
Glimpses of Eternity
One day.
One day, God will make everything new. A new heaven, a new earth, a new order. He will dwell among us, and be our temple and our light. He will wipe away tears and give water to the thirsty. There will be no death or mourning or crying or pain or night. And no more curse on the tree of life. It will bear fruit every month (Revelation 21). This image most of all speaks to me of the undoing of every old thing. A complete reversal of Genesis that has taken millennia to complete.
I think this is what I’m always looking for. I recently listened to Madeleine L’Engle give a talk on finding truth through fantasy. I laid in bed afterward, listening to music, and I realized that I’ve lived my life looking for this: the unseeable, impossible truth on the other side of fact and knowledge and realism. Something new and different, that we can only catch a glimpse of.
I watch for it in shows and movies, listen for it in songs, search endlessly for it in books. It’s why I make up stories and sometimes write them down. It’s why I’m excited about new ideas, new books, new music. When I find it- in God’s Word, in a song, a poem, a romance, a snatch of dialogue, a story- I weep. Are these the seeds of eternity, sown into my heart? Breaths of Eden, hidden in the world around us? A glimpse of the new order?
It almost seems trite, to claim that art could capture some of the beauty of that new creation, that truth. After all, we so desperately need this new order. The world is crying out. When white supremacists take to the streets to proclaim hate, when a hit and run claims a life on my street, when I daily drive by those without homes or any guarantee of their next meal. When leaders’ mouths are filled with ignorance, and wars rip across the surface of our planet, and depression and anxiety keep me pressed against my mattress, absorbed with myself instead of the world around me. When everything seems broken, and all hope seems like the unseeable, impossible truth of fiction, on the other side of fact and knowledge and realism.
But I feel reminded of the importance of artists and their prophetic gift. Their gift to plant seeds of eternity, whispers of Eden, breaths of the new heaven and earth. Their role in the ushering in of the kingdom of God: this new humanity, these people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. This is what I long for, as a writer. What I long for, and don’t know how to grasp. Madeline L’Engle’s advice is to stop thinking and just write. “When you think, you’re in control. And then you’re in the way.” Maybe I can only convey real truth on the other side of my striving and control.
“In my mind, the effort to become a great novelist simply involves attempting to tell as much of the truth as one can bear, and then a little more.” James Baldwin
