I sat next to Jesse in the gym after my workout and shower. He was at one end of the main room sitting on a pile of mats. A women’s basketball game was in progress, but he wasn’t much interested in watching their progress. His focus was above them. In one hand there was a pad and in the other an ebony pencil. Jesse’s been practicing his drawing skills recently. A few nights ago we gathered to doodle and sketch in the Coffee Shop while one of our acquaintances posed poignantly in a chair. Today he was trying to sketch out the structure of the building’s interior. He’s been trying to find different sorts of things to draw—people, parts of people, objects, and architecture. And I’d say he has decent talent to use and skill to refine. (But I digress.)
I sat down next to him and gave him a sound of approval for what he’d sketched. He was only then beginning the piece. In reply he said that he’d never really looked at the gym in such a way, and that it made him see more details than he would’ve otherwise recognized. It brought to my attention something I learned from a drawing class I took as a junior in high school. When examining things in different ways to try to replicate them—looking at form, color, shade, etc.—I started to change the way I looked at most things. People’s faces especially became something I never saw in the same way again. It was different. There was more at which to look, more to recognize. I leave it to be decided whether I understand more about what I see or I simply have a more defined way of seeing. The connection to what we’d studied last night in seminar was, to me, profound.
The conversation that pours out from the last book of Aristotle’s Ethics is all about contemplation. The Greek Aristotle used rendered “contemplation” is θεωρία, whence theory is derived, meaning the beholding of a scene. If a draftsman gains insight as he beholds a scene, does a contemplator also gain insight as he meditates on things, even abstract things? It hit me, as I sat next to Jesse, what it could mean to contemplate things. It was looking at it with an artist’s eye, like a draftsman preparing to draw. Immediately I thought about the kingdom of God. What is it to contemplate heavenly things? What is it to contemplate worldly things? If I start to contemplate with a pessimistic and cynical view, my sight will only be keen to see what is depraved and fallen. Like Gao Xingjian wrote in Soul Mountain, “If you think she is beautiful she will be beautiful, if there is evil in your heart you will only see demons.” But if I can turn my mind toward heaven and keep the kingdom in view, how then my sight for those things will be transformed! This isn’t something I’m only now realizing, because it’s happened to me before. Then, though, I couldn’t possibly have articulated the importance of contemplating God and His words, like psalmist wrote,
This meditation on the law and beholding of God’s beauty is what I mean by contemplation. And a psalmist also sung of how blessed a contemplative, God-fearing man is, as is written,
It’s easy for an academic man to be lost in his contemplation, because he contemplates ideals instead of truths; and his is not really contemplation as much as it is imagination. And so his view of the world becomes as warped as his imagination allows, and his sight is trained toward finding things that are not in things that are. Because of this he doesn’t have faith in anything and he’s “like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind” (James 1:6).
But I want to contemplate the things God has set before me. I want to meditate on the words of the Father. I want to behold the face of the Son. I want to have my eyes opened to the secrets of the kingdom. And I’m thankful for everything God has given me in His endless mercy and grace.
I sat down next to him and gave him a sound of approval for what he’d sketched. He was only then beginning the piece. In reply he said that he’d never really looked at the gym in such a way, and that it made him see more details than he would’ve otherwise recognized. It brought to my attention something I learned from a drawing class I took as a junior in high school. When examining things in different ways to try to replicate them—looking at form, color, shade, etc.—I started to change the way I looked at most things. People’s faces especially became something I never saw in the same way again. It was different. There was more at which to look, more to recognize. I leave it to be decided whether I understand more about what I see or I simply have a more defined way of seeing. The connection to what we’d studied last night in seminar was, to me, profound.
The conversation that pours out from the last book of Aristotle’s Ethics is all about contemplation. The Greek Aristotle used rendered “contemplation” is θεωρία, whence theory is derived, meaning the beholding of a scene. If a draftsman gains insight as he beholds a scene, does a contemplator also gain insight as he meditates on things, even abstract things? It hit me, as I sat next to Jesse, what it could mean to contemplate things. It was looking at it with an artist’s eye, like a draftsman preparing to draw. Immediately I thought about the kingdom of God. What is it to contemplate heavenly things? What is it to contemplate worldly things? If I start to contemplate with a pessimistic and cynical view, my sight will only be keen to see what is depraved and fallen. Like Gao Xingjian wrote in Soul Mountain, “If you think she is beautiful she will be beautiful, if there is evil in your heart you will only see demons.” But if I can turn my mind toward heaven and keep the kingdom in view, how then my sight for those things will be transformed! This isn’t something I’m only now realizing, because it’s happened to me before. Then, though, I couldn’t possibly have articulated the importance of contemplating God and His words, like psalmist wrote,
One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the LORD
And to meditate in His temple. (Psalm 27:4 NASB)
This meditation on the law and beholding of God’s beauty is what I mean by contemplation. And a psalmist also sung of how blessed a contemplative, God-fearing man is, as is written,
How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,
Nor stand in the path of sinners,
Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!
But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,
Which yields its fruit in its season
And its leaf does not wither;
And in whatever he does, he prospers. (Psalm 1)
It’s easy for an academic man to be lost in his contemplation, because he contemplates ideals instead of truths; and his is not really contemplation as much as it is imagination. And so his view of the world becomes as warped as his imagination allows, and his sight is trained toward finding things that are not in things that are. Because of this he doesn’t have faith in anything and he’s “like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind” (James 1:6).
But I want to contemplate the things God has set before me. I want to meditate on the words of the Father. I want to behold the face of the Son. I want to have my eyes opened to the secrets of the kingdom. And I’m thankful for everything God has given me in His endless mercy and grace.
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