Welcome to Buoy, a Life in Deeper Water podcast. Episode 9. A Good Year for the Unseen | Beautiful Earthly Things
Hello human.
(click here to listen)
Today’s episode begins a mini series on filling your 2023 earthly life with heavenly treasures. This series explores the parallel of loving high quality earthly things—the SEEN—with loving heavenly treasures—the UNSEEN. It is about filling your earthly life with beautiful heavenly things that make life precious for you, and others.
I think giving holds the holiday season together. More specifically, the birth of Heaven’s Giver.
In a season branded by the ebb and flow of wanting and giving—to reflect on earthly things we so easily love, to consider the transcendence that treasuring brings, and to prompt how we commission our human nature to treasure and love our Heavenly Father deeply… seems ambitious. A bit much. Aren’t we already in stage one of seasonal exhaustion that the merry, merry pace brings?
So hey, how about first, I start with a little on earthly things. While we are in the spirit of buying earthly treasures for loved ones, and those not-as-loved. While treasuring is top of mind.
Earthly Treasures are So Easy to Love
I have always loved architectural design, dance in any form, orchestras and the transforming power of a well-crafted sentence. I am forever drawn to the intimacy of aesthetic inspiration to create beautiful earthly things.
How do we channel the human affinities of the heart for heavenly gain? Earthly treasures are so much easier to love. I started to write about beautiful earthly things at the outset of the pandemic—when I wanted to be emotionally soothed by custom comforts in an uncomfortable world—but my subconscious held off.
Until now. On the other side of a slow fade pandemic and a country wrestling with every-man inflation and the holiday wind-up. It is surprising to me that I am writing about this now, when earthly things take up far less mental space in my daily thoughts. I am more about the massive water in front of me, missing urban life, and loving the people God puts in front of me. Seems off-message, but oh, the road this is taking holds promise. And it is this road that I find myself on during my 99journey. 99 times I will share where I am in how my faith is my witness, God’s divine persuasion in my life. If you missed the purpose of 99, go to my website and click on “if you only read this.” Then you will know.
So, bringing my holiday heart into a new year for the purpose of giving of myself more extravagantly is an inspiring response to the birth of the Son who gave everything to do God’s Will.
I can’t remember ever not loving God. But I am very familiar with the chronic pulse-pulse—tug of not loving Him deeply, and above all else. How do I seek out and love His eternal qualities as naturally as my admiration and appreciation of something tangible, let’s say, a simple walnut coffee table. The one in my living room. Wood grain is a compelling earthly touchpoint. It has visual staying power, and the lure of hues that deepen in their richness with changing light. It’s hard to grow tired of wood grain. If you work with wood, to build a beautiful earthly thing, you know it intimately.
And let’s be honest about the ease of earthly wanting. A certain purse comes to mind. Consider this: I am standing at the shop window on Columbus Circle in Manhattan, appreciating the craftmanship of an amazing purse—its clarity of design. I effortlessly commit to the luxury of standing there and deliberately making it precious. I didn’t plan on buying it. But I did want to engage in the style, craftsmanship and the wanting. I did want to pay aesthetic homage to its creator, for such transparent vision. I look at my photo of that purse now and again.
But in that moment, I couldn’t stop looking. Because our human nature treasures things we can see, that reward our visual wanting and affirm our aesthetic sensibility. The context just deepens the experience—a City neighborhood I love so freely—a context that enriches and deepens the memory. The urban walk over. The urban walk home. The passing by. The glance. Is it still there? Oh, it’s gone.
An Exquisite Sense of Well-Being
How do I treasure eternity like that? To want to seek out the grain of God’s character? To want to hear His voice all day as if it were the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center, to seek His word as if a croissant from Balthazar’s on Prince & Broadway, or to binge read about His Son’s earthly life as if a 300-page historical novel or season three of my go-to Netflix series?
I have loved my fair share of well-made earthly things. I appreciate them. But this is not about greed. Or shopping. I am too loyal to craftmanship to toss one beautiful earthly thing aside for the next beautiful thing. I am generous with my respect for quality and aesthetic inspiration. Right now, the thoughtfully-stitched lining on my beach jacket. My straw + leather backpack. Earthly things I use often. I take good care of my earthly treasures and preserve the moments and memories that go with them. I don’t make them compete with too many other things. Loyalty can be a powerful advocate for seeking and stewarding heavenly treasure.
What comes to mind for you? It could be anything that merits your attention and appreciation for how it was made, that you have mentally given its creator your gratitude: a car, a tool, a piece of jewelry, a special box, the perfect chair, the decade-defying collared shirt that you always feel good; the beautifully crafted kitchen pan, something made so well you have had it for as long as you can remember… that well-made thing that brings an exquisite sense of well-being to your life.
When I think about the earthly things I love, creative process fills my brain cells. The beauty of how it was made, the journey of the creator in crafting the vision. A storyline—that takes me down the road to holding something precious in my heart. Even a well-made shoe box stands this test, somehow noble and true. Just think of all the shoe boxes quiet-in-waiting, holding all the precious things of people all over the world.
Things made custom with creative purpose.
Signature Qualities of A Well-Made Thing
Four signature qualities come to mind.
Craftsmanship. The paying attention. Executing on every detail. Investing in and relentlessly executing your talent. Losing self completely in the craft of the creative process.
Aesthetic. Creating something not seen before, capturing the maker’s inspiration. Igniting an unexplained celebration in the admirer’s heart. A pleasing.
Efficiency. Striking the tenuous balance of form and function at the summit of “enough.” Understated. Stopping short of excess. Creative energy that doesn’t overshoot the mark.
Style. Staking claim to being one of a kind. Having a way about it. A way about you.
Seeking beauty, seeking value that exceeds expectations, seeking and defining anything as a treasure, is something we are all capable of doing. Our human nature seeks the process of making something precious. We make things, experiences, and people precious.
The Kingdom of Heaven is Hidden in Your Field
What we treasure and how we treasure, makes up a life. Knowingly, or unknowingly, it represents our heart.
34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Luke 12:34
The kingdom of heaven is the eternal heirloom from Heaven’s Giver to us. The only legacy we will ever need has a singular focus.
44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Matthew 13:44
Well, ok. I found my treasure. I hid it. I am joyful. I am buying my field. But. Selling all—giving everything I am to seek my treasure—remains a daily human struggle. Giving everything for the kingdom of God swims upstream from how we are motivated on earth. Earthly gain is a powerful currency that wants to be spent in how we indulge in the here and now. The SEEN.
But think about this: How we hold precious earthly life illuminates in such small proportion the infinite capacity of our spiritual nature to hold precious the UNSEEN.
God gives us the ability to hold the kingdom of Heaven as most precious. Through our free will and God-given faith we hear His call. What did I find in my field? The capacity to love God deeply. And live with Him in His Kingdom.
Called by God’s Glory and Goodness
We are called by God’s glory and goodness. The way I see it is Peter tells us that we have been given everything we need. But we are called to respond to God’s character.
3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 2 Peter 1:3
God gives us what we need to treasure heavenly things in our earthly life. Our heavenly treasures are found in His character. His Kingdom is the treasure buried in my field. It is not about knowing Him a little deeper, because a little more is not enough, a little more misses the spiritual mark.
It is to know Him deeply. Period. It is how we will come to know for what purpose He masterfully created each of us. And rest in His truth.
What does it look like when He “calls us by his own glory and goodness?”
Who is our God of divine craftsmanship? Let’s ask Moses.
Next up: Episode 10 Part 2 of A Good Year for the Unseen: The God of Divine Craftsmanship
His grace. My gratitude.
See ya on the Buoy.
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You can find me at kathrynbise.com and @buoykathrynb on Instagram.
Buoy is a Life in Deeper Water podcast.