Inscape

“I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.”

Psalm 139:14



The word, “inscape” was taken from poet Gerard Manley Hopkin’s notion of inscape: “a thing had inscape for Hopkins when it had some definite character. In one of his letters Hopkins speaks of the pain he felt when a tree in his yards garden, full of inscape, was chopped down.” What Hopkins knew was that his garden would never be the same again. Sure, he could plant another tree but no tree could replace the quality of the one that had been cut down. Hopkins felt about the tree like my wife and I do about our family. We are just starting a family vacation with all of our children and grandchildren. Watching them I am reminded this morning that each one is unique and an integral part of our family. It’s their individuality that collectively make us a family. Each one possesses a quality about them, an inner beauty so rare in this world that it cannot be replaced by another.

My computers online dictionary definition of the word inscape is, “the distinctive and essential inner quality of something, especially a natural object or a scene in nature.” I always think of that black and white photograph of that lone cypress tree that Ansel Adams made famous. It had inscape. When you see it there all alone on that ocean cliff it causes you to stop and take notice of its distinctiveness.

What is normally true of nature can also true of human beings too. Every once in a while in the middle of an ordinary life God brings along a fairy tale as it were. Someone so beautiful and so rare that something inside them causes you to sit up and take notice and you experience for yourself the beauty of inscape. Besides our three amazing kids of our own, God has blessed our lives with seven and soon to be eight beautiful grand babies too. Science affirms that the human body is an amazing creation, complex and though similar in many ways, each of us is unique, distinct from all others as no two people are exactly alike, which only affirms what the psalmist declared in that we are fearfully and wonderfully made by God. God created each of our lives with inscape.


As my wife and I watch our children play and interact over the next few days our pryer for them is what my prayer is for you today too. I pray you know that God created you with a purpose, with a plan. You were fearfully and wonderfully made by God. Don’t bury your talents, loved one, use them for the glory of God and for the benefit and the blessing of others. Live for the glory of God and let your light so shine before men that they can’t help but stop and take notice. Leave a salty taste in their mouths like the ocean did mine as I road my bike along the beach this morning. Live for God, allow your life to reveal the inscape of your soul and remembering always, “when you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way that when you die the world cries and you rejoice.” That’s a life of inscape!

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

Ephesians 2:10

I LOVE YOU!