Calming Waves, Uncovering Masterpieces

Centuries ago, Michelangelo brought the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to life with colour, movement, expression, emotion, and story. A glorious sight to behold, I imagine. Those who enter the chapel today may still leave in amazement but hundreds of years of filth have covered the original beauty.

However, Michelangelo's masterpiece has not been lost, only distorted. No one needs to create the scenes of his imagination from scratch, only find and restore this creation. A few people with a passion for art labour patiently towards this end and with time, they can recapture the artist's vision.

An infinitely greater, wiser, more innovative Creator fashioned a masterpiece at the beginning of time. A world of beauty and wonder, justice, love and peace. Tragically, the perfectly good creation has fallen beneath humanity's attempts to implement their own designs. The masterpiece has been left to the side as people chase after deceptively attractive alternatives. From a distance, reality may not look so bad, and we trick ourselves into believing that we can create our own paradise. However, people's real experience testify that violence, hate greed and fear have deeply stained the original work of God.

Recently, I began working at Justapaz, a ministry of the Colombian Mennonite Church that tries to lead people to nonviolent paths in a violent society.

Living in Colombia has challenged me to acquire double vision. eyes that see the harsh brutalities and eyes that see the perfect creation still existing underneath.

The Marks of Violence. Although the fighting may not seem real to those of us who are not running from bullets, civil war has been raging in Colombia between the military, the paramilitary and more than a dozen guerilla groups for the last 50 years. As I try to understand what it means to live in a country, and in a world at war, frightening images come to mind. The armed fighting hits people like huge rocks crashing into water. At the point of impact, the waves explode and life inverts upside down. Some people take up arms to avenge their loss while others flee with the horror buried inside of them. They escape down rivers in search of refuge. Rivers of tears and blood. While beside them float the corpses of those who left too late.

And so Waves spread from where the rocks fall. waves of anger, brokenness, despair, fear, poverty, confusion, and helplessness. Farther away, the waves become ripples. Ripples of suspicion, insecurity, tension. And the destructive currents wash up on distant shores. Although the disturbance may go unrecognized, even unseen, the impact of the falling rocks reaches to the farthest corners of the earth.

Many rocks skip along the surface, hitting the water again and again as family violence, neighbourhood confrontations, outbursts in the schools and injust social systems. Women and children suffer the brutal blows of those who have never learned emotional control. Neighbours shoot neighbours over the results of a children's soccer game. The poor battle with the frustration of not having food for their family while the rich protect themselves with armed forces, for fear of the poor person's frustration. Although the impact of these skipping stones may appear less forceful than falling bombs, in all cases peace is shattered and waves spread.

I come from the land of ripples so it startled me to float on the waves. I cannot imagine what it would feel like to live where the rocks are falling. Tears clouded my eyes and flowed into my soul.

Hope. My eyes saw hope again when I realized that the falling rocks hit water, not glass. Water breaks, and yet it is not broken. It can settle back to smoothness because the nature of water is stronger, more permanent than what acts upon it. My hope is certain then, and I believe that not even the deepest accumulation of grime can annihilate the creation nor the Creator. 

Indeed, God's fundamental work remains far more unchanging than the work of Michelangelo. We do no have to achieve or create peace using the fragments of our destructive past. The original path of peace, love and joy still exists.

We only need to seek and to embrace all that is noble, beautiful and right while the stronger, truer nature of God settles over all once again

God's Kingdom is not something we build.
God's Kingdom has always been there.
When we are converted we become aware of it,
we begin to see its signs and
we set about to embody it so that others, too,
can see it and take hope.

-Walter Klaasen

Below the surface of sorrow and violence, people who see the true nature of God's creation with eyes of hope, are drawing together to calm the waves and make known God's masterpiece. In Colombia, the faithful are meeting together, planning vigils, accompanying victims of violence and living out the values of God's Kingdom. Restoration advances slowly. However, let us not feel discouraged by the magnitude of the task, but instead look forward to finding and embracing the glorious nature of God.

The Kingdom of God is now, although not yet.

Written by Bonnie Leanne Klassen
Thanks to conversations with Clifford Wiebe and Patricia Zapata.