From Above and From Within

While walking through a neighborhood in Rancho a few days ago, I had an interesting thought. From the hiking trails there, which take one up into hilly areas, one can see the city from a sort of bird's-eye view. It's a very commanding, fascinating way to view your own community, and gives one a good idea of the lie of the land. At certain point on one of the trails, though, a concrete stairway leads down directly into one of those neighborhood. I took that route and ended up wandering through Rancho's neighborhood for an hour or two. Then I was able to see what each house looked like instead of seeing a sea of red tile roofs interspersed with some other buildings. What occurred to me is that both views, both experiences, had shown me something that the other could not. The commanding view from the hills showed me how the city was planned and where it lies in terms of Southern California geography, but it could not show me what walking down the neighborhood streets did: the character of each house, and how life progresses at the individual level.

It is probably an obvious conclusion, but I think that to view life, the world, faith, and any other important thing properly, one must similarly come at it from both perspectives. We hear of generals or statesmen who have singular ability in seeing the big picture, or in their minute administrative abilities and attention to detail. It is probably rare when a man possesses both in equal measure. And is it not so that we have a God who is both above all and in all? Unlike the polytheistic deities, who work within the natural world, God is independent of His creation and understands it (because He made it) from a planner's perspective. Yet unlike Islam's impersonal Allah, He also became a man, as an infant laying His eyes first on the rough walls of a Judaean stable. I cannot think of a more grounded, earthy perspective on life than this: growing up, as we presume, learning carpentry; reaching out to the poor, the sick, the corrupt and the unlovely; staying in the homes of friends and countering the specious arguments of the smug religious establishment with truth and common sense. God is not merely the world's engineer, or its judge. He is these things, and He would not be God if He were not. But He has also known what it is to be its tenant. To walk in the Columbia Gorge or around Trillium Lake or over the foothills of the Saddleback Mountains is quite another thing than looking at them on a map or a satellite image. But without looking at maps we could easily become lost, trapped by the limitations of seeing things only from the ground. Happy for us that we have a God who does both perfectly.