In stark contrast to the pep rally and music, the quick, crisp, intersecting parabolas with which our junior high band director’s baton marks a 3-something time signature has my full attention. Rather than carving smooth arcs in the air, the white baton leaves a fading trail of visual breadcrumbs, staccato segments testifying to the motion. In my 13 years, it is the first time I suspect that either my eyes or my mind might have a frame rate. Based on the speed of his movements and the number of points I very roughly estimate in each arc, I figure I am converting about 60 images per second into my consciousness’ video.
Later, I realize it is more likely the flicker of the gym’s fluorescent lights creating the impression of video frames, my eyes unable to compensate for the darkness between bright moments. The initial error and subsequent realization point to the same truth: my inability to see the fulness of anything.
For example, our roseate vision annihilates much of the past. In contrast, God not only knows but perspicuously declares the future. Hence Isaiah: “Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose….”
We know some but not all: capture a moment but lose its context, see matter but miss spirit, feel urgency but forget importance, experience pain but deny its purpose, hear a sentence but ignore its voice. The staccato narrative we live is real, but so is everything on the pages we cannot, do not, or will not read—the very things God can, does, and wills to know; the deliberate and continuous arc of his power and will.
To a week trusting and following the director who is when we are not, does when we do not, and wills when we will not.