No Joy Apart from Him

O, God...
You give such joy. There is no joy apart from you, because anything apart has refused some part of your goodness and is not whole.

When your face turns on us, the sun brightens, breezes live among the trees, leaves shiver at your touch and everything basks in the tender hand that made them. There are no words, suddenly, because words do not describe the connection of your eyes to ours, the stirring of your breath as you sigh on the trees; we cannot speak or we ruin the connection. It is something beyond words, beyond the mouth and deep in the heart and eyes.

I find myself chasing beauty, hungering for perfection and seizing the first image floating by. You have created all these, though: what is there to worship but You? We are beneficiaries of your talent, your fingers precise with each crooked twig. Waves lash, mountains mast, lightning blasts at your word: please God, tell me, how beauty can be so cruel?

Stray trees crush humble dwellers, icons of beauty tremble and lash out with abandon; we who worship them are smashed beneath the falling idol. Places of glory turn rancorous in on themselves, as you the artist destroy spectators with the piece. Why is this so? Do you loathe when we lift the art above the artist, seeking to place it as our God?

Help us, lead us to glorify you and enjoy your art while loving you apart from it. Give us joy to live among beauty, to lay in green pastures and walk beside quiet waters, but let that joy and love remain when beauty is stripped away. Give us joy to follow you in the valley, too.