They call her Wonder. She sneaks around the bushes ready to pounce on her friend. "Boo!" Giggles erupt.
She stands in a grassy field bent, very, very still. "Watching babies!" she says, and so she is. Hundreds of tiny praying mantises hatched. Crawling about her in the tall grass, she stares, lips pressed firmly then part and spread widely. "Look!"
Wonder hangs upside down from a tree branch and lets the blood pulse into her head; her mouth opens and she laughs.
Wonder licks her ice cream cone from the top. Then she bites a hole and sucks from the bottom. The cone softens as the ice cream melts. It runs and drips. Wonder's fingers turn sticky. She wipes them on her jeans and grins.
Wonder picks strawberries and stuffs them in her pockets. Her doll needs a red dress and so she needs some "dye." Wonder gathers bouquets of daisies and dandelions. She adorns adobe miniatures with yellow and white petals.
Wonder hangs bed sheets from a clothes line and pretends she's a brave princess banished from her castle. A wreath of morning glories trails down her shoulders.
Wonder flies down a steep hill upon her two-wheeled bicycle. Erect she spreads her arms like kite wings while the wind whips against her poised torso, legs pumping, feet swishing round and round.
Wonder falls over, hard. She rolls. She looks up at the sky. She sees clouds and feels her pain. Her tears fall. Her face shines wet in the afternoon sunlight.
And for a moment, she wonders if she can stand. The skin on her leg burns. Then Grace kneels over her gently, brushes her forehead and looks into Wonder's eyes. Grace sees something new there. She sees mingled with pain, fear.
"Your soul shall grow old and brittle, Wonder, wrinkled like the face of that old tree-beard if you lay there too long. Come now, you are not hurt too badly; here's my hand," and Grace pulls up Wonder. She embraces Wonder as she lets her young friend rest upon her wise breast. Wonder feels Grace's heart beating. She turns her face upward. Her tears leave tracks of smeared dirt drying upon her tanned cheeks. Wonder smiles. Grace smiles.
They walk home together, pushing the broken bicycle. And passing on their way, Grace holds out her hand to a wrinkled man fallen near the path. There's a lady at his side bent with sorrow.
Wonder looks at her friend. And Grace nods.
"Wonder, help her stand again."
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Thursday, July 19, 2012
R.S.V.P - A Personal Matter
"It is wicked to not respond." The invitation read at the end where the typical and polite "please respond" may be found. Only, it wasn't. It was this note, instead.
"Oh, really?" the recipient holding the invitation asked with incredulous consternation. His hands trembled with anger, boiling over into a pressured rage. His neck veins bulged and turned blue.
"What idiots!" He shouted and crumpled the invitation up into his fist. He tossed it from the window of his limousine as his driver gazed forward into the neon lights of night life in Vegas.
In a house in Appalachia, a house perched on a peak of the Blue Ridge Mountains, far from the bulging-veined man, another man sat at his desk near a cup of coffee with steam lisping over the black brew.
"Hmm, so now I am wicked if I do not respond."
"Sounds a lot like coercion," and, so, he tucked the note beneath a pile of bills.
Then, another man, sweat-covered after a dusty day's work, walked slowly home from the heartland fields where his combine sat idle and broken. Beams of sunlight filtered the dust rising from the ground beneath his feet. His lips parted, cracked. His tongue was thick and heavy. His mind revolved around how he would make an appeal to the banker. His bank account was broke, too.
He walked past the mailbox, reached in and found a postcard. His eyes slid across the gold-embossed lettering. His hand trembled. His dry, sticky tongue ran across parched lips, as he kept gazing at the words.
"You are invited to the wedding feast." (The President)
His eyes scanned to the bottom and read again "It is wicked not to reply." Not an illiterate man, though a man of the earth, he was cultured and recognized the absence of "repondez si'l vous plait." It read something like a veiled threat.
"It's a hoax," he thought, a bit annoyed as he pondered the details of the card, rubbed the dried sweat upon his forehead, shrugged and tucked the card into his chest pocket as he ascended the steps. "Yep, it's a hoax. You'd think folks would have better things to do with their time," and, so, he turned in his thoughts again how he would pay for the repairs to the harvest machine.
The porch's plank-boards creaked loudly beneath his weight. He dropped his large frame into the hickory rocker, and absent-minded, pulled the card from his pocket.
It bore the official seal of the Oval Office.
Just then a car with tinted windows pulled onto the farm-lane leading to the weathered house where he sat. He squinted and looked toward the approaching vehicle and could discern two figures with dark suits and tinted glasses, and so he waited, and then stood tall, stretching his tired limbs as the car came to a stop.
"Mr. Regan?" The passenger asked as he stood next to the car with government tags.
"Yes, Sir, that's me," the farmer said, holding the card in his hand.
"You are requested by the President to come to the White House for a special banquet, and," with a lowering of his voice, said, "Let me remind you, it is wicked not to respond."
"How can I respond to a thing that reads like a hoax?" The farmer said dryly, squinting narrowly at the two men.
"You respond one of two ways," the man said, sliding his sunglasses from his face and slipping them into his suit coat. "You respond in faith or you respond in fear of punishment."
"Then," said the farmer, beginning to tremble slightly, "What do you know of the President? What does anyone know!! Damn him."
"Yes, He is my father," the man smiled broadly.
"Then what say you? How should I respond?"
"You respond today and you respond in confidence. It is a good invitation. No hoax, he is honorable. The others have not believed my report, and so they do not come."
The farmer held the invitation up once again and read its words. And, then, that's when he noticed the fine print:
"All is provided for your coming."
"What is this 'all is provided' business?" the earthy man spoke still dryly. His tongue still heavy with thirst.
The driver of the car had walked to the trunk and flipped it open. He pulled a brief case and a garment bag from it.
"Here, everything you need has been bought already. I think you'll be satisfied with its custom design. Your itinerary is revealed daily, in envelopes, and in succession."
The man dropped the items on the dusty ground, and both officials climbed back into the car. The farmer watched the trail of fine brown soil billowing behind them as they drove back down the lane.
He stared at the case and bag. After a few moments, he descended the steps and walked toward the items, and opened the briefcase. Within, he found a small leather book. Its pages were yellowed with age, and one was creased. He opened to it and scanned its instructions.
"You are to depart the morning after receiving these provisions. Go to the nearest airport and there you will find a courier with ticket information. Do not delay. You must come or you will die."
He looked across the fields to where sat the combine. He mused, "I'm already as good as dead."
He picked up the bag and briefcase and walked back up the steps and entered his house.
Morning comes early.
"Oh, really?" the recipient holding the invitation asked with incredulous consternation. His hands trembled with anger, boiling over into a pressured rage. His neck veins bulged and turned blue.
"What idiots!" He shouted and crumpled the invitation up into his fist. He tossed it from the window of his limousine as his driver gazed forward into the neon lights of night life in Vegas.
In a house in Appalachia, a house perched on a peak of the Blue Ridge Mountains, far from the bulging-veined man, another man sat at his desk near a cup of coffee with steam lisping over the black brew.
"Hmm, so now I am wicked if I do not respond."
"Sounds a lot like coercion," and, so, he tucked the note beneath a pile of bills.
Then, another man, sweat-covered after a dusty day's work, walked slowly home from the heartland fields where his combine sat idle and broken. Beams of sunlight filtered the dust rising from the ground beneath his feet. His lips parted, cracked. His tongue was thick and heavy. His mind revolved around how he would make an appeal to the banker. His bank account was broke, too.
He walked past the mailbox, reached in and found a postcard. His eyes slid across the gold-embossed lettering. His hand trembled. His dry, sticky tongue ran across parched lips, as he kept gazing at the words.
"You are invited to the wedding feast." (The President)
His eyes scanned to the bottom and read again "It is wicked not to reply." Not an illiterate man, though a man of the earth, he was cultured and recognized the absence of "repondez si'l vous plait." It read something like a veiled threat.
"It's a hoax," he thought, a bit annoyed as he pondered the details of the card, rubbed the dried sweat upon his forehead, shrugged and tucked the card into his chest pocket as he ascended the steps. "Yep, it's a hoax. You'd think folks would have better things to do with their time," and, so, he turned in his thoughts again how he would pay for the repairs to the harvest machine.
The porch's plank-boards creaked loudly beneath his weight. He dropped his large frame into the hickory rocker, and absent-minded, pulled the card from his pocket.
It bore the official seal of the Oval Office.
Just then a car with tinted windows pulled onto the farm-lane leading to the weathered house where he sat. He squinted and looked toward the approaching vehicle and could discern two figures with dark suits and tinted glasses, and so he waited, and then stood tall, stretching his tired limbs as the car came to a stop.
"Mr. Regan?" The passenger asked as he stood next to the car with government tags.
"Yes, Sir, that's me," the farmer said, holding the card in his hand.
"You are requested by the President to come to the White House for a special banquet, and," with a lowering of his voice, said, "Let me remind you, it is wicked not to respond."
"How can I respond to a thing that reads like a hoax?" The farmer said dryly, squinting narrowly at the two men.
"You respond one of two ways," the man said, sliding his sunglasses from his face and slipping them into his suit coat. "You respond in faith or you respond in fear of punishment."
"Then," said the farmer, beginning to tremble slightly, "What do you know of the President? What does anyone know!! Damn him."
"Yes, He is my father," the man smiled broadly.
"Then what say you? How should I respond?"
"You respond today and you respond in confidence. It is a good invitation. No hoax, he is honorable. The others have not believed my report, and so they do not come."
The farmer held the invitation up once again and read its words. And, then, that's when he noticed the fine print:
"All is provided for your coming."
"What is this 'all is provided' business?" the earthy man spoke still dryly. His tongue still heavy with thirst.
The driver of the car had walked to the trunk and flipped it open. He pulled a brief case and a garment bag from it.
"Here, everything you need has been bought already. I think you'll be satisfied with its custom design. Your itinerary is revealed daily, in envelopes, and in succession."
The man dropped the items on the dusty ground, and both officials climbed back into the car. The farmer watched the trail of fine brown soil billowing behind them as they drove back down the lane.
He stared at the case and bag. After a few moments, he descended the steps and walked toward the items, and opened the briefcase. Within, he found a small leather book. Its pages were yellowed with age, and one was creased. He opened to it and scanned its instructions.
"You are to depart the morning after receiving these provisions. Go to the nearest airport and there you will find a courier with ticket information. Do not delay. You must come or you will die."
He looked across the fields to where sat the combine. He mused, "I'm already as good as dead."
He picked up the bag and briefcase and walked back up the steps and entered his house.
Morning comes early.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Altars for Nestlings
Psalm 84
How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.
Blessed are those who dwell in your house,
ever singing your praise! Selah
Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
As they go through the Valley of Baca (of weeping)
they make it a place of springs;
the early rain also covers it with pools.
They go from strength to strength;
each one appears before God in Zion.
O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer;
give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah
Behold our shield, O God;
look on the face of your anointed!
For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
the Lord bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.
O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you!
Is this not just stunningly exquisite? The whole psalm, from start to finish? Yes. It is beautiful. Do you see the tenderness, the longing, the highways leading through the hearts of those who are blessed, "whose strength is in God"? Who go from strength to strength. Who appear before God in his holy dwelling. Whose valley of weeping overflows with springs and pools. Do you know what this means, friend? It means when we trust, it is a very, very good entrusting with the Lord God. It means, "No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly."
It means this: "O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you!"
Even as we walk through the Valley of Weeping. It means all of it.
How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.
Blessed are those who dwell in your house,
ever singing your praise! Selah
Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
As they go through the Valley of Baca (of weeping)
they make it a place of springs;
the early rain also covers it with pools.
They go from strength to strength;
each one appears before God in Zion.
O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer;
give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah
Behold our shield, O God;
look on the face of your anointed!
For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
the Lord bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.
O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you!
Is this not just stunningly exquisite? The whole psalm, from start to finish? Yes. It is beautiful. Do you see the tenderness, the longing, the highways leading through the hearts of those who are blessed, "whose strength is in God"? Who go from strength to strength. Who appear before God in his holy dwelling. Whose valley of weeping overflows with springs and pools. Do you know what this means, friend? It means when we trust, it is a very, very good entrusting with the Lord God. It means, "No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly."
It means this: "O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you!"
Even as we walk through the Valley of Weeping. It means all of it.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Of Joy (or, Beyond the Chicken)
Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
"If you knew the gift of God,
and
who it is that is saying to you,
'Give me a drink,’ you would have asked
him,
and he would have given you living water ...
a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4)
There's a life beyond the chicken. And all the guilt.
It took me a long while to realize it. (It's hard to get over ugly scenes or messes. Yes. Yes, it is. It takes time. And a measure of grace large enough to bathe in hourly.) So, I heard a conversation the other day, and it's what the topic wasn't about that matters. (It wasn't about guilt.) It started out something like this:
"It gives me pleasure, daughter, when you trust Me with the thing that gives you joy."
(pause)
"Father?"
"Your delight is found in Me. I am your joy. Drink and be satisfied."
(Was it a command? No, it was an invitation - adorned for one's heart. Oh What to do now.)
"Literally? You mean literally to drink of you, from you?"
"Yes, child, quite literally."
"Father, forgive me for not drinking. You mean for me to come to You."
"Yes, literally."
"To be satisfied?"
"Yes, satisfied."
(Oh, most definitely, and Most Really.)
Do you notice what is absent in this conversation? It's what drew me up short. It's so "other" and so different than where I usually track on my own. You see, there is no mention of chickens. Or beams. Or condemnation. Not a nary bit. And I must wonder why there is none of it. I'm beginning to suspect something else is the point: It's not our guilt that the Lord is most concerned about. Yes, he graciously pays for it, our debt; he removes it from our souls. Quite literally. He does it. Because it is a necessary removal. A washing and cleansing of the best sort which speaks of who He is (holy Abba). And because it gets in the way of something more, he removes it.
Do we understand that it's about far more? Far, far more. Can we see (pause, and read slowly): It is for Joy that he endured so much. (Hebrews 12:1-2). A particular joy. Do we have any idea of what sort? Shh, Listen. I can hear one coming, coming near, with The Invitation. It's written, elegantly, beautifully and simply, "Come." To a wedding. And a feast. It's a union. Of rich, deep Joy. It's where our life and his own intersect. It's where we ought dwell, where our roots sink deepest and best. Into Joy. It's where longing and desire meet together expectantly, where mercy and truth kiss each other, tenderly. It's how we are made well. Rooted in His love, and having been rooted there, Joy grows and we are made strong. Is this what Jesus meant when he said, "Come to me all those who labor and are heavy laden"? (That is, to those who are weary and pause long enough to admit it is that way, every day.) We're to come. And meet with promise.
So, what do I do with such an Invitation? (It is a very personal thing, that which we do.)
"The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song." (Psalm 28)
A Thing Most Real
Coming ~ responding to Invitation ~ is never an abstraction. It's a very real act, and a very real place. A literal dressage and attire with which we come tells something of who we are and where we have been. Are we in jeans and t-shirts or a promenade gown? Does it matter? Do we come clutching things like Memories and Joys already spent, or Pain and Sorrows overgrown? Perhaps what really matters is that The Invitation has been sent, and now we are here.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
In Memoriam
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
The Lifted Veil
"But their minds were hardened. For to this day ... that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away ... But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit."
(Paul the Apostle - to the Corinthians)
Join me, won't you, in beholding the glory of the Lord?
(Paul the Apostle - to the Corinthians)
Join me, won't you, in beholding the glory of the Lord?
Monday, June 25, 2012
Of Beholding
"The eye is the lamp of the body."
(Jesus speaking - Matthew 6)
A blind woman runs her fingers across the hem of her dress and notices a tear. She slips her hand over the smooth edge of a plate on which spring lettuce and colorful ripe tomatoes are held; she notices a chip in the porcelain. She has beheld, if only by touch.
But she has yet to behold the colorful food.
Or maybe she glances the delicate leafs and cold, soft succulent tomatoes with the tips of her fingers, and she lifts them to her tongue and tastes, with heightened sensitivity, the squish of the fruit in her mouth. Yes, she has beheld. Truly, has she not? Maybe with limitation, but she has seen much.
The eye.
A lamp.
Of the body.
Our bodies quiver at sensations. We can behold or perceive any number of ways. So why does Jesus point us to this metaphor of eye is the lamp?
The EYE has everything to do with THINGS, a myriad of things, both material and immaterial, and the function of beholding them. Receiving them into ourselves. Another way to say it is the eye has everything to do with the Nouns in our lives - the people, the places, the things or ideas that surround us and touch us - or we them - daily. In other words, our eyes and our surroundings, whether they be material or ideological, are deeply relational, whether we mean for them to be or not.
And like any relationship with which we engage, we are altered by degrees.
Jesus has a far superior way of talking about all of this. Read with me, won't you?
"So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness."
Imagine for a single moment, a human light bulb. Seriously. Sounds ridiculous, I agree. But, by contrast, imagine a human body without light. (What do you see?) I know what I see. I see death. A casket with a man. Or a woman. Expired. Lights out.
Or a young boy who has lost hope, no spark or light shines from his eyes, his soul. Or a young woman who sits despondently on a park bench at the center of a lazy town, alone. I see a one-year-old who is held securely in the arms of her foster father, just newly received into their loving home. She has yet to behold (and to trust) the love embracing her. She lacks expression. No light. No smiles. Only a weariness that no baby girl ought to know. She wears the look of care worn by a 25-year-old with three kids and no husband, not of an infant. What has happened? I don't know what happened to one so young, but today I watch her play and her sweetness is adorable. She's a happy preschooler today, she smiles freely (a bit shyly, but easily grins) and brings so much joy to me every time I visit with her family. No more sadness. None like before.
Most of us have functioning vision. But seeing, do we ever see? And seeing, what do we see?
I have an under-developed sense of concrete perception, because by temperament and by habit, I "focus" on abstracts versus concrete objects. This means I do not properly see my environment unless I am deliberately focusing on it, thinking about its details, such as, the serrated leaf on a beech nut tree, or the scurry of an ant across the dry mulch around the lilies just outside my window. I have to focus, or attend, to really perceive a thing. For example, my mind right now is focused on the abstraction of vision, not the physical components of the eye. I am focused on making words appear on a screen, but even that has little to do with the physical pecking at the alphabet in front of me. It's about the idea. So, I am attending my nouns, but not concretely. Until just this moment I was unaware of the firmness of the old oak teacher's chair upholding me, and the pressure of my right elbow on the edge of my desk, antique and finished in provincial-colonial stain. Or, perhaps, later if I am not attending, I will miss the breeze of this warm summer day moving deliciously across my face and arms. Yes, sensory vision. It richly feeds our souls.
A healthy eye. What does this mean? The answer is tucked in this clause, "your whole body will be full of light." And the assertion that follows, " ... but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness."
What makes our body full of darkness (and decay)?
A bad eye.
The stuff we perceive sneaks past our retinas and leaps down into our souls, torquing our hearts if we are not careful. Or it fills us with strength in time of need. But, if it's torquing our souls, then where lies the trouble?
Or another way to ask it: What makes the eye bad? I suspect that it's something that a trip to your local optometrist can't do a thing about. It's not glaucoma, or allergies, or cataracts, or retinal detachment or macular pucker (whatever that is, it's not that.)
A bad eye (or a good eye) has EVERYTHING to do with the THING we behold, and not just our beholding a thing, but the manner in which we take it into our souls and particularly our perception of a thing and the naming of it. In fact, a bad eye vs. a healthy eye is fundamentally a linguistic problem, and more specifically, a Truth problem. That may sound crazy-odd, but without language, a truth cannot be fully apprehended. We cannot taste, feel, smell, listen, or see any thing with particular meaning unless we can name it, and in naming, we touch the smooth skin of the plum; we hear the pounding waves of a high tide; we smell the salty air; and watch the soaring eagle.
Of beholding, we can do something about it, at least, if the eye is working normally and the brain is processing information as it should. Beholding is all about the act. It IS the observing, the attending, the being still and taking time to really see a thing (like the hundreds of tiny petals on a Queen Anne's lace growing in a grassy field or along the untrimmed edge of a country lane. Or the contemplation that love is like a balmy kiss on a cool brow).
Beholding.
The other part of beholding uses the function of our PERCEPTION of the thing itself, and this is another matter entirely, differing from the manner (physiologically, speaking). Perception moves us beyond the act into the linguistic-moral mode, the mode that discerns fact from fiction; truth from error; forgiveness from vengeance; love from hate; justice from perversion; or, discerns whether it's the time to cast away stones or the time to gather stones; the time to embrace from the time to refrain; the time to laugh from the time to weep.
I can see the thing, but can I comprehend the beauty - or the truth? I can see the hole in the tale pipe, right? I can smell the smoke on the evening breeze. I can hear the crying of the child. I can feel the balmy kiss. But what do they mean? Is my body filled with confusion - or darkness? Or light? What have I beheld up to this point? (Do I have a choice?)
"If then the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness." (That's how Jesus said it).
I can feel the pain of a gash on my foot, or the fissure left in my soul, long and old. I can attend to the sounds of a whispering, echoing condemnation. Or I can behold the words of love from a friend, knowing it's okay for once to perceive rightly just how good they are and okay to drink in like honey from a comb, and, so, brightening the face, giving light to the eyes, dispelling darkness. You see, Jesus over time, in beautiful settings, heals perception. All those wrong-headed things we've beheld in sinful places, all those things that make dense and opaque our bodies with darkness, Jesus replaces with himself -- the Truth.
Have we beheld Him? The person as truth, the Truth - an abstract no more - deeply relational.
It reminds me of a blind man and something Jesus did for him one day.
The fellow, blind as a stone, yet perceiving through his other senses, sat in a public place. He heard the crowd gathering. He understood what his eyes could not. He cried loudly:
"Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"
Do you see him? Can you hear him? Lots of people pushing, tugging, elbowing, some telling him to shush. But, he just wouldn't. He rightly perceived his condition and the Master. He needed help. He cried out, unashamed. What did Jesus do? He responded. He called the man to himself and fixed his own holy eyes on the blind beggar, and he proclaimed:
"Go your way, your faith has made you well."
Do we see? Jesus saw. He saw the man's vision ~ his faith, the ability to see what others could not, and the man, exerting himself with all his strength toward another man, Jesus, who bid him come, the man went in faith and beheld Jesus.
It changed his life forever.
(Jesus speaking - Matthew 6)
A blind woman runs her fingers across the hem of her dress and notices a tear. She slips her hand over the smooth edge of a plate on which spring lettuce and colorful ripe tomatoes are held; she notices a chip in the porcelain. She has beheld, if only by touch.
But she has yet to behold the colorful food.
Or maybe she glances the delicate leafs and cold, soft succulent tomatoes with the tips of her fingers, and she lifts them to her tongue and tastes, with heightened sensitivity, the squish of the fruit in her mouth. Yes, she has beheld. Truly, has she not? Maybe with limitation, but she has seen much.
The eye.
A lamp.
Of the body.
Our bodies quiver at sensations. We can behold or perceive any number of ways. So why does Jesus point us to this metaphor of eye is the lamp?
The EYE has everything to do with THINGS, a myriad of things, both material and immaterial, and the function of beholding them. Receiving them into ourselves. Another way to say it is the eye has everything to do with the Nouns in our lives - the people, the places, the things or ideas that surround us and touch us - or we them - daily. In other words, our eyes and our surroundings, whether they be material or ideological, are deeply relational, whether we mean for them to be or not.
And like any relationship with which we engage, we are altered by degrees.
Jesus has a far superior way of talking about all of this. Read with me, won't you?
"So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness."
Imagine for a single moment, a human light bulb. Seriously. Sounds ridiculous, I agree. But, by contrast, imagine a human body without light. (What do you see?) I know what I see. I see death. A casket with a man. Or a woman. Expired. Lights out.
Or a young boy who has lost hope, no spark or light shines from his eyes, his soul. Or a young woman who sits despondently on a park bench at the center of a lazy town, alone. I see a one-year-old who is held securely in the arms of her foster father, just newly received into their loving home. She has yet to behold (and to trust) the love embracing her. She lacks expression. No light. No smiles. Only a weariness that no baby girl ought to know. She wears the look of care worn by a 25-year-old with three kids and no husband, not of an infant. What has happened? I don't know what happened to one so young, but today I watch her play and her sweetness is adorable. She's a happy preschooler today, she smiles freely (a bit shyly, but easily grins) and brings so much joy to me every time I visit with her family. No more sadness. None like before.
Most of us have functioning vision. But seeing, do we ever see? And seeing, what do we see?
I have an under-developed sense of concrete perception, because by temperament and by habit, I "focus" on abstracts versus concrete objects. This means I do not properly see my environment unless I am deliberately focusing on it, thinking about its details, such as, the serrated leaf on a beech nut tree, or the scurry of an ant across the dry mulch around the lilies just outside my window. I have to focus, or attend, to really perceive a thing. For example, my mind right now is focused on the abstraction of vision, not the physical components of the eye. I am focused on making words appear on a screen, but even that has little to do with the physical pecking at the alphabet in front of me. It's about the idea. So, I am attending my nouns, but not concretely. Until just this moment I was unaware of the firmness of the old oak teacher's chair upholding me, and the pressure of my right elbow on the edge of my desk, antique and finished in provincial-colonial stain. Or, perhaps, later if I am not attending, I will miss the breeze of this warm summer day moving deliciously across my face and arms. Yes, sensory vision. It richly feeds our souls.
A healthy eye. What does this mean? The answer is tucked in this clause, "your whole body will be full of light." And the assertion that follows, " ... but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness."
What makes our body full of darkness (and decay)?
A bad eye.
The stuff we perceive sneaks past our retinas and leaps down into our souls, torquing our hearts if we are not careful. Or it fills us with strength in time of need. But, if it's torquing our souls, then where lies the trouble?
Or another way to ask it: What makes the eye bad? I suspect that it's something that a trip to your local optometrist can't do a thing about. It's not glaucoma, or allergies, or cataracts, or retinal detachment or macular pucker (whatever that is, it's not that.)
A bad eye (or a good eye) has EVERYTHING to do with the THING we behold, and not just our beholding a thing, but the manner in which we take it into our souls and particularly our perception of a thing and the naming of it. In fact, a bad eye vs. a healthy eye is fundamentally a linguistic problem, and more specifically, a Truth problem. That may sound crazy-odd, but without language, a truth cannot be fully apprehended. We cannot taste, feel, smell, listen, or see any thing with particular meaning unless we can name it, and in naming, we touch the smooth skin of the plum; we hear the pounding waves of a high tide; we smell the salty air; and watch the soaring eagle.
Of beholding, we can do something about it, at least, if the eye is working normally and the brain is processing information as it should. Beholding is all about the act. It IS the observing, the attending, the being still and taking time to really see a thing (like the hundreds of tiny petals on a Queen Anne's lace growing in a grassy field or along the untrimmed edge of a country lane. Or the contemplation that love is like a balmy kiss on a cool brow).
Beholding.
The other part of beholding uses the function of our PERCEPTION of the thing itself, and this is another matter entirely, differing from the manner (physiologically, speaking). Perception moves us beyond the act into the linguistic-moral mode, the mode that discerns fact from fiction; truth from error; forgiveness from vengeance; love from hate; justice from perversion; or, discerns whether it's the time to cast away stones or the time to gather stones; the time to embrace from the time to refrain; the time to laugh from the time to weep.
I can see the thing, but can I comprehend the beauty - or the truth? I can see the hole in the tale pipe, right? I can smell the smoke on the evening breeze. I can hear the crying of the child. I can feel the balmy kiss. But what do they mean? Is my body filled with confusion - or darkness? Or light? What have I beheld up to this point? (Do I have a choice?)
"If then the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness." (That's how Jesus said it).
I can feel the pain of a gash on my foot, or the fissure left in my soul, long and old. I can attend to the sounds of a whispering, echoing condemnation. Or I can behold the words of love from a friend, knowing it's okay for once to perceive rightly just how good they are and okay to drink in like honey from a comb, and, so, brightening the face, giving light to the eyes, dispelling darkness. You see, Jesus over time, in beautiful settings, heals perception. All those wrong-headed things we've beheld in sinful places, all those things that make dense and opaque our bodies with darkness, Jesus replaces with himself -- the Truth.
Have we beheld Him? The person as truth, the Truth - an abstract no more - deeply relational.
It reminds me of a blind man and something Jesus did for him one day.
The fellow, blind as a stone, yet perceiving through his other senses, sat in a public place. He heard the crowd gathering. He understood what his eyes could not. He cried loudly:
"Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"
Do you see him? Can you hear him? Lots of people pushing, tugging, elbowing, some telling him to shush. But, he just wouldn't. He rightly perceived his condition and the Master. He needed help. He cried out, unashamed. What did Jesus do? He responded. He called the man to himself and fixed his own holy eyes on the blind beggar, and he proclaimed:
"Go your way, your faith has made you well."
Do we see? Jesus saw. He saw the man's vision ~ his faith, the ability to see what others could not, and the man, exerting himself with all his strength toward another man, Jesus, who bid him come, the man went in faith and beheld Jesus.
It changed his life forever.
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