A ribbon runs through it

 

How did I miss this?

It’s one of those moments of realization that stops me in my tracks. I’m in the Nashville airport and am seeing something -- correct that: noticing something – for the first time, literally under my feet.

To explain, let me dial back a day.

I just completed a gig here that required me to incorporate an image the client had previous created – a lotus blossom with something like meandering vapor trails emanating from the flower. Knowing I couldn’t reproduce those wisps in markers, I opted to add drawn ribbons that flowed and twisted across each board.

Perhaps no one recognized what I was doing. But the effect seemed to work well, linking the design across the multiple images.

This morning, with time to fill before my return flight, I decided to walk around the airport. And suddenly, I see ribbons everywhere! Embedded in the floor, they wind through every hallway. They weave around pillars, intersecting with each other almost playfully.

Not once during my previous visits did I notice them. And I doubt that even one in a hundred people around me pay them any attention.

This reminds me of the presence of Jesus. As the hymn says, “"Underneath me, all around me, Is the current of Thy love.” So often it is unseen, unnoticed. Paul, in his Aeropagus sermon in Acts 17 quotes the Greek poet, Epimenides: “In him we live and move and have our being.” (As an aside, how cool would it be to have a random line from one’s writing end up as Scripture?) Paul redirects this defining presence from the intended Zeus to the true God who is revealed to us in the person of Jesus.

And who is this Jesus? Nothing less than the One who formed and sustains all life:

“All things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Col. 1:16-17

I’ve thought often, as I’ve been studying the gospel of John, about how Jesus tried to transform the spiritual framework of people he encountered. The issue remains the same for us today. Is Jesus simply a moral example, a teacher, a prophet? Is he simply someone to add into our life to help us through rough patches?

Or is he the spiritual DNA of all life, the one at the center around which everything orbits?

Today, I am reminded that he is the ribbon running through all life. I sense, in this delightful example of life imitating art, the current of his love -- the undulating, even joyous, movement of his ever-present grace and power.

The task he has given us is to notice that ribbon. To walk through our homes, churches, offices, even airports recognizing that he is not only our destination, but the path beneath our feet.

Lord Jesus, you are in all things. Enable our eyes to see how you interact with us throughout each day, so that we can worship you as you deserve.

Reader: what surprising reminder have you had recently of Jesus’s presence in your day?