Res Novae

“Forget the former things;

do not dwell on the past.

See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the desert

and streams in the wasteland.”

Isaiah 43:18-19 NIV

I have been back in classes for about two weeks now, and it always amazes me when a thread of an idea emerges from different classes. In Latin, we were learning about the word “res”, which can mean "things, matters or affairs"; or as we would say “stuff”. Our teacher likes to tell us about the origin of words and mentioned in passing that “res novae”, literally “things new” becomes the word “revolution”.

This caught my attention because in English Lit II, we were discussing the Romantics, and how their approach to poetry and art reflected a desire to move away from the structure of the Neo-Classicists, who were emulating the Greeks and the Romans, to self-expression and the emotional emphasis that we take for granted in poetry and art today. The artists were revolutionary, attempting “new things”. Another interesting relationship between revolution and the Romantics relates to the fact that the national revolutions of that time period, the French and American, were most likely a result of this new thinking—a move away from the rules and rulers of their day.

This knowledge whets my appetite for revolution in my own heart. Not rebellion, but the freedom to express myself creatively in honor of our Creator. To explore and understand in a fresh way how revolutionary and life changing it can be to follow the One who promises that He is “making all things new…” (Revelation 21:5)

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;
the old has gone, the new has come!”
(2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV)