The Loss of Art

Ever since I became a Christian I have become engrossed with ancient Hebrew culture, longing to have outside context of what was going on in the days of the Levites. What's also interesting to me is our dating back to Egyptian art and how far back the Egyptian culture seems to go. They've had buildings, archives, and many other things for a very very long time. The only thing the Israelites have had for longer than 400 years is the written word. 

And then I started to think about the fact that it's very likely they had created all sorts of art, as any culture might. As someone who has written poetry, taken photos, and loved music what's interesting to me is to think about the times where I've lost work that I was doing, had treasured for some time, or even used as tools to learn from. The heart wrenching feeling when art is destroyed either on purpose or on accident is a traumatizing experience, and as with any work that we have invested in here on Earth I find it remarkable that the Israelites today are who they are. The level of work they must have lost, the countless years of history, of culture, of family tradition.

When something like this happens how can you not grieve? How can you be in the times of Jeremiah, looking at the culture around you knowing that it was about to be utterly decimated, and that there was nothing you could do about it except continue asking the people to turn away from the wrath of God? He pronounced some of the most violent and heavy judgments ever written down in the Bible, and yet he didn't do it with a hardened heart, he pronounced them weeping over what he knew God had planned. He interceded, begged God for another way.

He lived a really crap life. He could see into the future, he knew that somehow the nation that God so loved would be redeemed. But he never got to see it in his natural life. 

But that's never where the story ends. There is still much written regarding the story of Israel, and from his place in Heaven Jeremiah sees it.