Ugly Fingerprints
I Was Thinking…
A friend gave me one of those birthday presents that had a profound impact. It was a small gift with a large punch. It was the New York Times bestseller book entitled Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and it’s all small stuff. I love the subtitle, which reads “Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life,” by Richard Carlson.
It was a gift for my 42nd birthday, yet some 28 years later I still keep this birthday gift nearby. There is something about the simplicity of Carlson’s writings that captures my mind and my heart. Just last week I found myself flipping through the pages of this small gift and landed in a spot that spoke (once again) profoundly to this moment in time.
In a small chapter in this small book, there is but 1 ½ pages of a spectacular point. The heading of these pages is “Remember that Everything has God’s Fingerprints on It”. Carlson writes, “Rabbi Harold Kushner reminds us that everything that God has created is potentially holy. Our task as humans is to find that holiness in what appear to be unholy situations. He suggests that when we can learn to do this, we will have learned to nurture our souls. It’s easy to see God’s beauty in a beautiful sunrise, a snow-capped mountain, the smile of a healthy child, or in ocean waves crashing on a sandy beach. But can we learn to find the holiness in seemingly ugly circumstances—difficult life lessons, a family tragedy, or a struggle for life? When our life is filled with the desire to see the holiness in everyday things, something magical happens…The fact that we can’t see the beauty in something doesn’t suggest that it’s not there. Rather, it suggests that we are not looking carefully enough or with a broad enough perspective to see it.” (Pp.121-122)
Are you like me? There are certain situations that, when encountered, the last thing I’m thinking about is ‘to look for the holy…to look for the beauty’? It seems counter-intuitive to ask us to approach ugly things in this fashion. However, if I (and maybe you too) believe that God is greater than any situation. If I (and maybe you too) believe that God is present everywhere. If I (and maybe you too) believe that God is all-powerful, then perhaps the ugliest of places are the very places to look for God to appear. If we believe what we profess as Christians that God works all things for good. The Apostle Paul certainly believed that and taught the early Christians of the Roman Empire, “We know that God works all things together for good for the ones that love God, for those who are called according to his purpose”. If you and I agree with the elder Apostle, then maybe, just maybe, in ALL things we need to pay more attention to the location of God’s fingerprints in the ugliness.
This in no way suggests that God causes ‘ugliness,’ but it does suggest that no amount of ugliness is too ugly to intimidate God from walking into the center of it and proclaiming that ‘ugly will not have the last word’!
There are occasions when I’m (and maybe you are too) so close to the ugliness that I need help from someone else to locate the fingerprints of God. There are situations of grief, struggle, pain, heartbreak, betrayal, disappointment, human fracture where I need someone else to shout into my life, “Look, Terry…here is God’s fingerprints…God is here…Look carefully Terry, God’s fingerprints (God’s DNA, if you will) are at the very center of this mess”. Isn’t it true that we need each other’s help to remember God’s fingerprints are on everything…even in the midst of the ugly.
AND here’s the thing…once someone helps us see those strong and mighty fingerprints of God in the ugly…then we begin to see them, and once we do…we start pointing them out to others as well.
Some birthday gifts have a lifespan that is nearly eternal. Their impact is longer-lasting than expected. Sort of like God’s fingerprints…always present.
Always Thinking…
