The Seeing That Condemns

The Beautiful Disruption

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The Seeing That Condemns

How to Stay Planted in Light in an Age of Suppression

Timothy Willard

Oct 23, 2025

Episode Summary

In this episode of The Beautiful Disruption, Tim Willard explores how Romans 1 exposes our modern blindness. Creation still reveals God’s power and beauty, yet we suppress that revelation—laughing at horror, aestheticizing death, and drowning in noise. From Paul to Jude to the Psalms, Tim traces how beauty and truth become acts of resistance in a culture of suppression. The call is simple but demanding: fight not with rage, but with love and presence. Be rooted. Be planted in light.

Hello Everyone,

My apologies for the late posting. Not only was today a full day, in the best way, but it was also one in which I had to deal with technical difficulties. Oh, how we love our machines, right? Meh.

I want to welcome all the new subscribers. I’m so honored you’ve decided to give the Disruption a chance. And, a reminder to everyone, that the entire archive is open to all for, well, a little while. So, please, take a moment and poke around. I hope you find something here that inspires you.

Today, I piggyback off of last week’s reflection, extending it into how we can resist the undercurrent of our zeitgeist of evil. And what’s exciting is that working on these two episodes inspired me to take a deep dive into Christian love—what is it, really? And is Paul’s famous passage more than just a blueprint for romantic relationships? I’m excited to share that with you next week.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this episode. If it sparks a thought, leave a note in the comments and share it with your friends.

Thank you all for trusting me with your inbox and for the time you spend with my words and thoughts on this platform. I’m humbled you’re here.

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Rooted in Light: My Study on Psalm 1

The Hebrew Triad of Evil

Ok, in this section, I’ve included my study notes. I love translation—and translating through an uncommon lens. For example, sometimes, when commentaries skew more moral in their insight and context, I like to look at the range of meaning of the words from a cosmological or ontological perspective. It’s fun, and it pushes me to think about God’s word from a broader perspective, rather than always focusing on behavior (ethical/moral). So, I hope this inspires you.

Psalm 1 opens with three words that thrum like a warning drumbeat:

רְשָׁעִים (rĕšāʿim) – “the wicked”
Those who act against justice; the morally restless.

חַטָּאִים (ḥaṭṭāʾim) – “the sinners”
From ḥāṭāʾ, “to miss the mark.” Not the ignorant, but those who habitually aim wrong.

לֵצִים (lēṣim) – “the scoffers”
From lûṣ, “to mock or deride.” These are the cynics—the ones who sneer at holiness itself.

Each ends with that heavy -im (ים) plural. The words stick out and their guttural sound sits in your throat, congested and communal. What I’ve learned is that evil in Hebrew poetry is rarely solitary—it gathers, councils, sits. The righteous man is singular; the wicked arrive in crowds.

The Descent: Walk → Stand → Sit

Psalm 1 traces a moral kinesis (movement) in three verbs:

Walks in the counsel of the wicked – curiosity.
Stands in the path of sinners – identification.
Sits in the seat of scoffers – residence.

This movement is striking. It’s the physics of corruption: movement slows into stillness, stillness hardens into cynicism. I asked myself, “Why is scoffer at the end and not the beginning. But it makes sense that that scoffer is sitting—I picture a bitter person, hands folded, mocking and scoffing at the world. They are sedentary in their wickedness.

By the final line, the scoffer has made wickedness and unbelief a home. Mockery is the terminal posture of the soul—it cannot truly see what it laughs at. The film of evil blinds it.

The Righteous Contrast: The Planted One

Then comes the reversal. I love this:

“He shall be like a tree planted by streams of water…” (1 : 3)

שָׁתוּל (shātûl) – “planted” or “transplanted.”
Not wild growth. This is a cultivated planting—a deliberate placement. The blessed life is cultivated and rooted by design.

פֶּלֶג (peleg) – “channels, divisions.”
Irrigation streams—ordered flow. Grace moves with structure.

יִצְלִיחַ (yatsliaḥ) – “to prosper, to go forward well.”
The image is not material success but rhythmic fruitfulness. Think, life in season, rest in winter, renewal in spring.

The psalmist contrasts the scoffer’s sterile seat with the believer’s fruitful rootedness. Where the mocker calcifies, the righteous grows in the light of God—a spiritual photosynthesis. 🌲☀️

The Sound of Depth in a Surface Age

Modern culture mirrors the scoffer’s posture—quick to react, thinly rooted. Our digital lives resemble what Deleuze and Guattari (see below for a link to their insane book) called the rhizome: surface-level connections without depth, crabgrass culture sprawling endlessly but never descending.

Psalm 1 answers with the opposite architecture: the tree. A life that descends before it ascends (think, Lewis’s “Corn King” analogy). Roots before branches. Silence before speech. 🫚

To live righteously is to grow down into mystery before reaching up toward light.

A Meditation

I like to think of blessedness as a kind of weight of love pulling us homeward. The NLT renders blessedness as joy of delight. Either way, it’s not empty happiness; it’s a movement of blessing toward God. To be “planted by streams” is to dwell in the flow of Logos, the Word whose water renews creation.

Where the scoffer sits, the saint stands; where the world mocks, the faithful marvel. To mock is to wither. To marvel is to grow.

Liturgy

Practice: Each morning this week, name one place in creation where you sense God’s presence breaking through the visible. Journal it. Thank God for it. And let that gratitude root you for the day.

Prayer: Lord, plant me by Your streams. Make my life rhythmic, not reactive; rooted, not restless. Guard me from the seat of cynicism and let my words bear fruit in their season.

Hard Reflection Question: No one likes to think of themselves as a scoffer. But, in prepping this, I got honest and asked myself: Tim, are you a seated scoffer in areas that you’re blind to? Evil doesn’t always rip us from our day to day. It uses subtlety to slither in and move us away from God. How about you—any areas of your life where the scoffer rears its head?

The Beautiful Disruption Library

This is a living canon of wonder, clarity, and truth. For the beauty chasers, the light bearers, and those who still believe there’s more to the world than meets the eye. Here you’ll find links to our growing list of resources. Each episode, I will add to the list so that we can, together, build an excellent resource library. Today’s new additions are bolded.