Indigo Blue Bunting

I have been pondering the “ion” words in the Bible! Ascension, Incarnation, Resurrection, and even Annunciation! At the risk of sounding too “cute” I am struck by the relationship between them and especially by the three letters “i o n”. It makes me think of ions which causes me to think about chemical charges and energy. All seems to be connected to divine power.

I am wondering about God’s creative and imaginative reordering and reorganization of space and time, matter and energy. Annunciation-an authorized angel startles Mary to yes; Incarnation-total and complete human and divine energy and possibility made flesh; Resurrection-physical matter remarkably disappears to another time and space; Ascension-another kind of disappearance which reorients time and space, not to mention heads and feet. These all seem to be numinous transformations of time and space by divine energy. 

An ion is defined as an atom or molecule with a net electric charge due to the loss or gain of one or more electrons. This in itself is a reordering, a loss or gain, which creates in the new balance some kind of energy. 

So there you have it. God is making all things new and in so doing there are losses and gains which never go unwasted but rather contribute to an organic charged whole. This whole is “charged with the grandeur of God” (Gerard Manley Hopkins). 

Every once in a while when we are open and aware and paying attention we get a glimpse of this holy energy, this glory, this wonder. Like yesterday when I was talking to my sister and for the briefest moment a blue bunting rested on the branch by my window (the one where Jesus gazes!). I almost shrieked at the beauty! Never have I been so close to that blue, that indigo blue. Surely it was there to radiate a transforming color, to get my complete attention, to cause an otherwise ordinary moment into an extraordinary one. 

I now am charged with some kind of grandeur as well.