Masterpiece

Michelangelo saw it: the human being as a sign of the divine. Here is David, no groveling religious penitent, no poor grubby shepherd, but a confident man surveying his horizons. He is absolutely and serenely part of nature, unclothed with only a sling at his shoulder, and yet an image of that which transcends nature: beauty itself, grace itself, harmony itself. 

I have found David a man after my own heart. (Acts 13:22) David’s humility is his confident acceptance of his place, as standing between the natural and the divine. His pose is a repose, a trust in knowing who he is. His nakedness is both an embrace of wild nature, even its sexuality, as well as a return to pureness, a primal unity of soul and body, spirit and flesh.

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his Being. (Hebrews 1:3) As with David, so with Jesus. “The soul is the form of the body,” says Aristotle. Put differently, the ideal is right there in front of you, bodily, if you will just look at it, not through it or above it or away from it. 

Whom do I tend to look through rather than at? Do I see myself, as a human being, where I truly stand before God?  

Teach me to stand confidently, seeing who I really am in Your order. Amen.

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"There's a light making its way

On up the mountain, night and day

You'll get tired, you may weep

But you won't abandon your masterpiece."