God’s masterpiece revisited

Yesterday I was again practicing a thought about “God’s masterpiece” (I’ve practiced this before and written about it before, too). So I thought I would share some reflections on the concept.

First, let’s think about God as an artistic creator (the lower-case “c” is deliberate). Think about the resources He would bring to the act of artistic creation. He would have to be not just intelligent, but brilliant beyond conception. He would have to have an IQ that is actually infinite. Along the same lines, His creativity and originality would also have to be off the charts.

Second, His power would also have to be infinite, wouldn’t it? As such, creating something like a physical universe would be far too small a thing for His creative powers. It would be like Da Vinci creating a careless, microscopic smear of paint with a single hair from his arm, and then exhibiting it as his greatest work. Just as that is unimaginable, so is it unimaginable to think of God presenting this universe as His handiwork.

Third, we need to imagine God having the creative urge in God-like proportions. In human beings, the urge to create can be extremely intense. In people who feel this intensity, there can be an overpowering drive to take the very best in you and express it in the perfect form, in order to move, uplift, edify, or simply “wow” others. Imagine God having a God-sized version of this urge, so that all He wanted was to take the most pure, holy, perfect, and awe-inspiring depths of His Own Being and express those depths in the form of the perfect creation.

Finally, we need to imagine not just any creation of God’s, but God’s masterpiece. Think about it. What would that masterpiece be like? From the Course’s standpoint, it would be too vast, too infinitely precious, too inherently meaningful, too inexpressibly holy, to be anything of form. No, it would have to be much more than a mere physical form. It would have to be a being, a living, sentient being. But not just any being—this being would have to be the receptacle of all of God’s goodness, brilliance, power, and purity. Anything less, and it wouldn’t be His masterpiece.

As you can well imagine, the Course pictures us standing before this masterpiece absolutely transfixed, completely enraptured, and even falling to our knees. It would be quite simply the greatest, most joyous sight that one could ever encounter.

This masterpiece, of course, is God’s Son. And the focus in the Course is on viewing this masterpiece in our brother. What an astonishing thought—that inside my brother, who seems to be such a flawed human animal, scurrying busily around in search of food and shelter, is the very masterpiece I have been speaking of.

If we really believed this, how would we feel toward our brother? And how would we act? If we really saw our brother this way, would it even be possible to hide it?

I had a pretty good day with this yesterday. My lesson was “You are God’s masterpiece.” I lost track of it for a few chunks of the day, but each time I recovered myself. When I could really focus on it and stay with it, people did look different. It almost felt like finding buried treasure. I could sense that the potential in this idea is enormous.

What occurred to me is that the Course, perhaps more than any other path, is a technology of love. How can we go from indifference or even hostility toward others to actually loving them? That is one of the most profound changes a human being can undergo. More than ever I am convinced that the Course provides us with all the tools we need.