Living Amongst The Beautiful Ruins
William Havell, Tintern Abbey, 1804
We have just been through a horrific week: Jews slaughtered in Australia; students gunned down at Brown University, a faculty member at MIT; a Hollywood star murdered by his son even as our President issues appalling remarks. As we continue to stare speechless into the darkness of our world, we must admit, as Paul Kingsnorth is saying these days: “You just know something is wrong.”
Kingsnorth convincingly makes the case that Western civilization was built around a sacred order. It was the Christian story that gave shape to this order. It is the story of a God who created the beauty of the world and called it good. He decided his love would be the driving force of the universe. This is the story that rang like a song throughout history.
When the sacred order breaks down, Kingsnorth contends
the very notion of an individual life will shift dramatically. The family structure, the meaning of work, moral attitudes, the very existence of morals at all, notions of good and evil, sexual mores, perspectives on everything from money to rest to work to nature to kin to responsibility to duty; everything will be up for grabs.
When this sacred order dies, Kingsnorth concludes, we are left “living amongst its beautiful ruins. It makes our culture a culture with no sacred order. And this is a dangerous place to be.”
I’ve been asking myself: Is it possible now to restore that sacred order? What will this restoration look like? Can I play a part? We long for a path back home, don’t we? We long for safety. We long for beauty, for community, for family. We long to understand, for our souls to be nourished in genuine worship. We long to know how better to sing praises to the God who created us for love and purpose and meaning. We long to wonder again. We long to be restored, redeemed, revived. We long to be loved, to be known and to know.
So how could we go about restoring this lost sacred order? We might begin by learning to read again. We have lost the voices of our Christian story. We might learn to pray again. We need to be to be silent for a moment so God might once again speak a word of comfort. We might begin to build up marriages and families and traditions and rituals. We might tell our kids we love them. We might tell each other, husband and wife, that our love runs so deep it will never die. We might watch for things so beautiful it takes our breath away.
And of course, restoring the sacred order will require of us once again to listen with the shepherds in the fields that night as the voice of the Lord breaks into our human space with song and light: ‘Glory to God in highest heaven, / and on earth peace to all in whom he delights.’ Luke 2:14 (REB)
Restoration will require of us finally to admit that our secular narrative is not working. That should not be difficult. Everyone knows something is not right. We sometimes think the main narrative is politics. Sometimes it’s economics or education or science or medicine. As important as some of that is, it will never suffice to bring back the sacred order we so desperately need.
Along with the ancient Jews who are our spiritual ancestors, let us watch for the signs: “The Lord of his own accord will give you a sign; it is this: A young woman is with child, and she will give birth to a son and call him Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14 (REB) This was said six hundred years before Jesus, promising that God is with us, God embodied, born of a young woman. God coming in our midst will set all things right. This baby overturns the secular narrative in which we are living. God is about to do something utterly new. Don’t you see it, asks Isaiah?
Can we turn a corner? Can we pivot? Can we release our worry into promise. As I said last week, signs of revival may be telling us the promises of old may be bringing us home. I pledge myself, in whatever small ways, to restore the sacred order that has been lost. The promise is clear. The path begins to unfold. We desperately need to follow. Come, Lord Jesus.