我曾經聽畢德生這位牧者兼學者，提到一名古怪的婦女，名叫麗辰姐妹。在畢德生的兒時教會，每週聚會都鼓勵大家發預言。這位瘦弱的婦人總會站起來，說些「神已經啟示我不會看見死，祂會在榮耀裡接我在空中相遇」這類的話。
有一天，媽媽要畢德生送一些自家烘焙的餅乾給麗辰姐妹，他老大不情願，但只好戰戰兢兢去敲門。乾瘦、蒼白、青筋畢露的麗辰姐妹親自應門，還請他進去一起吃餅乾，給他倒了一杯牛奶。緊張的小男生在幾近全黑中吃餅乾，因為麗辰姐妹的窗簾永遠是拉下來的。
畢德生說，後來他有個奇想。他幻想自己衝到麗辰姐妹家，扯下所有的窗簾，高聲說：「你看，那裡有一棵楊樹，枝頭上有一隻魚鷹！還有一隻白尾巴的鹿。麗辰姐妹，外面有一整片美好世界呢！」
就是這整片美好世界，不下於任何事物，帶領我重回基督教信仰。我懷著扭曲的上帝形象揮別童年：上帝是皺著眉頭的超級警察，誰想找樂子就把誰踩扁。但是之後我發現上帝是俏趣的藝術家，以豪豬、鼬鼠、疣豬充滿這個造物界，也以比美術館的設計品更美麗的野花、熱帶魚華麗裝點這個世界。
前「人類基因體計畫」主持人柯林斯 (Francis Collins) 在DNA雙螺旋的壯觀密碼看見上帝的手。普立茲獎得主安妮․狄勒德 (Annie Dillard) ，則於維琴尼亞州藍脊山脈 (Blue Ridge Mountain) 的汀客溪 (Tinker Creek) 中泅泳的生物，看見上帝的手。從約翰․謬爾 (John Muir)、法布爾 (Henri Fabre)、艾斯里 (Loren Eiseley) 、路易斯․湯瑪斯 (Lewis Thomas) 這些生態作家，我領略了他們自己不見得相信的那位「藝術大師」。這些作家精確、莊重的觀察，幫助我拉開了窗簾。
我在巴林遇見一位牧師，憑著目測就可以辨認出兩千種貝殼。哥斯達黎加有位宣教士蒐集的蝴蝶與飛蛾是世界一流的收藏。教會歷史學家馬克․諾爾 (Mark Noll) 說「當轉眼仰望耶穌」這首詩英文歌詞寫道：「在榮耀與恩典光芒中，地上萬物皆趨黯淡」(譯注：中文譯詞與原句有出入)，根本就錯了。他認為，在基督的光芒中，世界會更見清晰，而不是更見黯淡。上帝創造了物質；在耶穌裡，祂參與了物質。
上帝的子民汲取教會牆外的資源，有聖經例證。列王記下有一則故事，撒瑪利亞城被圍困，發生了致命的饑荒。不被社會接納的痲瘋患者情急之餘，冒生命危險到城外覓食，結果目睹一幕奇觀。軍兵消失，留下大批物資。他們把被棄的供給品帶給縮在城裡的以色列人。有時我們必須到教會牆外尋求靈感與養份。奧古斯丁也提到，以色列人使用埃及金子建造了上帝的會幕。
日裔美國藝術家藤村真於九一一慘劇發生後，有個極不尋常的機會。藤村是世界級的藝術家，也是深具反思力的基督徒。他就住在爆心點不遠處，附近住了很多藝術家。九一一之後，很多紐約的藝術家關起他們的工作室與家，但是藤村卻成立了一間公用工作室，作為「爆心點藝術家團結合作的綠洲。」
那時候，很多藝術家的創作為了故作驚人，充滿了褻瀆與暴力。驟然間，現實壓過創意：就在他們住處附近發生了比他們想像中更褻瀆、更暴力的事件。在藤村工作室的安適環境中，這些藝術家重尋其他的價值，諸如美麗、真情、溫文，而且反映在他們的作品。有一名前衛藝術家葛瑞晨․本德爾 (Gretchen Bender) 原先旨在「解碼性別」，卻開始創作不一樣的作品。她摺了上千個白色的紙蝴蝶，以九一一之後飄彿過她臉上的一隻蝴蝶為靈感，擺列出美麗的圖案。葛瑞晨稱此為她的「復活瞬間。」
有六個月時間，藝術家在這個安適的地方開畫展、表演、朗誦詩、聚集禱告。藤村後來說：「我們的想像空間承擔著醫治的責任，正如承擔著描繪憂懼的責任。」教會曾經熱愛文化，領導文化，是文化的傳承者。我們若是忽略牆外的世界，遭受的後果會跟牆外的居民一樣。 | .. | I once heard pastor-scholar Eugene Peterson reminisce about an eccentric woman named Sister Lychen. Almost every week, in the church of Peterson's childhood—which encouraged words of prophecy—this frail old woman would stand up and say something like this: "The Lord has revealed that I will not see death before the Lord himself returns in glory to catch me up to meet him in the air."
One day, to Eugene's dismay, his mother asked him to take some homemade cookies to Sister Lychen's house. Trembling, Eugene knocked on the door. Sister Lychen herself, with pale, veiny skin and a bony face, invited him in to share the cookies. She served him a glass of milk, and the little boy nervously ate his cookies in near total darkness—Sister Lychen kept her blinds drawn all day long.
Later, Peterson said, he had a fantasy. He saw himself rushing into Sister Lychen's home and yanking open all the blinds. "Look outside!" he cried. "See, there's an aspen tree, and an osprey on the top branch! And a white-tailed deer. Sister Lychen, there's a whole good world outside!"
It was this whole good world outside as much as anything that brought me back to Christian faith. I emerged from childhood with a distorted image of God: a frowning Supercop looking to squash anyone who might be having a good time. I have since come to know God as a whimsical artist who fills the world with creatures like the porcupine and skunk and warthog, who lavishes the world with wildflowers and tropical fish more beautiful than any design on display in an art museum.
Francis Collins, former director of the Human Genome Project, sees God's hand in the magnificent coding of the DNA double helix. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard sees it in the creatures that swim and dive in Tinker Creek in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. From nature writers such as John Muir, Henri Fabre, Loren Eiseley, and Lewis Thomas I gain appreciation for a Master Artist they may not even believe in; their precise and reverent observations help to raise the blinds for me. The rest of the world grows clearer, not dimmer, in the light of Christ. God created matter; in Jesus, God joined it.
I have met a pastor in Bahrain who can identify by sight 2,000 species of seashells, and a missionary in Costa Rica who has assembled a world-class collection of butterflies and moths. Church historian Mark Noll remarks that the song "Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus" plainly errs when it says, "And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace." No, he says, the rest of the world grows clearer, not dimmer, in the light of Christ. God created matter; in Jesus, God joined it.
We have biblical examples of God's people drawing on resources beyond the walls of the church. In a story recorded in 2 Kings, the city of Samaria lay under siege and deadly famine. Desperate, outcasts with leprosy risked their lives by venturing beyond the walls in search of food. They found an amazing sight, remnants of an army that had vanished, and brought back the abandoned supplies to the Israelites cowering inside. Sometimes we must go outside the church to get inspiration and nourishment. Similarly, Augustine of Hippo wrote of the Israelites using Egyptian gold to build the tabernacle of God.
The Japanese-American Mako Fujimura faced an unusual opportunity in the wake of the World Trade Center disaster. A world-class artist and thoughtful Christian, Mako lives a few blocks away from Ground Zero, in a neighborhood populated with artists. After 9/11, with many of New York City's artists shut out of their homes and studios, Mako opened a communal studio and dedicated it as "an oasis of collaboration by Ground Zero artists."
At that time, many of these artists were producing works intended to shock, mostly filled with obscenity and violence. Suddenly, reality trumped creativity: what happened in their own neighborhood was far more obscene and violent than anything they had imagined. In the safety of Mako's studio, these artists rediscovered other values—beauty, humaneness, gentleness—and their works began to reflect them. Gretchen Bender, an avant-garde artist who had worked to "decode gender and sexuality," began making a different kind of creation. She folded hundreds of white origami butterflies and arranged them into a beautiful pattern, inspired by a real butterfly floating across her face days after 9/11. Gretchen called this her "resurrection moment."
For six months the artists held exhibits, performances, poetry readings, and prayer gatherings in this safe place. As Mako later commented, "Our imaginative capacities carry a responsibility to heal, every bit as much as they carry a responsibility to depict angst." The church once stood as a steward of culture, its patron as well as its guide. If we ignore the world outside our walls, we suffer as much as its inhabitants
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