Perhaps the phrase "ain't it grand?" comes across as "ain't I grand?" Or "ain't we grand?"—we Christians, self-congratulatory rather than grateful. I don't hear it that way in Blind Willie McTell's song, and certainly didn't intend it that way. I think, rather, of someone walking around in a marvelous place, exclaiming in delight. Or myself, standing on the seashore: "Lord, it is good for us to be here." This is not a boast, but an expression of gratitude. I have no idea why one person receives the faith—is called, and answers—and another does not; I mean, I know the theological explanations, but they still leave me in the dark as to the interplay between the secret movements of any soul and the grace of God. But the believer deserves, at most, credit only for saying "yes."
On the subject of atheism: Theodore Dalrymple offers another interesting view of the current crop of wrathfully atheistic writers (Christopher Hitchens et.al.) vs. Christianity. Dalrymple is in an uncomfortable position: he doesn't believe, but he sees that the Christian view is much richer and more human:
A few years back, the National Gallery held an exhibition of Spanish still-life paintings. One of these paintings had a physical effect on the people who sauntered in, stopping them in their tracks; some even gasped. I have never seen an image have such an impact on people. The painting, by Juan Sánchez Cotán, now hangs in the San Diego Museum of Art. It showed four fruits and vegetables, two suspended by string, forming a parabola in a gray stone window.
Even if you did not know that Sánchez Cotán was a seventeenth-century Spanish priest, you could know that the painter was religious: for this picture is a visual testimony of gratitude for the beauty of those things that sustain us. Once you have seen it, and concentrated your attention on it, you will never take the existence of the humble cabbage—or of anything else—quite so much for granted, but will see its beauty and be thankful for it.
You can read the whole thing here.
Pre-TypePad
Light On Dark Water 
Leave a comment