Seth Lewis's Blog

If you can take one seed
and grow a mighty tree
Lord, will the world see you,
if I am growing, too?

If you can use five loaves
to feed five thousand souls
I wonder what you’ll do
with the crumbs I offer you?

It’s everywhere. It sticks to your hands in the garden, and clings tightly to your shoes until the moment you step inside, where it promptly falls onto the just-cleaned floor. It stains the knees and elbows of children’s clothes, collects on the sides of cars, and turns into a sloppy mess in the rain. Dirt.

Where I live, the dirt is usually hidden beneath a blanket of growing life. The soil is good in Ireland, and it stays well-watered, so it sprouts with a hundred thousand shades of green and fills with a million tangled roots of all sizes and varieties. When I look out at our garden, or a forest, or the green fields around our village, my attention is drawn to the life that blooms and grows above the ground. I hardly ever think of the ground itself—unless the dirt is causing me problems by collecting where I don’t want it, or I’m using it to plant something new in the garden. Otherwise, dirt is easy to ignore. Even though it’s everywhere, it’s mostly out of sight, and not nearly as impressive as the things that grow out of it. It’s just dirt.

It’s just dirt. It’s just what keeps our world alive. Without it, the forests would die, the crops would die, the animals would die, and we would join them. Look more closely, and you’ll discover that the dirt under our feet is a never-ending gift of God’s generous genius. It catches rainwater, slowing its flow and preventing constant flash-floods. It filters pollutants out of the water table, and retains moisture for the plants to draw on. When the abundant life above it dies, the soil receives its death and breaks down its nutrients into usable forms for the next generation of growth. It also stores and releases gasses, helping to regulate them, while providing a habitat for countless kinds of life—not only the plants but also animals that dig and worms and insects that burrow and did you know that even a single teaspoon of soil can contain a billion bacteria? Dirt is not just a nuisance on your children’s shoes. It is the foundation of our world’s life, and as silent as it may seem, it is a hive of constant activity—activity that is essential for our continued existence.

Don’t ever look down on the dirt. It holds the roots of our lives, and our history. It is the very substance God used to craft the first man, breathing his own life into “the dust of the ground” (Genesis 2:7) to create a living, loving image of himself (Genesis 1:27). As a potter shapes the clay, so God shaped the dirt, and the result was you and me and everyone who has ever lived. Our Creator can take what is lowly and overlooked, what we wash from our hands and bodies because it’s filthy with accumulating death and waste, and he can turn that dirt into the perfect material to carry his life. He does it all the time. He does it all over the world. And he does it with his children.

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” – 2 Corinthians 4:7

We are the jars, literally shaped from the clay. Is it humbling to remember that you are made of clay? Clay is just dirt. Just dirt that carries God’s life, displaying the generous genius and care and power of our glorious Creator. Don’t ever look down on the dirt.

The area we live in is booming. The fields are growing houses, and there are rivers of tail lights flooding the little roads that used to flow freely. As I sat in the car, waiting again, I thought about how the people who lived here in generations past used to get around. It was walking, mostly, at the pace of people or animals, and even with the traffic my car is faster than that. On the other hand, I know that walking is healthier, and also when I walk I often bump into people I know and we might have a friendly chat—which isn’t possible when we only glimpse each other through passing windscreens. All of this got me thinking about a question I’d never considered before: what kind of transportation will we use in Heaven?

When people imagine future utopias, they usually include some varieties of impressively fast transportation technologies—flying cars, jetpacks, spaceships, and the like. These kinds of technologies are simply more advanced versions of what we have already. They get people from A to B even faster, even easier, and isn’t that the goal?

It’s our goal, so it makes sense that our visions of progress would aim in that direction. I’m just not convinced that Heaven will apply the same assumptions and priorities to its transportation systems. When Jesus visited Mary and Martha’s house, Martha got upset because Mary sat and listened to Jesus instead of helping her with all the jobs that needed to be done. Jesus’ response was, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41-42). We live in a world where the transportation network is built on the priorities of Martha. Frenetic and fast, efficient and focused, anxious and grumbling constantly about anyone who seems to be holding us up—as Martha grumbled against Mary. I wonder what it would look like to move through the world more like a Mary? If we truly focused ourselves first and foremost on the Lord—the one true necessity—and learned at his feet how to love like he does, how would that reshape our priorities? And how would our new priorities reshape our transportation networks?

I can’t tell you the answer. I’m too used to living like Martha, and driving like Martha, and I find it hard to even imagine what the answer would look like. All I can say is that I expect the ways we get around in Heaven to be quite different from what we’ve grown accustomed to. I know from scripture that God cares deeply about people, and I expect that priority will be reflected in everything, everywhere in Heaven. He also cares deeply about all he has made, and I expect the ways we get around will reflect a care and attention to God’s creation that is usually absent in our current systems. There is also the reality that in Heaven, there’s no time limit. Life is not short there. Death will not be breathing down our necks. Age will not be encroaching. Youth will not begin fading as quickly as it blooms. We’ll have time. So will we still emphasise speed above almost everything else in almost every activity? I doubt it. I don’t know exactly how it will look, but I’d imagine we’ll prefer to enjoy God’s new creation, and each other, while we’re getting from A to B in Heaven. I think we’ll look back and realise that the frantic pace of earth often robbed us of seeing and savouring God’s good gifts. And while I’m curious about how Heavenly transportation systems will reflect Heavenly priorities, I’m more concerned to start reflecting those priorities now, however I can.

In our midweek Bible studies with our church we’ve been discussing the book of Hosea, and this poem is based on one of the themes we found there—a theme I’ve experienced in my own life as well.

Glorious Defeat

I raise my eyes
to my opponent
standing in the way
towering above my head
and shining like the day
I size him up
I shake my fist
I’m impotent
yet I resist
“Why?”
I shout out my complaint
though my own voice
sounds small and quaint
“Why are you here blocking me?
Move aside, now! Let me be!”
He doesn’t budge
his sword is drawn
he’s ready now for action
his eyes are burning hot
with an unsettling compassion
and with a voice
like rushing water
larger than the world
he answers with a knowing smile
“Child” he says
“My child”—is that really who I am?
“I only stand to save you from the peril
that you’re in. This path leads to destruction—
if you turn, you’ll live again. So I’ll block you
and I’ll fight you and I’ll stop you till you see
that the path to perfect freedom
is the path that leads to me.”
And so I am undone
in my glorious defeat
I run into his arms
and I find the victory

I’m posting a day early this week, in honour of Saint Patrick’s Day. It’s a national holiday here in Ireland, and rightfully so. I’ve collected this selection of links to help you understand and celebrate the man who brought good news to Ireland.

Patrick’s story, in his own words

Most of what we know for sure about Patrick comes from his own account of his life, which he called his “confessions”. It’s not a long read, and it’s fascinating. You can find it posted on patrickstory.ie, along with other great content about the message and legacy of Patrick and what it can mean for you today.

Prayer of Saint Patrick

This song by Irish band Rend Collective is based on a prayer that Patrick himself wrote, known as Saint Patrick’s Breastplate. This is not the full song, but you can find it wherever you listen to music.

Two book recommendations

Patrick of Ireland: His Life and Impact by Michael Haykin

This is a short book, and it’s an easy read. Haykin (who is half Irish himself) is one of the foremost church historians alive today, and he writes about Patrick in an engaging, inspiring way. 

The Rise and Fall of Christian Ireland by Crawford Gribben

Gribben traces the history of Christianity on his own native island all the way from Patrick to the modern era. If you want to understand Ireland better, this is a great book to help you. 

The Book of Kells

The message Patrick brought to Ireland reshaped the culture to the extent that Ireland became known as “the land of saints and scholars”. One of the treasures that still exists from that period is the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript of the four gospels. Here is a gallery of pictures, highlighting the meaning of some of its exquisite details.

Planxty MacClancy

This tune doesn’t have anything particularly to do with Saint Patrick himself, but it’s played by three Irish harpists and it’s beautifully done.

Patrick Loved Ireland First

Finally, a throwback to one of my own posts, highlighting how Patrick loved Ireland before Ireland loved Patrick

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

She didn’t want to go to the dentist.

My friend already knew she had cavities, and she knew the dentist would want to do something about them. If she avoided seeing him, she could ignore the problem a little longer. It’s easy to ignore a cavity if the tooth is still functioning. Drills and fillings feel drastic when it’s entirely possible to carry on as normal with no intervention at all. The easiest way to deal with a little bit of decay is to apply a little bit of wilful ignorance to it. The trouble, of course, is that wilful ignorance is not an effective treatment for cavities. It only gives them time to grow. And as the decay grows, the wilful ignorance will have to grow with it. To keep a growing problem out of our minds, we must continually increase the capacity of our tolerance for it, slowly expanding the diameter of our blind spots to fit over its ugly edges.

I’m not just talking about teeth. As bad as it is to lose a tooth that has rotted from the inside out, it’s far worse when this happens to our souls. It could be a secret sin, held quietly in the corner, taken out and enjoyed whenever the gaze of others is turned away. Porn. Resentment. Anger. Jealousy. Discontentment. Self-pity. A driving need for control. A small pin-prick through the enamel of the soul. A small foothold for rot to take root. In the darkness of being ignored, it grows. And in the act of ignoring a problem that we know exists, our tolerance also grows. We become accustomed to the dark spots being just a little bit bigger than they were, a little bit darker, and deeper. If the destruction happened all at once, we’d probably be shocked into action. When the progress of the decay is imperceptibly slow, it’s easier to just re-size our wilful ignorance so that it keeps covering the problem for as long as possible. Until everything falls apart.

Sometimes people wonder how western culture was allowed to reach such an advanced stage of decay. How Epstein’s associates still walk free, and politicians openly enrich themselves, and how truth became a malleable weaponed to reshape, reframe, and enflame. It didn’t happen overnight. The pinpricks were always there. And every time we ignored them—when we overlooked a lie, or excused an affair, or when we just stayed silent about the problems on our side because the other side was worse—they grew. And with them, our tolerance also grew. What happens with teeth also happens with our souls, and with our societies.

I am firmly convinced that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only drill that can cut to the root of all our wrongs and bring real restoration to any soul, or any society. It is drastic—we must allow the blade to reach deep into the rot in our own hearts, first. We must die to ourselves to live with Christ. But it’s time we realised that our attempts to live without him are only a slow kind of death, from the inside out. Restoration won’t happen without drastic intervention. It’s time to stop pretending that the decay we’re living with is manageable, something we can look away from and cover a little longer, with a little more wilful ignorance. It’s time we went to the dentist.

Here’s a poem to compliment my previous post, A Treasure Chest for Thoughts

I have often wandered in
The Hundred Acre Wood
If you’ve never been to Neverland
I’ll tell you that you could
But mind yourself—
There’s pirates there
And don’t trust Long John Silver
You need a bear like ol’ Baloo,
The jungle-wisdom giver
I’ve been in boats with Rat and Mole
And Huckleberry Finn
And for a time the Pevensies
Were pretty much my kin
I cried when Old Dan died and I
Rejoiced when Gandalf was revived
And I have lived a thousand lives
While sitting by the bookshelf

Class was finished for the day at Munster Bible College. As my friend looked over the school’s library, he said, “I never used to read at all before I came here. I just looked at movies and videos and stuff like that. But then I had to read for class, and now I can’t wait to get my hands on more books. I had no idea how many treasures there are in those pages!”

I had never thought of a book as a treasure chest before. A treasure chest just looks like a bit of wood, a normal storage container. A book is made of wood as well, pulped thin and bound together. The goods stored inside it aren’t piled up, they’re drawn out into lines of squiggled ink that would be worthless except for the meaning they’re imbued with, the clusters of agreed letters forming words with agreed meanings representing the ideas that grew in someone else’s mind—the internal thoughts of another human soul translated from their consciousness onto an external medium that you can now hold and interpret and understand. Some fantasy stories include magic books that can see into the past or the future, but my shelves are full of magic books that open portals into the minds and imaginations of other humans—even people who lived long ago, who I could never talk to, yet in their books I hear them talk to me, telling me stories and sharing their wisdom.

A book is a treasure chest for thoughts. Crack open the covers, and you’ll find a wealth of ideas in its words. They can take you out of yourself and show you new places and new perspectives. I learned new things about friendship with God from a monk who washed dishes in medieval France. I learned about courage in the face of overwhelming evil from a fictional story set in a fictional world, written by a man I’ve never met who lived through the overwhelming evil of a world at war. I learned how to face pain and suffering with trust, contentment, and even joy from a woman who has lived most of her life quadriplegic, in a wheelchair. I haven’t done that. But she opened her mind to me in a book, and I benefitted from her thoughts. Books can show you new truths you hadn’t thought of, and old truths from new angles you never noticed before. Books can show you lies, as well, and inconsistencies and biases and gaps and misrepresentations—and if you’re careful that can benefit you, too, because the process of thinking through the problems in the thinking of others can help to shore up the gaps in your own thoughts.

Thinking is hard work. Books can, however, give you new companions in that work. Friends from far away and long ago, who can join the work beside you. Social media can’t replicate this with its stream of short, snappy snippets. Most properly developed thoughts don’t fit well into five second videos or two-sentence statements, and even blog posts can only go so far (says the author, on his blog). Podcasts and films and documentaries can be useful, but most of the world’s great treasures of thought and imagination are found between the treasure-chest binding of good books. To access them and claim their wealth, you must take up and read.

Let’s be honest: reading isn’t always easy. My attention span is shorter than it used to be. I feel it. Life is busy. I also read painfully slowly. To make space for reading, I’ve deleted the games on my devices, but I still find it hard to pick up a book instead of scrolling through endless headlines and mind-numbing posts, advertisements, and internet slop. Here are three things that have helped me greatly to stay engaged with reading:

First, remember that it’s okay to read a little bit at a time. You can actually just read a few pages or one chapter, put the book down, and move on to something else. It’s ok. Even a few minutes spent in someone else’s thoughts can expand the reach and capacity of your own. And as you engage your mind with short segments, your capacity to read for longer periods will also grow.

Second, I’ve found that it’s important to choose books carefully. Some books have very little to say, and take a long time saying it. Some are poorly written, or poorly thought out. Others are so good that once you start, you’ll never want to put them down. If you get bogged down in a bad book, put it down and get something else to read. I’ve found it helpful to get recommendations from people I trust for books (of all genres and eras) that hide the most treasure between their pages.

Third, take one day of rest every week. This might not sound like it has much to do with reading, but it’s been one of the most helpful things for my reading life. It was God’s idea to stop working one day out of seven, and I’ve found that this habit clears my mind and gives me space to refresh it with new thoughts, as well.

If you’re not in the habit of reading, I’d encourage you to make a start, even if it’s small. If you do read already, I’d love to hear any books you’ve enjoyed recently. I just finished “Everything is Never Enough” by Bobby Jamison, and it’s a perspective-changer that I can’t stop thinking about. I recommend it. I also recently enjoyed “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, which is the kind of fiction that helps you think more clearly about reality. What are you reading?

A break in the clouds made the sun shine briefly, and it filtered through the leaves of the trees that surrounded me. I’m still not well versed on the native tree species of Ireland, so I didn’t know what to call all the varieties around me. As I looked more closely at them, I thought species names wouldn’t really do them justice, anyway. Each tree was so unique, twisted and knobbed in its own peculiar ways, reaching outward and upward and marked with its own particular spots and stripes and lumpy roots. Each told its own silent story of growth over decades, with its scars to prove the challenge of survival and its buds to show the promise of life. I wanted to call each one by its own name, something fitting to itself, honouring its own unique existence. I stopped at one tree in particular and tried to find a name that would suit it. It looked stately and strong, like a weathered General in his dress uniform, but General is more of a title than a name, and probably too general. Anyway, it’s a bit silly and sentimental to be going around naming trees, isn’t it?

I don’t think it is, actually. The Bible tells us that God himself names parts of his creation. In Psalm 147:4, we’re told that,

“He determines the number of the stars
    and calls them each by name.”

A star is not even alive like a tree is, although of course it is far bigger. It’s a giant burning ball of gas, and scientists estimate that there are somewhere around 200 sextillion of them in the observable universe, which is a very big number (to put it mildly). Nobody can guess how many might exist beyond our ability to see. We’ll never know how many there actually are, much less be able to name them. I have trouble remembering the names of the people in my little corner of the world. God tracks hundreds of billion trillions of individual star names. That’s impressive, but it’s not only impressive. It’s also significant, I think. Naming things is not necessary. A star would still shine anonymously. You don’t name the individual cogs of a large machine—but God names the stars, so apparently he does not view his universe as a machine.

A name speaks of significance, intimate knowledge, and care. To name something is to recognise it, appreciate it, and honour it. We name inanimate things we love, as well—like rivers, mountains, and oddly shaped rock outcroppings. We name a few stars, and we call the moon that orbits us “The Moon”—which is just as original as a toddler naming their stuffed animal “Bear” or “Tiger”, but it’s a name, just the same. If we didn’t call it anything, it would still shine anonymously. Yet somehow with a name, the pale light feels warmer, closer, and more familiar—and I think creation is supposed to feel familiar, like a work of art with a name and a signature. It is God’s work of art, and his signature is evident everywhere. It is no machine. It is personal. And just as the paint of a masterpiece becomes far more than its chemistry and pigmentation, the works of God’s creation become far more than their molecules and textures. They carry the meaning breathed into their existence by the Artist who spoke them into being. Is that not worthy of a name?

I wonder if every aspect of creation has a name as unique as it is, speaking of its identity, purpose, and significance in revealing the heart of its Creator. God names his stars. Does he also name his trees? Does The General have a stately name to honour his grand stature? If he does, I think it must be magnificent. Either way, the signature of his Maker is clear.

Life is not a reward that comes
after all of the chores are done

after all of the children
are fed and the
workweek is over and
laundry is sorted we
hope that our plans won’t be scrapped or reordered
for moments of peace, or a day to de-stress—

if that’s what life is,
tell me what is the rest?

Life is right here
hiding here in these moments
in dishes and spreadsheets and auto mechanics
in toothpaste and heartbreaks and peeling the carrots
and only the ones who refuse to ignore it

will live every day they’re alive

“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s “own,” or “real” life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day.”
— C.S. Lewis