Beautiful Quest: Whether We Know It or Not, We Are On a Perilous and Beautiful Journey

By Peter Volkofsky

Beautiful Quest dares us to walk in places of love and hate, light and danger. We re-discover why knowing God is so irresistible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483558172

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Introduction

This book is an exploration of what it looks like to live with the joys of light and the limitations of shadow. Each reflection begins with a personal experience and then follows the thread of faith, hope and love wherever it leads. Inevitably, we come to a place where we have to admit, We don’t yet see things clearly. 1

This is not the kind of statement we expect from a preacher, let alone the Apostle Paul. But there it is, in one of the sweetest passages ever written, and made even sweeter when you think about the notorious reputation of the church to whom it was addressed.

Paul’s readers are referred to as a ‘church’ in the letter but we need to keep in mind that the apostle was not thinking of a building and a rigidly organized membership when he wrote those words, he was thinking of a small group of people who had reached a common commitment to Jesus the Messiah. Many of them had only recently emerged from the broken-ness and confusion of idolatry, orgies and temple prostitution. They were the kind of people who would have had a deep empathy with the aimlessness of Westerners in our century.

But there is a difference; these people had walked away from a pagan culture whereas we Westerners are walking away from a ‘Christianized’ culture. For the Corinthians, ‘Jesus’ was new and disturbing news but for us ‘Jesus’ is an old and unclear cliché. Conversations about ‘Jesus’ in our context are going to have to allow for the complications of the cliché and for the unraveling of grievances and misunderstandings, even for apologies.

We must also face the fact that even the best of metaphors become overused, set in the concrete of language, and end up as nothing more than dead and lifeless clichés—a reminder to our audience that we are old and out of touch. The faithful lover of souls understands this and harnesses fresh metaphors, which capture the imagination of the flock and make them feel thought of.

The challenge for our present-day storytellers is that most of them have been weaned onto a cerebral teat and live in a prose-driven, teacher-centered world. We tend to feel that something bad is happening if everything is not carefully explained and crystal clear to even the slowest of minds. But our Messiah not infrequently left his audience perplexed and was shameless about using picturesque stories, which aroused intense curiosity and raised as many questions as they answered.

Having said that, it should be noted that correct theology and good teaching was not unimportant to Jesus. He would have agreed with the sentiment that theology is the ‘queen of the sciences,’ an exacting discipline in which the faintest slip can carry a heavy price tag and which requires much grim and dull research.

Anyone who has ever attempted to truly love people learns to have a deep respect for the world of fact, truth and reality. Apart from clever charlatans, the most loved and trusted doctor is the one who takes learning seriously, and the same goes for the one who would be a soul doctor.

Interestingly, we (the 21st century believers) have been intimidated by the same Pharisaic word-spinners that our Messiah carefully and poetically un-spun, leaving them grinding their teeth in frustration as he rolled out endless metaphors: living water, a door, eating and drinking flesh and blood; new birth, marriage, the vine and so on. This profusion of imagery was not because truth and fact did not matter—and was ‘all poetry’—it was because Jesus understood the inadequacy of language when it comes to capturing ultimate reality. It’s why he placed the spirit of the law above the letter of the law.

At the end of the day, this tension between the insufficiencies of the written word and the glories of the living word is why Jesus, the eternal Son of God became flesh.2 Who would have guessed that one day a baby would be the solution to all those libraries full of theological controversy? The prophet Isaiah says, The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light … for to us a child is born.3 But the way some of us talk you would think Isaiah had said, "A great idea is born."

Personally I don’t mind old theological jargon-words, they connect with rich stories in my imagination and act like coat hangers for dozens of clarifying truths—but for many they are alien and offensive. And rather than taking offense at their offense we need to hear the voice of God as expressed through their frustrations, we need to ask ourselves what God is trying to tell us.

Front and center will be the fact that God is the God of ordinary people and happy to be nicknamed the God of Jacob (God of The Cheat) and the Friend of Sinners. We lie about this God to the world when we suggest that we worship some cosmic schoolmaster who sets us a theological vocabulary test. The implication being that if we fail his test, It’s off to hell for you boy! But the only test being failed here is that of the storyteller. As Paul White says, Give them the message you want them to have, packaged the way they want it packaged.4

Lastly, beware the temptations of knowledge: serious knowledge. The devil fell through force of gravity,5 Chesterton warns us. In other words, the devil’s power and prestige led him into taking himself too seriously.

Jesus delivered some of his most blistering sermons to the well-educated men of letters who pastored his own ‘church.’ Having cared meticulously for the ‘Garden of Judah,’ they looked down on the ‘outsiders’ and spoke as if the sun was shining brightest in their corner. As far as they were concerned the rabble was in the shadows and they were in the light.

But where was God? Not surprisingly, some of God’s deepest workings were happening in that complicated place of shadow: Galilee. Jerusalem had been overlooked and a woman in Nazareth had become pregnant with the Son of God.

What can we learn from the tragic failure of these men to appreciate what was going on when they met Jesus? One thing is that the Living Word Himself—not our books and theological treatises—must be allowed to have the final say. In Beautiful Quest we find glimpses of that Living Word.

Peter Volkofsky

Peter is in the role of Executive Mission Support for Cornerstone Community6 and has lived and worked in Christian communities in Australia for thirty years. He is also a freelancer, blogger,7 spoken-word poet and a member of the Outback Writers’ Centre.8 Peter co-founded Dubbo’s Midnite Café9 and Newcastle University’s Feast Society.10

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1 1Cor 13:12 MSG, Eugene Peterson, 2002, NavPress

2 Joh 1:14

3 Isa 9:6

4 How To Hold An Audience Without a Rope, Paul White, 1992, Scripture Union

5 New Catholic World, Vol.190, quoting GK Chesterton, 1959, Paulist Fathers

6 http://www.cornerstone.edu.au/

7 blog.cornerstone.edu.au/pete/

8 http://dubbo.com.au/city-listing/outback-writers-centre

9 Midnite Cafe - Dubbo, NSW - Cafe | Facebook

10 https://www.facebook.com/groups/feast.newcastle/

1.

A Music Collection

In this chapter the concept of acquiring an ear for the music of heaven will be explored. For example, last night my wife called us all to the back door in her look what I’ve found tone of voice. We always put down whatever we’re doing when we hear her calling like that. And sure enough there was a treasure awaiting us. This one was just above the shed in the sky: a glowing ball of moon.

With Christmas not too far away I couldn’t help asking the question, What if Santa Claus is real? What if there is actually a secret giver of gifts who leaves treasures lying around for us when we are not looking, as in, for me personally?

Yes, it’s true that these gifts are for everyone to share. But what if it’s also possible for a gift to be given in such a way that everyone receives a blessing and some of us—in one overwhelming moment—secretly know that we have been personally thought of?

Such experiences tend to be accompanied by an unusual kind of wonder, a deep sense of dread and even a feeling of embarrassment that I of all people was chosen. The timing might be so precious and touch you so deeply that you daren’t breathe a word about it, ever. But it shows doesn’t it? And when you see it and feel it in another, it’s unmistakable—in the eyes of a newborn baby for example. It’s why the psalm writer says we were Fearfully and wonderfully made.11

1.1 The Sound of Music

It’s quiet in our street, and wet and still with that dripping after-rain stillness. Birds chirp, the high notes of a peewee’s call ring out across the neighborhood and a dog barks. Further out, the mechanical-ocean noises of the highway groan and moan.

We are told that our universe is an elegant dance of such vibrations, particles or waves of light. Everything: the sounds and smells, touches and tastes, connecting with everything else. And from where I sit in our lounge room, the dappled green and yellow of morning sun seems to run together with the music of the birds and the machines and pour itself into one single shape: a huge star lantern, which hangs in the window.

But this star is not just ‘out there’ for me to look at, it’s ‘in here’ in my memory and imagination. For weeks I watched my wife working with the cane struts, cutting out all the different colored bits of paper, playing with the design and finally putting it all together so that it resembled stained glass. Finally it was completed and there was this flood of color: lolly green, navy blue and deep red with a white Edelweiss flower as the centerpiece.

And the story runs deeper. While the star was being made, a school play was ‘being made’ for the star to go with. On the opening night our star hung from a ceiling above my daughter while she sang, danced and played in her school’s production of The Sound of Music, as adapted from the Broadway musical.

Deeper and further back in this lantern are mythical vibes that came out of my wife’s soul. She didn’t have to make it. She has good reasons for being the kind of woman who would never do anything like that and who would go with the grey of despair in order to make the world remember the betrayals and disappointments it has inflicted upon her: especially the religious world.

Yes, she’s the first to tell you that she hasn’t had anything really terrible happen to her. But I don’t agree. Sometimes the deadliest wounds are those that come from the most unexpected places.

A long time ago, she chose to go with the music of color and to follow the Voice of Easter, which says in John 11:25, I am the resurrection and the life.12 Since then she has made thousands of little choices in the direction of forgiveness, reconciliation, light and grace—this star being one of them. You could say the star is a prayer made visible. As a Russian priest once said, All the food of this world is divine love made edible.13 If souls need food then this prayer star is divine love made edible in another way.

Then there’s the remarkable journeys of the other members of the cast, one of whom—the lead man in the play—is the son of a good friend whose family has been on a deep journey of pain and who have become a fountain of grace and hope to countless others. Then there’s the woman who directed and trained the cast, and her story, which you could write a book about. Not to mention the school that decided to include it in its curriculum, the orchestra and the original story of the Von Trapp family living in a Nazi dominated Austria.

All these journeys and stories—in our family—along with a world full of others, many of which have been made into songs, dances and films, look a bit like that elegant dance of vibrations coming through my window.

CS Lewis, in talking of the point of view of medieval thinkers, tells us that the medieval person would walk out under the night sky and feel that they were looking in on the mysterious and beautiful goings on of heaven. He explains that a medieval mind would think, "We watch ‘the spectacle of the celestial dance’14 from its outskirts. Our highest privilege is to imitate it in such measure as we can. The Medieval model is, if we can use the word, anthropo-peripheral. We are creatures of the Margin."15

In speaking of how the medieval mind understood God—the Prime Mover—moving things, Lewis says, "How then does he move things? Aristotle answers … ‘He moves as beloved.’16 He moves other things, that is, as an object of desire moves those who desire it. The Primum Mobile is moved by its love for God, and, being moved, communicates motion to the rest of the universe."17 The sound of such music is what moves even the most cynical among us to talk and even start behaving like worshippers lost in endless adoration.

1.2 ‘Bonté’

The alarm beeps. I roll over and push the button. It’s cold and dark. This is wrong. No one should ever have to get up on a day like this.

The chill of a black winter morning is not the only reason I don’t want to get out of bed. While I’ve been asleep, some part of me has been journeying back through the years and has only just returned bearing armloads of disappointment and wounds.

Pushing my way past the sorrowful heap, I roll back the warm blankets and walk into a cold bathroom. In there, while the hot water washes the sleep away, I recite the intro to a long poem I’ve been writing.

"I say you are gods, all of you … sons of the Most High.

Out of your hearts shall flow rivers of living water!

Well then let’s ice the cake.

But wait!

What’s this ache that trembles in the heart?

What’s the thing that wrestles in the dark?

What’s this song that’s scribbled in the art?"

Ten minutes later, taking the inner wince along with me, I walk away from this home where I’m the father and the husband, to a fog-shrouded building where I’ll be attending a worship session along with other members of our community.

It’s not my favorite time of day for this. I’m an introvert and a contemplative and a long time ago came to terms with the fact that I’ll never be much of a ‘cheerful at breakfast’ person. I’m going to have to position myself in the worship room so that I won’t have to make too much eye contact. This is the time of the day when, as an act of courtesy and sympathy, you mostly keep your eyes to yourself—lunch and afterwards is the time for eye contact and conversations over a cheerful glass.

Thirty minutes go by, the inner wince has softened and we walk from the worship room into a room of jokes, laughter and loud conversation, white boards and recorders, cameras and Google docs. Here, I’m the Unit Convener of a subject and although this is before lunch and expectant eyes are looking at me, I’m able to forget the waking-up melancholy and to plunge into a lecture on courage and motivation—without any sense of irony.

An hour passes. Morning tea arrives with freshly baked bread, butter and pepper. The day is looking better already.

After the break I find myself talking about my favorite Florence Nightingale biography18 and the author’s description of a remarkable ‘bonté’19 that emanated from Florence in a battlefield hospital in the Crimea where, upon her arrival, political infighting had barred her nurses from doing any real work. Some, it would appear, even wanted her dead.

Back home in England—scandalized by this woman who seemed to be taking over their domain—members of parliament accused her alternately of being a Catholic and a Protestant agent. Finally, in exasperation, one of the members said, The great sin of this woman seems to be that she belongs to the faith of the Good Samaritan!

Back in the Crimea, Florence called the bluff of the administrators, patients were left uncared for and dying and her nurses were restricted to cleaning duties. Finally the hospital leadership gave in and the nurses were allowed to work. While the arguments continued about her motives, she got on with the business of health care.

Day after day, endless queues of horses and donkeys ferried bleeding and bandaged soldiers up a long hill to her filthy hospital. In one instance, a soldier’s stone dead and frozen body made