On Science, God, and Beauty

My last week has been filled with good television (watching "The Planets" on PBS) plus good re-reading (That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis). So, what am I learning from all this goodness?

That God is present in all things, including space and time. There is nothing that separates the God-breathed. His fingerprints and evidence of creation are infused in all things. Even icy moons a billion miles away.

Science may try to take God out of the equation and never put Him back in. Science may strive to make us humans as gods, working toward ways to chemically prolong life while destroying so many other lives, and bring an evil into the world that we can scarcely imagine. But none of it can escape God's hands. One cannot remove God just because one wants to. The efforts will eventually cause the Earth to be toppled upside down to restore the sanity, or is the modern view of sanity what needs the toppling?

As G.K. Chesterton reminds us when we ask the question - what is wrong with the world? 
His answer - I am.

We can just as much contribute to the problem we are trying to fight, if we do nothing to share and reveal the truth. Shake up the ground that is around us when we see the direction growing dangerous. We are given different gifts to be able to do this, and sometimes that requires true bravery. 

In going against the grain, we stand for goodness, we embrace beauty and let it sing out in a world so weary. Sometimes our world is so weighed down by the heavy cracks that are embedded in culture, one cannot see the light, which is there but is so often hidden. One has to be willing to dig deeper and continue onward toward the good we hope to see come.

The shallow pools do not offer us the chance to grow, they just keep us standing in one spot without drowning.

We won't be popular when we go against the grain, but if we are going to go through such earthly trials and come out with joy despite all the brokenness, then we need that reminder of the goodness and beauty that does exist. We need it to nourish our souls, reaching deeply into us so that we can be brave, kind, loving, generous, merciful, and thoughtful. We need the stories that encourage us in this way.