Nature – Page 3 – sethlewis.ie

A City Whose Builder And Architect Is God

Have you ever noticed that illustrations of heaven tend to lean heavily on Greek architecture? The pillars and spires might be brighter, and the streets paved with gold, but the forms and styles still look familiar. It makes sense—the ancient Greek temples and forums were gorgeous, a true high point of human ingenuity and creativity. But these styles are human conceptions, whereas Hebrews 11:10 tells us that heaven is a city “whose architect and builder is God.”

Have you ever stopped to consider what it looks like when God himself designs and builds a city?

Winter Walk (a poem)

I put my hands inside my sleeves
And stuff them in my pockets
My collar up against the wind
Is not enough to block it
But as my nose and ears complain
Of slowly freezing
In my brain
My thoughts are getting warmer
And more active with each step
This wind has fanned the flame—
Yes even frozen wind—and swept
My thoughts into a blaze
And I’m aware that if I kept
My body locked
Behind the glaze
In perfect comfort
All my days
That there my mind
Would rest in ease—
And in that warmth
Would slowly
Freeze

An Elegy For Our Fireplace

When my father built a home for our family in the hills of Alabama he put a large wood stove in the very centre. A good fire in that stove could heat the entire house, upstairs and down, for most of the night. I grew up splitting logs and carrying them in, building fires and learning to finesse small sparks into roaring warmth. They say firewood warms you twice, and it’s true—first when you cut it, and again when you burn it. The sound of our fire sucking air through the stove vents like breath, the crackling wood, the reassuring smoke from the chimney as I headed in from the winter cold—all are essential pieces of my childhood, baked into my soul by the power of the flames.

A Personal Update (With A Book Update, Too)

I woke up the other day thinking about the list of normal things I was going to do that day, which is not unusual. But it struck me that I’ve been waking up like that for years and years, and the list of normal things I’ve thought about has changed dramatically. For example, recently I’ve been taking our oldest child out to practice driving. This is normal now, but it wasn’t a year ago, and it’s a sign that our family is entering another new and different kind of normal. Next year our youngest will join her brothers in secondary school and our normal will change again.

Rain On The Window (a poem)

The garden is
A liquid blur
But I don’t stir
To close the blinds
The world has turned
Impressionistic—
Like a sad
(But still artistic)
Painter came
And just remixed it
Smudged the lines
And drained the colour
Told the sun
He shouldn’t bother
Wiped the sky
And stars away
And left me only
Endless grey
And as I look
Outside I think
That even when
It’s indistinct
And even when
It blurs my thoughts
And when it rains
And drains
And blots
And even when
It breaks my heart
This world is still
A work of art

The Maker (a poem)

A long time ago the prophet Jeremiah said, “Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.” I’m not a prophet, but today I have a poem for you on the same theme:

The Maker

He stretched out the heavens
And lit up the stars
He flung out the Milky Way’s
Spiralling arms
And will we imagine
His own arms are weak?
Or fear there’s an enemy
He can’t defeat?
The Maker of rocks is
More firm and secure
Than Everest’s foundations
More perfectly pure
Than water in Eden
More faithful and sure
Than sunrise and twilight
And he will endure
Past all of the ancient
Immovable hills
The hills he abundantly
Graciously fills
With life—in all of its
Wild variety
Antlers and feathers
And berries and trees—
And will we belittle
The Maker of these?
Or think the inventor
Of eyes doesn’t see?
Or somehow,
Ridiculously,
Disbelieve
That what he has promised
Is what he’ll achieve

Pruning (a poem)

Everything grows fast in the garden this time of year. The rose stems stretch themselves upward, then droop with the weight of their own blooms. The grape vine climbs the arbour, blindly grasping anything it can hold on to. The weeds come back, and come back again, from somewhere, everywhere, while the vines on the back wall grow in every direction at once. All of this growth is a beautiful, abundant gift, yet I know that if I leave it untended for too long, my garden will eventually become something else entirely. The strawberries will send runners into the grass, the grass will colonise the herb bed, the weeds will colonise the grass, and the roses will block the path with thorns. The longer I leave it alone, the harder I’ll have to work to reclaim it. And here, in the wild tendencies of my garden, I see a reflection of myself. That’s what this poem is about:

All Of It, All At Once

There was still an hour before I had to be at my first meeting for the day. The morning was beautiful, promising to be one of the nicest days of the year. I had to go outside. I didn’t know the area, but my phone told me there was a park in a nearby town I’d never been to. A few minutes later, I pulled in next to the jogger and dog-walker sedans—the family cars hadn’t arrived yet. The park was extensive. It was build around a lake, with ancient trees and well-maintained lawns, meandering paths, benches, swans, and the dawn chorus echoing in stereo surround-sound all around me.

Light (a poem)

When the sun comes out in Ireland, the people come out, too. We appreciate the sun, because we never know how long we’ll get to see it. We soak it in as much as possible—the brightness, the warmth, the Vitamin D, the light. I’ve heard that the physics of light are complicated, that it’s simultaneously a wave and a physical particle, which is confusing. But just think of all the things it does: it illuminates the world and makes our eyes work, for starters, but that’s only the beginning. It also carries heat from the sun 150 million kilometres away to warm our world and kiss our skin. Light also helps our bodies create Vitamin D, and even more impressively it helps plants all over the world photosynthesise the energy they need to grow. In other words, without light, we wouldn’t merely be blind—our whole world would be a wasteland.

A Curious Mind

Have you ever wondered about your ability to wonder about things? It’s a wonderful gift, when you think about it. It’s the ability that has unlocked most of our discoveries, because the most fertile ground for discovery is always a curious mind. I’m sure you can learn things without being curious—some lessons will slap you in the face whether you ask them to or not—but there’s no question you’ll learn a lot more if you start with questions. Isn’t our entire scientific method just a systematic series of questions? Without curiosity, the whole world fades into nothing more than a boring necessity, the people around us flatten down into a procession of stereotypes, and God himself starts to look like some kind of tired trope or taskmaster. Without curiosity, life goes stale. Tasteless.