Taking Bearings on the Bright Blur

Why a website called Bearings on the Bright Blur? Because we are never more conscious than when we are aware of God. And to be properly aware of Him is to know that He is always bigger than our best thoughts about Him. C. S. Lewis writes in chapter XVII of Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer that he had been speaking to a friend about adoration and how to conjure up visions of God’s Glory. Lewis said he thought he had to begin by worshipping by and conjuring up visions of the majesty and glory of God and thinking of images of His Transcendence. At that point his friend, bent down and splashed some water from a nearby brook on his face and the back of his neck, then said, “Why not begin with this”? Certainly, His Glory can be found while gazing into the Heavens; but it can also be seen at our fingertips.

The Glory of God is always on display in a world created and sustained by Him. He is always wooing us and inviting us to become aware and to be refreshed in His Presence and watchful care. No momentary circumstance can eclipse for long the Transcendence or the Immanence of the Omnipresent One. The poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote that every bush was a burning bush, and the world is crowded with God. Similarly, Lewis observed that God walks everywhere incognito, our responsibility is to awake to Him, and even more to remain awake. Furthermore, Lewis wrote that every moment provides us opportunity to take bearings on the “Bright Blur”, He becomes brighter and less blurry.

In Letters to Malcolm, Lewis asked his readers to consider the difference between gratitude and adoration. “Gratitude exclaims very properly, ‘How good of God to give me this!’ But adoration asks. ‘What must that Being be like whose far off and momentary coruscations are like this?’ One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun.” 

I remember when I first read that, it was as Voyager, the first interplanetary probe was speeding past Saturn, that most mysterious planet in our solar system, the one with rings. Photographs were taken and sent back to earth. It was discovered at that moment that Saturn actually had a network of rings and the outer one, the F-ring, was braided. I was amazed at this discovery! Using Lewis’s words I caught myself asking, “Wow! What must God be like that He chose to braid the outer ring of Saturn even though no human eye had ever seen it until then!” I’ve asked physicists friends “Why is it braided”?  They have yet to come up with a consistent, coherent explanation. So far, I’ve heard five probable answers, and each one appears to be a refutation of the others. I am sure astronomers will, one day, explain this extraordinary phenomenon. In the meantime, however, I just ask, “What must God be like that he chose to braid the outer ring of Saturn though no human eye had ever seen it?” And a firefighter friend of mine once said to me, “Yeah, and we don’t even know if He didn’t just braid it for the picture.”

There are research ships that park themselves in the Pacific Ocean above seas that descend miles; and, into those depths, they dangle cameras on tethers deeper than the light of the sun can reach; and they capture pictures of fish painted neon bright. Why do fish in such darkness have any color at all? That is a question I would like to have answered. It certainly cannot be to ward off a predator, or attract a mate, since there is no light at those depths. I suppose another important question is, “How do fish at those depths get together with other fish at all since there is no light?” Every time I think about it, I ask Lewis’s question, “Wow! What must God be like that He painted fish neon bright in the bowels of the ocean, even though no human eye might ever seen it!  

Growing up in Southern California, I loved seeing palm trees silhouetted against an auburn sunset sky. Or a mountain range silhouetted against an auburn sunset sky. Then I moved to the Midwest, and I came to appreciate cornfields silhouetted against an auburn sunset sky. There is beauty there if one would willingly distill it out. But we could have lived on a darkened planet with neither sunrises nor sunsets. Then one day, on our darkened planet we could have gotten word from on high that there would be one sunset. We could have lined up on every west coast of every continent and island on our globe and regaled our progeny with the glory of that great event by writing of it in our diaries and journals. But what must God be like that He made our planet a perpetual kaleidoscope of both sunrises and sunset? To notice is to take Bearings on the Bright Blur.

It seems to me that one star twinkling in the night sky should be enough to awaken awe and wonder in the mind and heart of every right thinking and right feeling individual. But what must God be like that He glittered the night sky with stars and moons and suns and galaxies and comets and shooting stars and the Northern Lights as they pulsate and coruscate in reds and greens and blues and whites across a canvas of night sky?

What must God be like that He made delicate things like hummingbirds and butterflies and flower petals and peacock feathers? G. K. Chesterton once observed, “One elephant with a trunk looked odd; but every elephant with a trunk looked like a plot!” Every day, to the observing eye, the plot thickens, as we are invited to ask what must God be like? We take bearings on the bright blur.

But Lewis is too honest to stop there. He forces us also to ask the hard questions as well, questions like, “What Must God be like that there are devastating earthquakes in Haiti, or Tsunamis in Japan? What must he be like that there are Aids babies born in Africa, and school shootings in America? What must He be like that there are global pandemics, human trafficking, wars and injustices all around? What must God be like that there are cultural, sociological incivilities all around? Lewis wrote, “If our religion is something objective, then we must never avert our eyes from those elements in it which seem puzzling or repellent; for it is precisely the puzzling or the repellent which conceals what we do not yet know and need to know.” (The Weight of Glory, P. 31). Similarly, Lewis echoes this idea, often on his mind, “Where we find a difficulty we may always expect that a discovery awaits us.” (Reflections on the Psalms, p. 28). That is, we can take bearings on the Bright Blur in the hope that He may become, for us, brighter but less blurry. Some are always ready to reject God simply because of some puzzling circumstance they do not understand. Can we not expect that God, in His Omniscience, must know more than we with our pea brains can wind our minds around? History is full of people, very reasonable people, less quick to discard belief as they seek to understand more deeply. Furthermore, a momentary grasp of any situation always gives way to further development. We forget that a conclusion grown out of a moment should never silence discussion, it is too premature. It prevents more robust thought and contemplation; we lose in this kind of truncated approach and end up knowing very little about anything. We are at risk of becoming self-referential, failing to understand the context of our wider world. There are mysteries of faith to be sure but one must not play the mystery card too quickly. We must take Bearings on the Bright Blur, there are depths and breadths still to know and grasp. And as we grow, we catch ourselves asking “What must He be like”? Here even our doubts, fears, and deepest questions can give way to gratitude and adoration. This Website seeks to explore in a variety of ways, these kinds of questions and thoughts. Everyplace we look, in a universe created by God, reveals something of His Presence, wonder and glory.