

Care to share?

This reflection is a part of By Heart: A Lenten Prayer Project.



Day 12, Nicene Creed, 4th Line

Day 12, Nicene Creed, 4th Line

Day 10: Nicene Creed, 2nd Line

Day 10: Nicene Creed, 2nd Line