The highways on which we criss-crossed America searched out the best views, and featured turnouts along the way just for soaking in the scenery. And when we weren't straining to see the hazy horizon from atop a promontory, where the switchbacks of the highway disappeared beneath our feet into the blue depths of a misty gorge, I occupied myself in the back seat of the car with all the contentment of an aquarium-dwelling sponge, absorbing every shape and color in the panorama rushing past.
Growing up in the post-war era of urban sprawl, I also noticed that the really choice properties available for homes climbed ever higher up the foothills and the mountain sides, where the unblinking picture-windows of houses gazed out upon unbroken horizons and the sparkling lights of cities sprawled in broad valleys below.
In addition to traveling, we moved a great deal, and the many schools I eventually attended were, for the most part, warrens of rooms that shut out any view of the infinitely wider and more interesting world outside. One particularly dismal public school in a Chicago suburb actually locked the doors when the bell rang, and posted faculty guards at every exit to keep us from even dreaming of escape. Throughout the tedious years of secondary education, whenever there was a window and the option of choosing where to sit, I got as close to the precious view as possible. And when there were no windows in a classroom, I would sit as close as I might to the door not only to be the first to escape when the bell rang, but to be as close as possible to the solitude calling to me from the halls.
Windows were no less a premium in my journey through the world of work. I spent years hemmed in by solid walls of painted cinder-block, or lost in the honeycomb of gray places where the word “cubicle” was defined as “a windowless place where human beings suffer before being laid off.” And although home was sweet, it was hemmed in by years of apartment and condominium dwelling in which windows were not only impossible, but would have offered nothing worth looking at anyway. In truth, the pervasive and cyclopean focus on profitability, which shapes so much of the built environments where we live and work, is no small factor in the misery synonymous with more and more of the public and private spaces of our lives.
The want of vistas starves the soul, particularly as afflictions and adversities seek to cloud our views and wall up the windows in our minds and hearts. Perhaps that is one reason the word “behold” is so prominent throughout the scriptures: Knowing of the narrowness into which we are fallen in this world, and having searched us out in all the dark and tight and perilous places where we languish, the Lord seeks constantly to open windows in our thinking, in our feeling, and in every other facet of our lives so that His living light can reach us and lift us heavenward.
In the painting All That She Had: The Windows of Heaven, there are two sets of windows. One set, completely dark in their prospect, runs the length of the colonnade and, because they open onto the temple's interior, they are completely dark. In fact, the window at the end of the colonnade is even walled up. These windows present the worldly view of sacrifice, which looks as cold as stone, as dark as night, and ends in despair.To take the first steps along the path of sacrifice (in terms of this particular image) is to step across its threshold, whereupon the “windows” between the columns along the left side of the colonnade open the floodgates through which the light of Heaven begins to flow into one's life. The view through the windows of the temple also begins to clarify. And, of course, to be inside the temple is to learn how to live in Heaven's light. Then, as a person emerges from the temple and is faithful to the sacred covenants pertaining to the House of the Lord, it is possible not only to step through the colonnade and dwell there in mind and heart, in word and deed, but to dwell there forever when we eventually step forth from the temple of clay that is home to the spirit here below.
The background against which the Savior remarked the widow's paltry offering is one in which riches were being cast into the treasury while disciples remarked the splendor of the temple itself (see Luke 21:5 and Mark 13:1). Thus, the background against which the figure of the widow and her infant son appear in this painting is the perspective of those New Testament disciples who were enthralled by the richness of the buildings.
However, the composition of this painting also gives the viewer the opportunity to choose the Savior's perspective and focus upon the heart of one who gives all. Because no other figures appear in the painting, the viewer has the opportunity to see as the Savior sees: For the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7)
No mention is made in the scriptures of the widow having had a son, but in this presentation of the story the child reminds us that when we tithe we dedicate our families and our lives to the Lord, who blesses us and them from generation to generation.
The very composition of this painting is an expression of testimony concerning tithes and offerings, and the threshold of faith that must be crossed by one who gives. For what was true in the days of the Savior's mortal ministry is true today: Tithing is an expression of faith, not wealth. And in this painting the viewer stands upon the threshold of faith, contemplating whether to cast into the treasury of the Lord the meager farthing of one's very life.
To all who look on, contemplating such giving (particularly when not only livelihood but loved ones are at stake), the daunting prospect can appear to be but the first step along a corridor of want ending at a wall where even the window at the end is walled up. Indeed, from the standpoint of the viewer (and anyone who does not see with an eye of faith), even the colonnade at the left of the image appears as solid as a wall. Yet to venture even one small step along the path of faith and sacrifice is to stand in the warm and brilliant light pouring into every corner of one's life from the open windows of Heaven.
Having given all, the young widow looks with her son at the empty purse; a symbol of all that remains of the money they once had. But the purse cannot begin to contain the flood of light and life that now are theirs. And since the light pours in through a colonnade, there is no barrier between them and Heaven's presence in their life.I used to think that the windows of heaven were like the lofty windows of a great a palace. And so they may be, but I have learned that the wonderful promise associated with tithing also means that Heaven can "open windows" by creating them in the unyielding walls of cold stone surrounding us in circumstances where we are wont to languish and perish in the dark.
