In the shadows and shades of Glory

When we see things face to face in this life, we often miss the beauty of what stands before us.  Too often we don't appreciate or love the object or being before us as much as we do the object in our peripheral vision. The oblique view often sharpens the single shades of things we didn't see as clear when we saw the object in its fullness.

When we tangentally see those we love from a place of loss, our hearts and minds delve deeper into their beauty. And as we see others, not so directly, maybe through the words of another, or in the light of another lense, we grow to respect, admire, and love them fuller.

This also is true with Christ. In the gospels we see Christ pass by those he means to call, longing for them to call after him, or he hides his true identity from us only to be known later by a kind of heart knowing, not the visual, mental, hard way of knowing. He does not always greet us face to face on the road, but instead walks by, catching our side gaze. We miss him as he passes, we know him for his passing, we see him better by our losing and we long for him fuller when we catch a hem of his garment as he scrapes by. He does not simply grab us and drag us down the road, he casts nets with his coyness and crescentness. He's revealed to us as a partial moon, a slimmer of glory. Not the full sun to our sodded eyes, but a window, an image that creeps solemnly by us and through us and around us. He is on all sides of us, but never in front, we see him pass in the grass, we feel him seep through when we try to grab handfulls of rain, and we know his voice only in the whispers of a fleeting wind.

 He is in all of this, but he is not any of it. Charles Williams constantly returns to this quote in his writings: "This also is Thou;  neither is this Thou." His revelation in creation is full of shapes, faces, and pieces that reflect and image his personality and power, but none of it is him.

His half-absence creates a truer longing, the half shades a deeper hunger. In this, he reveals his desire for our hearts, not just our minds.

God does not reveal himself fully to us in creation just as Christ did not trust himself to man in the gospels: He knows the heart of man and knows what is in it. We are selfish even when we know that our selfishness does not bring us happiness. We are dying paradoxes of self-loathing and self-love. God's desire for us is for our hearts to desire him, and instead of placing us in the fullness of his presence where we'd simply be forced to our knees in a mental capitulation with still recalcitrant hearts , he draws our hearts with shadows and shades of Glory.

As I breathe

Sometimes white isn't the purest color.

The dark spots on my shirt and the ink prints on my fingers as I left school on friday reminded me that I worked. I have a place to struggle.

Underneath a grey city bridge, the trash filled the lake with a rotten brown. My sister spoke words of life and joy while picking up the dank, dark, ruined things around us.

Dark faces and darker hair surrounds me as my spirit rises to a place I cannot speak of. I would, but I am not ready. Prepare me.

Open faces, spoken hearts, vulnerable admissions, and a reckless focus. Let today and tommorrow be enough- Lord- may my world not grow too big for my ability to love and may my love grow over and through all that I meet, face to face, life to life, here in the in between, in a spotted and speckled moment.