Random Beauty
Sitting in the chapel on a Sunday afternoon before an ordination service, I found myself continuing a study I began during another service there: looking for a pattern in the stained glass windows. (It’s an odd habit of mine, along with counting things.)
The first task was to determine how many colors there are, and there are six: soft shades of pink, orange, green, white, blue and yellow. With that resolved, I looked at a green pane in one window and a green pane in another to see if the colors touching them match. They don’t. I did this several times on several windows and found there is no pattern at all. The six colors are set into the lead frames in a beautifully random fashion.
I saw the same random beauty as I watched the line of well wishers quietly moving down the aisle to lay hands on the new minister: people of different ages, sizes, colors, backgrounds, interests. Ours is not a cookie-cutter faith, so it makes sense that we’re not a cookie-cutter church. We fit together, not because we look or sound alike, but because we complement each other. Side-by-side, we bring out the best qualities in each other like the panes of glass in the chapel windows.
The older I get the more I appreciate these differences. When we’re younger we tend to seek out those who look and act like us, or who we want to look and act like. We’re Dr. Seuss’s “Sneetches,” wanting a star on our belly that looks just like the stars on all the other bellies. But beauty is more than skin deep, and our ideas are beautifully different as well. This comes to light every Sunday in our Bible study class when we share our diverse views on whatever scripture we’re studying. I never leave feeling alienated or disillusioned. Rather, I’m provoked and challenged.
I believe that’s exactly where God wants us to be: Thinking, pondering and questioning; not passive, submissive or ambivalent. Just as a car steers more easily the faster the wheels are turning, it’s easier to steer our hearts toward the truth when our minds are engaged and active. It also takes friction to gain traction, and sometimes the best friction comes from those who rub us in a different way – even the wrong way.
Consider the one little pane of glass in a window on the north wall of the chapel that is a much deeper shade than any of the others. I don’t know if it is a replacement pane or one that was set in the window from the start, but it catches my attention every time I’m there. In fact, it was that unique pane of glass that provoked me to look for patterns and discover the random beauty.