Not quite ready-made

Πιστεύω εις ένα Θεόν, Πατέρα, Παντοκράτορα, ποιητήν ουρανού και γής…
I trust in one God, Father, Almighty, Poet of heaven and earth…
Symbol of Nicaea

People can be beautiful, well-born, well-connected, well-educated, healthy, prosperous, popular. They can be loved, respected, obeyed and even feared (if that’s their wish). They can have everything that they have ever wanted, dreamed of, desired and adored. In spite of all this, they can still be unhappy, depressed, dissatisfied, and even desperate (cf. Ecclesiastes 2). We’ve seen it in novels and movies, heard it sung in songs, met it firsthand in the people around us and, worst of all, experienced it in ourselves. Whether we are beautiful or not, noble or not, famous or not, sophisticated or not, healthy or not, wealthy or not, loved or not, we still find ourselves unhappy, depressed, dissatisfied, and even desperate at times.

This is no accident, as if the Poet of heaven and earth had failed to write us as perfectly complete poems. His poetry, unlike ours, does not simply get written on a page and then wait for a voice to bring it to life. No, His poems once written are living beings, taking on His life, having voices of their own. Voices and, yes, wills, of their own. The poems of the Poet of heaven and earth are alive with His life, and He writes them not quite ready-made. Why is this? Because He wants to see how His poems will fulfill themselves, what lines they will add to present themselves, complete and, yes, perfect before Him and before the whole Universe.

Given everything we need, we are commanded to be fruitful and multiply (cf. Genesis 1:28). Handing over to us His treasures (cf. Matthew 25:14-30), we are commanded to invest them. He goes away, He steps back, He opens for us a room in time and space from which He withdraws, and He watches from behind our wall (cf. Song of Songs, 2:9), to see what we will do. He watches, not waiting for mistakes to correct and punish, but to see what we will do with what He has bestowed on us, each of us receiving a completely unique nature. He wants to see what we will do with that nature, how we will fill the absence. Will it be with a longing for His presence, or with a lust for nothingness. For only He can fill the place in our lives from which He has withdrawn Himself.

What a love, what a trust the Poet of heaven and earth has, that He writes His poems with such life that they become living themselves, that He writes them unfinished, so that they may finish themselves and return to Him a gift that only they can offer. The Poet of heaven and earth is like a husband who withdraws, giving his bride the freedom to love him because she wants to, not because she must, waiting to see her response when he puts his hand through the notch in her door. “My lover thrust his hand through the latch-opening; my heart began to pound for him” (Song of Songs, 5:4). Will she get up quickly, and run to open to him? Will she delay, and then have to search for him?

Yes, Father, Almighty, the Poet of heaven and earth, and the Divine Logos, and we His poems, written unfinished, so we can complete ourselves by the Voice of the Spirit, the audience hall the Universe, the angels waiting for the Recitation to begin, wondering, hushed in expectation, what will be heard from us on the Last Day (cf. 1 Peter 1:12), what missing lines will be found, what hidden treasures brought to light?

Glory to You, O God, glory to You, who have shown us the Light!
Δόξα σοι ο Θεος, δόξα σοι τω δείξαντι το φως!