My friend, Chris Marsh shared this video on Facebook and I think it is beautiful.
The song is called “Like the Dawn” by the Oh Hellos, an independent brother & sister duo from Texas. It is a fantastic, thoughtful matching of words, music, arrangement and production.
The film was created as part of the Photography DTS project week on videography by YWAM students in York. It is a gorgeous and evocative concept. Find out more about the project here.
Of course, beauty comes in all shapes and sizes, but in this instance the delicacy and fragility of the photography perfectly matches innocent tenderness of the music. What I particularly like about this piece of work is that the quality never flags – and we really need benchmarks of beauty, so that all our creativity has something to aspire to. It lovingly captures the transience of that first moment of discovery.
Here’s a thought though – that particular moment of beauty would have been transient regardless of the on-following Temptation and Fall. It would have given way to the next stage of the creation’s evolving journey whatever that stage had been. And so the cycle of creation – birth – development – transformation – loss – renewal – was there from the beginning.
So how does the thing we call “death” fit in – death, “the final enemy”? To me, and I think this is a Christian view, death is not merely another word for loss, change, or renewal of a worn out body. Death is extinguishing of life.
We normally think of it simply at the physical and to some extent relational level. But of course it can be spiritual, emotional, moral, cultural, as well. So in Chapter 3 of the Genesis story, the journey continued but “death” had been invited in. From now on, the moving forward would become harsh, painful, and cold, instead of the growthful journey of discovery it had been created to be. They were no longer handling its transience in fellowship with the God of life.
If you find these thoughts a bit obscure – I hope you enjoyed the film anyway!
What are your thoughts on this?