Angela White: Required Text Reading 1: Masks

In Landscapes of the Sacred, Belden C. Lane touches on the idea of holiness being hidden behind a mask. He quotes Martin Luther in saying that God’s “naked, awful majesty could never be pursued directly”. He goes on to mention things that could be masks of God, such as pieces of the landscape, artwork, and various other beautiful things found in the world. At first I was really spectacle about the idea of God hiding his holiness behind a mask. I thought, ‘If he were so great and magnificent, and wants us to love Him and much as He loves us, then why would he hide?”. After reading further, however I realized that it makes perfect sense, as God is present in everything. It makes sense for God to place Himself within things for us to find Him within the beauty. Why wouldn’t He want to be more present in this marvelous universe that He created? This idea forces me to look more closely at the world around me, attempting to find God in every little object that I encounter. The book says that Pablo Picasso died trying to find God’s mask in his artwork, why shouldn’t we all do the same?