The Way of Martha and the Way of MaryGraham, Stephen
Religion
The Way of Martha and the Way of Mary
Graham, Stephen
National characteristics, Russian; Russia -- Religion
The roll of history itself is a long strip of fresco. It is only too
narrow a strip. It is in the breadth of history that the beauty lies. If
we could only see in poised moments all people and all nature praising
God in all their various ways at one and the same time! That is the full
roll of history—to see the broad eternity in each moment. To see that is
to see the great phantasmagoria, the infinite blending of all shapes and
colours, of all the runic and mystic manifestations which, seen in
small, thrill us and puzzle us and perplex us in our mortal lives. It is
also a vision of the Last Judgment. I often think in these days of
accusing God and quarrelling with Providence it will not be God that
judges us, but we who give our judgment about Him. When the true and
full vision bursts upon us, we shall all cry Hosanna unto the Highest.
The whole universe, seeing itself and understanding itself, will burst
into one great cry of glory.
How that could come about, or what such a cry would mean, is beyond
thoughts and words. We cannot be literal about it, and yet we have sense
of it, and are able to strike chords of the great harmony or catch
glimpses of the symphonies of colour and form. The strange picture is
miraged for us backward through Eternity and we catch glimpses of it. So
it is in the Orthodox Church, in a crowd of pilgrims in a dim temple lit
by the lights which the pilgrims themselves have lighted at the altars,
enfolded in the great cloud of witnesses we sing praises to the One, the
Central One, the God of All.
There is nothing more wonderful than a real crowd, a crowd attracted by
a personality or an idea. At interludes throughout history we catch
glimpses of gazing crowds, the
Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk,
Man, brute, reptile, fly—alien of end and of aim—
that rush into sight at once as you name the ineffable Name.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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