The universe rings true whenever you fairly test it. -Lewis

Then I heard a great voice from the throne crying, “See! The home of God is with men, and He will live among them. They shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death shall be no more, and never again shall there be sorrow or crying or pain. For all those former things are past and gone.”

 Then He who is seated upon the throne said, “See, I am making all thing new!” And He added, “Write this down for my words are true and to be trusted!” Revelation 21:3-5

So I have been thinking about the human experience. Again. This time around was triggered by some photos posted by Marco. And working through the worldviews of Ray Bradbury and George Orwell with my kiddos. And reading actually hundreds of pages of journaling. Their brains and hearts are grappling with big questions. Who is man? And here we pretty much have the God worldview of man.

Who is making all things new. Present Progressive.

Because most of the time I don’t get the peeling paint and barbed wire of life.  And I don’t have many good answers about the whole Garden of Eden thing and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And punishing sin to the third and fourth generation.

But He lavishes unfailing love to the thousand generations. He forgives iniquity, rebellion, and sin. Keeping lovingkindness, maintaining faithful love, loyal love, faithful love. He does not stay angry forever but delights to show mercy.

So I am one of those sorts of teachers that assigned homework over Spring Break. And I even gave it a name: Subvert the Norm. And each of us is going to read a book. And I gave them lists to choose from, Radcliffe’s Top 100 Novels, The Guardian's 100 Greatest Novels, The Big Read 100 best-loved books, and even the Library Center’s most banned books, of which The Bible is Number One on the list. And no one complained. They have given that up long ago. And when we get back we are going to put together a multigenre research paper explaining why They would have burned this book. And we will be memorizing chunks of our books, and writing senyus about our books, and painting pictures about our books and pasting together found poems from our books. And of course doing interviews about our books. And a MLA Works Cited page. Of course.

And I am going to read, and reread C. S. Lewis’s Surprised by Joy this next week, as I swish off to Mexicali with my team of adventurers. Because that is why I am going, to be surprised once again with joy in the face of this God Himself.

“Who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words compelle intrare, compel them to come in, have been so abused by wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of man, and His compulsion is our liberation.” 

Who is making all things new.