The point of it all

I've been playing with Gimp, trying to make myself some seasonal "wallpaper" for my computer...

I'm not entirely happy with it, mostly because I find it visually distracting... But I thought I'd throw it out here anyway.

This might be my favorite passage of scripture; it puts literally everything in perspective. Simply put, Christ was the turning point. In a sense we are now in the denouement of human, and perhaps cosmological, history. The war is won. I am unsure of my place in the great mopping-up operation, but I know the change is happening before my eyes, and I rejoice. (My apologies if this sentiment is better oriented toward Christmas than Advent; I find it impossible not to look toward the thing anticipated, I guess. My kids can't wait for Christmas either!)

Another effect of recognizing the Christ-centric nature of, well, the whole universe: questions about the literal or figurative nature of the Genesis creation account begin to seem rather niggling. You look at the Hubble Deep Field photo and can almost hear God saying, "Did I say six days? Oh. Actually I meant FOURTEEN BILLION YEARS. Because as you might have heard I HAVE THAT KIND OF TIME."

Who knows how long the aforementioned mopping-up operation will take? Perhaps long enough to make friends of all our former enemies? Long enough for all the stars to burn out and something unforeseen and unimaginable to blaze up in their place?