We See Through a Glass, Darkly

A conversation between the fictional Asher Lev and his father stuck out to me as I read the novel The Gift of Asher Lev by Chaim Potok recently. Asher was a famous artist who still sought to live his faith as an orthodox Jew despite the friction between his work and religion. He was the son of a father who struggled to understand his son’s gift and could not accept some of the paintings that he did. The father commented to his son that he did not understand his latest artwork, and said, “Do you aim deliberately to be difficult? Is that a sign of being modern?” Asher replied, “Some art is difficult because life is difficult.” When his father suggested that his work should clarify and not deliberately confuse, bringing light into the world, Asher responded, “Difficulty and darkness are not the same. When something has many sides to it, it’s not easy to show it simple and clear. The world is sometimes very ambiguous.” Not accepting that response, his father replied, “God did not create an ambiguous world, Asher. We only at times experience it as ambiguous.” But Asher replied with this profound question, “What else do we have but our experience of the world?” He later continued, “How can we expect to know everything about God? I call that ambiguity. Riddles, puzzles, double meanings, lost possibilities, the dark side to the light, the light side to the darkness, different perspectives on the same things. Nothing in this whole world has only one side to it. Everything is like a kaleidoscope. That’s what I’m trying to capture in my art. That’s what I mean by ambiguity.” But his father replied, “God is not ambiguous. Our faith in Him is not ambiguous. From ambiguity I would not derive the strength to do all the things I must do. Ambiguity is darkness. Certainty is light” (pg. 343-344). I believe that there is truth in both sides of this conversation between Asher and his father. On the one hand, there are things we can know with certainty: God lives, His Son Jesus Christ died for us, and His holy word found in the scriptures is true. That certainty can give us the strength to do His work. But it doesn’t mean that we understand everything or have all the answers. Our lives are also filled with experiences that are difficult to accept and which invite us to have faith in Him even though we cannot fully grasp His plan. There will for us on earth always be some ambiguity and questions that we cannot fully answer, such as why fervent prayers seem to go unanswered or the righteous are called on to suffer. This reminds me of Paul’s famous statement: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). The key to the gospel is to keep moving forward in faith even though we see our way forward only darkly.  

               Throughout this novel, Asher frequently remarks about how certain situations are riddles, meaning that he cannot understand why God would allow such a thing. The book ends with his gift of his young son Avrumel to become the next leader of their Jewish community, leading to his own separation from his family as they stay with near the Rebbe and he returns to his work of art in France. The sacrifice of his son is excruciating for him and as he contemplates it on the last page of the book he simply says, “Another riddle.” He could not understand why God would give him the artistic gift he had and thus cause such friction and ambiguity and pain in his life. Life indeed is filled with experiences that we struggle to understand despite our faith in the Lord. The way through is not to fight against the ambiguity or become bitter because of it but to accept it with faith of Nephi: “I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things” (1 Nephi 11:17). I love the words of the song Some Time We’ll Understand by Rob Gardner which expresses the kind of faith that we can have despite the ambiguity that we experience: 

Not now, but in the coming years,

It may not be when we demand,

We'll read the meaning of our tears,

And there, sometime, we'll understand 

Why what we long for most of all

Eludes our open, pleading hand;

Why ever silence meets our call,

Somewhere, sometime, we'll understand.

So trust in God through all thy days;

Fear not, for He doth hold thy hand;

Though dark thy way, still sing and praise,

Sometime, sometime we'll understand. 

Sometime, we'll fall on bended knee,

And feel there, graven on His hand

Sometime with tearless eyes we'll see

What, here, we could not understand.

So trust in God through all the days;

Fear not, for He doth hold thy hand;

Though dark thy way, still sing and praise,

Sometime, sometime we'll understand. 

The gospel does not give us all the answers to questions in this life, but we can through it have faith in a loving God who will indeed help us to understand eventually. But for now, we can trust in God and even when the way forward seems dark we can sing and praise and know that sometime we will understand the meaning behind all our tears.