{"id":1194,"date":"2009-11-04T01:06:15","date_gmt":"2009-11-04T01:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=617"},"modified":"2009-11-04T01:06:15","modified_gmt":"2009-11-04T01:06:15","slug":"grandeur-of-dappled-things-jodie-boyer-hatlem-and-doug-johnson-hatlem-aug-909","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/?p=1194","title":{"rendered":"Grandeur of Dappled Things &#8211; Jodie Boyer Hatlem and Doug Johnson Hatlem &#8211; Aug. 9\/09"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">Grandeur of Dappled Things<\/span><\/h3>\n<h3><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">August 9, 2009<br \/>Jodie Boyer Hatlem and Doug Johnson Hatlem<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">PIED BEAUTY<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">(Gerard Manley Hopkins)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">GLORY be to God for dappled things\u2014<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\"><span>\u00a0<\/span>For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches\u2019 wings;<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">Landscape plotted and pieced\u2014fold, fallow, and plough;<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\"><span>\u00a0<\/span><span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">All things counter, original, spare, strange;<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\"><span>\u00a0\u00a0<br \/><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">Praise him.<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">GOD\u2019s<span>\u00a0 <\/span>GRANDEUR<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">(Gerard Manley Hopkins)<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">And wears man\u2019s smudge and shares man\u2019s smell:<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">the soil<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">And for all this, nature is never spent;<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">And though the last lights off the black West went<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs\u2014<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">Because the Holy Ghost over the bent<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<address>Scripture: Romans 8:18-28\u00a0<\/address>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>[The two poems above were read together, at the same time, with the exception of certain lines which were said individually \u2013 Lines 1, 10, and 11 in \u201cPied Beauty\u201d and<span>\u00a0 <\/span>lines 1, 7c, 8, 13, and 14 in \u201cGod\u2019s Grandeur] \u00a0 <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug:<\/strong> The revelation of the children of God. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie:\u00a0 <\/strong>Last Autumn Simeon and Johanna were collecting Fall leaves and they kept bringing them to me.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>Look, look, look.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Look at this one.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Isn\u2019t it beautiful Momma? <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie:<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong>It was my job to heap praise on their selection:<span>\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cOh look that one\u2019s sooo orange, or sooo red, or look at all those colours!\u201d<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Easy enough?<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The thing is that Sim\u2019s leaves were not striking me as particularly beautiful.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Indeed, he seemed to have a particular talent to find the most bug ridden, brown, tattered leaf to bring to me.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Weary of making up praise I finally asked him: why do you think this leaf is beautiful?<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Doug:<\/strong> because it makes such a lovely crunchy sound and when I hold it up to the sky I can see the sunlight through it.<span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 14pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>Okay, cute children\u2019s story over! <\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 14pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug<\/strong>:(every preacher absolutely requires a cute kid, a Bible, and a good set of commentaries)<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 14pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>And hopefully a newspaper subscription-for that bible in one hand\/newspaper in the other preaching. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Doug:<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong>In any given leaf pile we might see\u2014the Grandeur of God, a myriad of dappled things, and also some broken things.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>And, yet there is a sense in which none of these things are accidents.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 14pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>The Biblical understanding creation is not accidental, it is a direct an act of God\u2019s will. <\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 14pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>Particularly in the Psalms, the Hebrew word <em>bara<\/em> is used to connote \u201cdivine bringing forth.\u201d<span>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>In the Genesis account God is involved in both <em>bara<\/em> (creating) <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>and <em>asah<\/em> (making.)<span>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>The verb <em>bara<\/em> refers to the creation of the world as a whole and is only used with respect to God.<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>The making, <em>asah<\/em>, describes God\u2019s crafting and ordering of the world.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>These divine works do find an analogy in the works of humans.<span>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote the poems we just read in dueling fashion in the context of the industrial revolution in England and what was certainly an unprecedented stripping and destruction of nature.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>Yet, he maintained hope in God\u2019s continued and ACTIVE presence in the world. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>This affirmation of the active presence of God in the world was made in the face of a confident religion of material progress that built upon distinguishing God from creation.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Hopkins evokes this ruthless conquest and exploitation of nature in \u201cGod\u2019s Grandeur\u201d:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jodie: <\/strong><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;<\/span><strong>Doug:<\/strong><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\"><span>\u00a0 <\/span>And wears man\u2019s smudge and shares man\u2019s smell: the soil<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>This exploitation was religiously legitimated in part by texts like Romans passage we read that speak about the whole earths bondage to sin<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong><span>\u00a0<\/span>It\u2019s separation from God!<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>In such a context, the notion that creation might or even needs to be redeemed could be used as a justification for <strong>civilizing<\/strong> creation.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>To such a position Hopkins sings:<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Doug: <\/strong>\u201cThe world is charged with the grandeur of God.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong><span>\u00a0<\/span>This is a passionate affirmation of God\u2019s presence in a creation, even in a creation that has been rent to bare, that has been trod upon, smeared, and bleared.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Yet, despite this\u2014and because of Holy Spirit bending over the world like a Mother bird\u2014\u201cthere<br \/>\nlives the dearest freshness deep down things.\u201c<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>As Hopkins says immediately after the part regarding industry and our alienation from the wild, \u201cFor all this nature is not spent.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>It will not just wither up and die altogether.<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>Nature will adapt, change, reconstitute herself. \u201cIt gathers to a greatness!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie<\/strong>: and continually, again to Spring<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Darren Kropf reminded us last fall that what Christians have to give to the environmental movement is hope rather than guilt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>The poems<span>\u00a0 <\/span>of Gerard Manley Hopkins are filled with just that kind of hope.<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>Our sermon series this summer is \u201cALL GOD\u201dS CREATION\u201d<span>\u00a0 <\/span>All seems like a good modifier for creation. Many times when we speak theologically of creation we neglect to mention dappled things.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>We use adjectives like:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>order, <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>majesty, <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>grandeur. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>In \u201cPied Beauty,\u201d Hopkins hymn to dappled things that I read, the continued presence of the creative power of God is what gives rise to the stunning multiplicity of things.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>Hopkins point in \u201cPied Beauty\u201d is that: <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Although God is beyond change God is responsible for bringing forth the world\u2019s multiplicity.<span>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>Some of the dappled things that he describes are lovely:<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">trout with their \u201crose mole\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>the sky that can look like a brinded cow<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>The Finch\u2019s Wing<\/p>\n<p><strong>Doug: <\/strong>We can think of a multitude of others the leopard\u2019s spots, or the Zebras stripes, the speckled eggs of a Robin, a pond covered with lily pads, the subtle colouring of a female mallard or red-wing blackbird. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Yet, we are given a clue that all the dappled things might not be strictly speaking lovely. Many might look like Simeon\u2019s leaves.<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>Things that are: Counter<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>Strange<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>Fickle<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>Slow<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>Dim<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>Sour<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>Decay<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>We might safely say that the dappled things could also include crushed flowers, mangy dogs, thorns and matted cats, and you and I.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>Warted and freckled and wrinkled and scarred.<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>We were drawn to this Romans passage because of the way it invites one into a grand narrative.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>A narrative that is open to grandeur, and dapple and profound brokenness.<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>A story that begins with a creation that wasn\u2019t always subjected to futility, wasn\u2019t always bound to decay, WASN\u2019T ALWAYS A PLACE where might makes right and the powerful inherited the world.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Nor was it always red tooth and claw. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>At the center of the Christian hope is the knowledge that while the Survival of the Fittest <em>might<\/em> be a good describer of nature \u2013 pain, and death, and destruction do not lie at the innermost meaning of creation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>This passage, along with Isaiah\u2019s description of a peaceable kingdom where the child plays with the adder, reminds us that nature is not, strictly speaking, natural. Moreover the passage reminds us that nature has a distinct trajectory&#8211;<span>\u00a0 <\/span>It is heading for redemption.<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>Jessica, a good friend of Jodie\u2019s, recently worked and lived for several years for A Rocha on an environmental farm and reserve outside Vancouver.<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>A Rocha\u2019s slogan is Christians in Conservation (http:\/\/www.arocha.org).<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>A Rocha began as a field study centre in Portugal and now operates in just under twenty countries around the world including India, Peru, Bulgaria, and, soon, Uganda.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Jessica has stayed with us at Junia House on and off over this spring and summer and introduced us to Colin, an A Rocha friend of hers from the UK.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Colin, a lifelong Catholic, tipped his head back and chuckled as he told us how many church people have reacted to him with something like <\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>\u201cChristians in conservation?<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Why? Isn\u2019t it all just going to burn up soon anyway?\u201d <\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>Colin was, of course, describing the kinds of Christians that welcome war and turn their noses up at environmentalism because Jesus is coming back, <\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>God speed the day! <\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>While this kind of pie in the sky humdrum is not a danger for a church such as ours, there are others.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>We might, for instance, be tempted to ignore the apocalyptic bits of the Bible altogether.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>But why should we leave all the good stuff like evangelism and resistance-to-empire to warmongering capitalists?<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>Paul\u2019s theological reasoning in Romans chapter eight is often ripped from its context and used as piecemeal prooftext for either conservatives or liberals.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Conservatives love to cite its description of not just humans, but the whole world as fallen and suffering under the sway of sin.<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>Liberals tend to hurry past anything unpleasant to something like \u201clook, look creation itself will be set free from bondage \u2013 the apostle Paul, the founding member of Green Peace!\u201d<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>Maybe, maybe!<span>\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s not just a joke.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Paul does insist that the good news of the gospel will liberate the world.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>But in getting there, he twice uses a variant on the greek word <em>apocalupto<\/em>, and the entire discussion is framed in terms of his understanding of <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>[beginning to get increasingly animated!!]<span>\u00a0 <\/span>suffering and glory, sin and redemption, subjection and adoption, bondage and liberty, flesh and spirit, the law of God, the law of sin, and the will \u2026.<span>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie <\/strong>[cutting Doug off]<strong>: <\/strong>And while there are two of us talking, we\u2019ll avoid the temptation to give a forty minute lecture, diagramming how all these things work for Paul<span>\u00a0 <\/span>\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>Though in our view, that certainly wouldn\u2019t be boring!<s\npan>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>hmmph<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>Paul\u2019s use of the word <em>apocalupto<\/em> in verses eighteen and nineteen is often translated as \u201crevealing.\u201d<span>\u00a0 <\/span>When you come across the word reveal in your English Bible, you should watch out.<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>It\u2019s probably doing a lot more work then peekaboo, look! Look!, Surprise.<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>The archer has released the arrow, the wedding veil is being thrown back, the show begins, the world is turning.<span>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Verse 18 and 19 again then:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>\u201cthe sufferings of this present time,\u201d <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>this kairos moment, <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>\u201care not worth comparing with the splendor which soon will be apocalypsed to us.<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Both: <\/strong>For the creation waits, eagerly, longingly, for the apocalypsing of the children of God.\u201d<span>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>While Paul and Gerard Manley Hopkins approach things quite differently, they are fundamentally convinced of something profound.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Nature and apocalypse are not enemies.<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>Apocalypse does not nullify Nature.<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>Nature, for Hopkins, \u201cwill flame out like shining from shook foil \u2026\u201d <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>\u2026 revelation!<span>\u00a0 <\/span>And AH! BRIGHT WINGS!<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Holy Ghost over the bent world broods: she is over the rose moles all in stipple\u2026 and finches wings\u2026. and in the sky of couple-colour.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>That\u2019s Hopkins. For Paul, creation labours, struggling to birth to something far too big.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>It cannot remain within any longer.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>But however shall it come out?<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Paul does not know. It is far too glorious.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>But there are hints, sneak-a-peeks, foretastes of the firstfruits of the wonders of the Spirit\u2019s redeeming adoption.<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>There is the flesh and there is the promise.<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>And the promise for all flesh.<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie:<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong>Look! <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>Look! <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>Nature will not be destroyed in Paul\u2019s apocalyptic thought; it will be liberated.<span>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>When the scroll is unrolled, when the Spirit bears witness with our spirit, <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>when the first fruits have become a great harvest, <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>when the scales have fallen from our eyes and all God\u2019s children are seen as all God\u2019s children, <strong><span>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>all things will then work together for good. <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>The bent things <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>and the dappled things, <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>the strange things <\/p>\n<p><strong>Doug: <\/strong>and the groaning things.<span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>The grand things, and the spare things, and the sweet, sour, adazzle dim things.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Doug: <\/strong>But, this is not restoration, ALL creation is not going to be restored to its primal goodness and order\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>it is liberation<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug:<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong>This cannot be likened to tidying a room, restoring a house, cleaning a slate\u2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>it is RE-Creation.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>And surprise, we are being brought into the mystery of God\u2019s creation and begetting<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>creation as <em>bara<\/em>, not just God\u2019s making: <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>The labour pains are upon us<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Doug: <\/strong>Behold all things are being made new.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>And this is the hope that urges us forward in our work to heal, order, care for, and simply wonder at creation in all its infinite variety.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>In part creation cannot just be restored to some pre-fall, pre-industrial goodness precisely because of the dappled things.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Because from that primal, orginary moment (however you conceive it) all creation has been incredibly divisive and recombinant. Things have separated and divided only to join.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Two becomes four becomes 16 <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>and two again.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>But a different kind of two.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>We carry in the blue prints of our bodies the marks of being the one possibility of infinite others.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Creation knows no bounds.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>It is lighting out.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>It is building toward a crescendo.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>Yet, in the midst of these dappled things there is groaning.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>And when we think of groaning in the light of the multiplicity of creation and in the light of this creation\u2019s redemption we are pressed to understand brokenness as also \u2026 divine potency!<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie:<span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong>In divinity school, I worked for about a year as a chaplain\u2019s intern at the state facility for the developmentally disabled.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>During the same time, I was taking a course in theological medical ethics where we were often pressed to answer questions such as<span>\u00a0 <\/span>What will happen to the disabled in the new creation?<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Those with down syndrome?<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Those with autism?<span>\u00a0 <\/span>The deaf?<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Will the blind see?<span>\u00a0 <\/span>It was a tricky question.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Are people with down syndrome sick?<span>\u00a0 <\/span>Do the deaf want to speak?<span>\u00a0 <\/span>As many of you may know, that\u2019s a loaded question in the deaf community.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>What about the special charisms of the disabled?<span>\u00a0 <\/span>The profound gifts they give to their communities and the church?<span>\u00a0 <\/span>During my time at the state facility I was working with people that were able to do so little.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>One woman in particular could say only a few phrases.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>One being: <em>\u201cGet me coffee, bitch!\u201d<\/em> The woman, in her 60s at the time, had been left at the state facility when she was three.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>And during that time, during the worst days of custodial institutions\u2026 She suffered not only abuse, But, also boredom and loneliness. If you sat by her she would always immediately take your hand, softly.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>After a few months there, I was told that she had shared a room with another lady and for nearly 30 years had constantly held hands with the other woman she lived with. A woman, of course, also developmentally challenged.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\">I hope that woman will be<br \/>\n able to walk and speak and dance, in the new heaven and the new earth.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>But, certainly, I hope that the tremendous faithfulness, the Sisyphian faithfulness, that can allow one person to comfort another for 30 years straight will not be destroyed. <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>Even in the midst of crackling fragility we see light: <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Jodie: <\/strong>The World is charged with the Grandeur of God.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Doug: <\/strong>GLORY be to God for dappled things.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Grandeur of Dappled Things August 9, 2009Jodie Boyer Hatlem and Doug Johnson Hatlem PIED BEAUTY(Gerard Manley Hopkins) GLORY be to God for dappled things\u2014\u00a0For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches\u2019 wings;Landscape plotted and pieced\u2014fold, fallow, and plough;And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 All things counter, original, spare, strange;Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:\u00a0\u00a0Praise&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-a-worship-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}