Earth’s Crammed With Heaven
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
From Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Bk. VII, l. 812-826
I was musing this morning on Tolkien’s concept of Myth and the difference between myth in the Pagan traditions and “The Myth.” In my conversations with non-Christians I hear so many times that Christianity just borrowed all that stuff from the Pagans. It seems to me though that there is a difference between the extraordinary deeds and events recounted in the various Pagan traditions and the working of the One True God as recorded in the Christian Sacred Scriptures and our lives. Pagan myths seem to me to have a tendency toward flashiness without purpose. They recount great deeds that leave only mighty ballads in their wake. There’s plenty of action and nothing is ordinary. Entertaining to hear but you leave unchanged.
God works and transforms the ordinary. God’s son takes on human flesh and looks like an ordinary man. Ordinary, sinful people become holy by His Grace. Ordinary Bread and Wine become channels of God’s Grace. An ordinary gathering of the faithful becomes worship in Heaven itself. Using our ordinary sight, we’d miss it without some help. The miracles are almost like signposts to point us to where the action really is. To remind us that we are on Holy Ground and on a journey to a Holy Place.
