quiddity

"Lewis gave me an intense sense of the "realness" of things. The preciousness of this is hard to communicate. To wake up in the morning and be aware of the firmness of the mattress, the warmth of the sun's rays, the sound of the clock ticking, the sheer being of things ("quiddity" as he calls it). He helped me become alive to life. He helped me see what is there in the world - that, if we don't have, we would pay a million dollars to have, but having them, ignore. He made me more alive to beauty. He put my soul on notice that there are daily wonders that will waken worship if I open my eyes. He shook my dozing soul and threw the cold water of reality in my face, so that life and God and heaven and hell broke into my world with glory and horror."
- John Piper (on C.S. Lewis), Don't Waste Your Life

Reading this immediately reminded me of a thought that crossed my mind gazing at the sky on the way home, sometime in my junior year of high school.
Friday, March 21, 2008:
"Have you ever looked at the sky on a cloudless day? Like really looked at it, gazed at it, in Ms. Clark language, delved into it.
I didn't know the sky could be so blue. After looking at so many painted skies and photographed skies and tinted car window skies and skies interrupted by cables and trees and rooftops, it was mystifying seeing the real thing. I mean, it's such a clear, unblemished, blue blue. It was so strange scanning it and finding not even the subtlest signs of a brush stroke. You could not tell at all where faint blue became intense blue, it just happens before you realize it.
I always imagine how beautiful the perfectly sky sky would look and then I look up one day and it's there. It took me half an hour to realize this was it. It was so unbelievably perfect and yet it really was there...
It's so much like who God has been to me these past weeks. I read Isaiah 53 and imagine how outrageous and colossal and wonderful the story is. I talk about and thank God for the cross and for redemption and for grace. I sing How Great is Our God and hear about His wrath. I know He created all things and nothing, nobody exists without Him breathing life into it.
And then I look at the sky, I gaze at you and I think, oh my gosh this is the truth
...God over hurricanes and stars. God of Israel. God of fate and all these people and DNA and laminin.
...That I could owe so much yet be given so much...It's so intangible yet it's reality"

Thank You for gifted thinkers and writers who can pen ideas that people like me always longed to express but never knew how.
Thank You that I kept this entry even though I felt silly and clumsy writing it at the time.
Thank You for all the time I have until the internship to read all day.
Thank You for realization of this "realness".
Thank You for every breath, every minute, every task, all undeserved.