"Whose Glory Fills the Sky"

But as I was saying, yesterday it was the second verse of "Christ  Whose Glory Fills the Sky" that stopped me. 

Dark and cheerless is the morn
unaccompanied by Thee;
joyless is the day's return,
till Thy mercy's beams I see,
till they inward light impart,
glad my eyes, and warm my heart.

 Again, the good Rev. Wesley's intent is not a chore. What he's saying is that morning's opening moments--the hour or so before dawn--is "dark and cheerless" if it opens on its own, outside of the redeeming love of Christ. Only if "Thy mercy's beams" are present can my eyes be made glad and my heart be warmed. Beauty is in the Son, not the sun.

For a moment--correct me if I'm wrong--a dawn, even a knock-out gorgeous dawn, isn't a metaphor or a symbol. It's not much of anything if I don't have Jesus. 

I don't care to quarrel with Charles Wesley, with his theology or his poetic talent. But when we sang that second verse, I was struck by how perfectly understandable the spirituality of the hymn was, there, on display: this world's darkness is cheerless without Jesus. I get that. I understand.

But let me try to put it this way: a dawn is gorgeous only if I know the Lord. 

Traditional Native religion would have some trouble understanding the dualism there, the strange sense that white folks require a God who stands somewhere outside the dawn to make the dawn the dawn. Traditionally, they might want to say that God is dawn. He's also rocks and trees and skies and seas. God is the great mystery of life itself, the Great Spirit who lives and breathes in all things, including those shaggy bison. We honor that God when we honor the Missouri River and don't ruin it with pipelines because that river isn't a symbol or a metaphor. 

But then, I think everyone could agree with Wesley's spirited final verse:

Visit then this soul of mine,
pierce the gloom of sin and grief;
fill me, radiancy divine,
scatter all my unbelief;
more and more Thyself display,
shining to the perfect day.

 One of the peculiar results of 19th century mission work among First Nations was its somehow surprising successes. But, if you were Native and if you believed that all of life is religion, then picking up another form of religion wouldn't be particularly troublesome, would it? Sure, we'll become Christian, some said. What's the fuss?

 

For a time, this morning, as I wrote these words, the sky outside my window a gorgeous peach stole lay along the shoulders of the eastern horizon, a soft orange that faded into yellow, then to blue up high before the sun made its grand debuted. Now, long swaths of sunlight stretch over the fields east to west, scattering darkness. It's Midas time--everything wears a bit of gold. This morning's cloudless dawn is not glamorous, but it's beautiful.

"Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies" a wonderful hymn, and I'll sing it joyfully again soon, I hope. Wesley's a wonder, isn't he? 

But he's not the psalmist:

The heavens declare the glory of God;

and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

Day unto day uttereth speech,

and night unto night sheweth knowledge.

There is no speech nor language,

where their voice is not heard.

Wesley's good, but I'd like to believe that David got it right.