The Vortex of Life

Posted on Thursday, July 14, 2011

Webster defines a “vortex” as a mass of fluid with a whirling or circular motion that tends to form a cavity or vacuum in the center of the circle and draws toward this cavity or vacuum bodies subject to its action: something that resembles a whirlpool.

So then the Vortex of Life sounds to me like what happens when you flush the toilet as it relates to the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body (again Webster)- like the feeling you got in elementary school when you were the last to be picked in the kickball game or the other kids at the lunch table shunned you because you were not “cool” (Eldredge); or if you were the kid that was always picked first or you were doing the picking and the feeling you have now that the game is over. (Robertson)

Contrast this to the picture that John Eldredge paints in the Sacred Romance of what happens when believers walk into heaven:

When we walk into the crowded excitement of the wedding feast of the Lamb, with the sound of a thousand conversations, laughter and music, the clinking of glasses, and one more time our heart leaps with the hope that we might be let into the sacred circle, we will not be disappointed. We’ll be welcomed to the table by (God). No one will have to scramble to find another chair, to make room for us at the end of the table, or rustle up a place setting. There will be a seat with our name on it, held open at Jesus’ command for us and no other.

Life is like a toilet flushing. Heaven is like a wedding party where you are the guest of honor. One of the happiest occasions on earth is used to describe your reception in God’s house. If this is true, how does it affect how we live from day today? Proverbs 14:11 says that “the house of the wicked will be destroyed, but the tent of the upright will flourish.” Another translation says that “lives of careless wrongdoing are tumbledown shacks; holy living builds soaring cathedrals.”

So if you build your house in this world, what you have is a tumbledown shack, but if you think of your time here as temporary or tent like, while seemingly humble, in reality it is a cathedral that rivals the beauty of the Vatican in Rome. The longing for beauty inside of us we have captured fleeting glimpses of on our wedding day, when our children were born, surveying mountains or the ocean or whatever moment that was exceedingly beautiful on earth is a gift from God making us desire something not of this planet- a longing for heaven. We create false intamacy, momentary glimpses of beauty or security in our homes (shacks) or bank accounts or 401k’s. We also create false glimpses of beauty or security looking attractive or through sex or drugs or alcohol or through a sports team or hunting or anything that lets us feel in control or carefree or……

Do you hear the vortex of life flushing?

You cannot capture it. You were not made to catch it this side of heaven. It is in our DNA, moreover our soul. Beauty will fade. Drugs will kill you. Alcohol will lead you to the side of that big toilet bowl vortex of life.

Have you ever felt it? The longing inside of you that seeks comfort and beauty and intimacy and adventure and art?

I do.