Jesus with Skin
May 19, 2008
One reason we don't have peace is that we
have forgotten that we belong to one
another. Mother Teresa
Wherever you turn your eyes, the world can
shine like transfiguration. You don't have to
bring a thing to it except a little
willingness to see. Marilynne
Robinson
Faith isn't an argument, a catechism, a
philosophical proof. It is instead a lens, a
way of experiencing life, and a willingness
to see. As the Bible says: Taste and see.
Sara Miles
A little boy was having nightmares. The kind
that require a momma's reassurance. (Dad's,
for the most part, are not cut out for
nightmare duty.) To his momma's room the boy
went, "Momma, momma, I'm having nightmares."
"Its okay honey," she told him, "here's what I want you to do. Go back to your room, kneel down by your bed, pray to Jesus and he'll fix it."
Back to his room, the boy knelt by his bed, prayed to Jesus, hopped back in bed, and. . .more nightmares. All momma's know this story. Back and forth to momma's room, throughout the night.
On the sixth visit, "Momma, I know, I know, I'm going to go back to my room. I'm going to kneel down by my bed and pray to Jesus. But before I do that, can I just lay in bed with you and have you hold me?"
"Sure honey, why?"
"Because sometimes I need Jesus with skin on it."
If you are like me, there is a good deal of comfort in identifying life as a series of problems to be solved (or impediments to be fixed or messes to be tidied up).
If there's a pill, I'll take it.
If there's a clever book, I'll buy it. (You can't beat, How to fix everything for dummies.)
If there's a can't-miss-prayer, I'll pray it.
After all, Jesus will fix it.
Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against problem solving. More often than not, I'm for it. But here's the thing. . .life is not just about the fixing.
Scottish minister George MacLeod tells the story about his young daughter's first day of school. "I was busy. I was writing letters. I was self-important. My little daughter was going to school that morning for the first time. She came into my room, in her first school uniform. I said, 'Your tie is not quite straight.' Then I looked at her eyes. She wasn't crying. She was unutterably disappointed. She hadn't come for tie inspection. She had come to show she was going to school for the first time. A terrific day, and I had let her down. . .I ran downstairs. I said all the right things. I crossed the road with her. I went to school with her. I had missed the moment, missed the point. I will always see these eyes. Sometimes when I am very busy. Sometimes when I am writing letters. I am forgiven, but I won't forget."
The little boy knew the secret. Life is to be found in the embrace. In the presence (or embrace) of the other. In other words, in the present.
This is the freedom and the power of the incarnation: the immediacy of the present. And the presence of God (God with us - with skin on) in all things. If that is true, we know that there are no unsacred moments.
This changes the way we live and relate. So. Before we fix anything (or resolve it, or renovate it, or move on), let us live it - feel it, see it, know it, taste it in all its messy, quirky, complicated, problematical and confusing richness and fullness. Why?
Because God is here.
In this moment.
In this conversation.
In this embrace.
In this confusion.
In this untidiness.
Even in this nightmare.
My need for control prevents me from seeing. If it is only about accurate answers or approved solutions or correct theology, I concentrate on having a better faith, or enviable devotion or superior morality. And, like George MacLeod or the young mother, I too easily remove myself from the moment. And when I do, I do not see. Or more accurately (to quote St. Benedict), I do not Listen with the ear of my heart.
In her poignant memoir, Eat This Bread, Sara Miles writes, "There was an immediacy of communion at St. Gregory's, unmediated by altar rails, the raw physicality of that mystical meal. There was an invitation to jump in rather than official entrance requirements. There was the suggestion that God could be located in experience, sensed through bodies, tasted in food; that my body was connected literally and mysteriously to other bodies and love without reason."
One of the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius is Finding God in All Things.
In both the nightmares and the prayers.
In the untidy school uniform and in the tears.
In the blunders and in the serendipitous.
In the loved one and in the outcast.
It led St. Benedict to write (in The Rule), "Let everyone that comes be received as Christ."
If that is true, be ready today. You will meet, and you will be, Jesus with skin.
"Its okay honey," she told him, "here's what I want you to do. Go back to your room, kneel down by your bed, pray to Jesus and he'll fix it."
Back to his room, the boy knelt by his bed, prayed to Jesus, hopped back in bed, and. . .more nightmares. All momma's know this story. Back and forth to momma's room, throughout the night.
On the sixth visit, "Momma, I know, I know, I'm going to go back to my room. I'm going to kneel down by my bed and pray to Jesus. But before I do that, can I just lay in bed with you and have you hold me?"
"Sure honey, why?"
"Because sometimes I need Jesus with skin on it."
If you are like me, there is a good deal of comfort in identifying life as a series of problems to be solved (or impediments to be fixed or messes to be tidied up).
If there's a pill, I'll take it.
If there's a clever book, I'll buy it. (You can't beat, How to fix everything for dummies.)
If there's a can't-miss-prayer, I'll pray it.
After all, Jesus will fix it.
Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against problem solving. More often than not, I'm for it. But here's the thing. . .life is not just about the fixing.
Scottish minister George MacLeod tells the story about his young daughter's first day of school. "I was busy. I was writing letters. I was self-important. My little daughter was going to school that morning for the first time. She came into my room, in her first school uniform. I said, 'Your tie is not quite straight.' Then I looked at her eyes. She wasn't crying. She was unutterably disappointed. She hadn't come for tie inspection. She had come to show she was going to school for the first time. A terrific day, and I had let her down. . .I ran downstairs. I said all the right things. I crossed the road with her. I went to school with her. I had missed the moment, missed the point. I will always see these eyes. Sometimes when I am very busy. Sometimes when I am writing letters. I am forgiven, but I won't forget."
The little boy knew the secret. Life is to be found in the embrace. In the presence (or embrace) of the other. In other words, in the present.
This is the freedom and the power of the incarnation: the immediacy of the present. And the presence of God (God with us - with skin on) in all things. If that is true, we know that there are no unsacred moments.
This changes the way we live and relate. So. Before we fix anything (or resolve it, or renovate it, or move on), let us live it - feel it, see it, know it, taste it in all its messy, quirky, complicated, problematical and confusing richness and fullness. Why?
Because God is here.
In this moment.
In this conversation.
In this embrace.
In this confusion.
In this untidiness.
Even in this nightmare.
My need for control prevents me from seeing. If it is only about accurate answers or approved solutions or correct theology, I concentrate on having a better faith, or enviable devotion or superior morality. And, like George MacLeod or the young mother, I too easily remove myself from the moment. And when I do, I do not see. Or more accurately (to quote St. Benedict), I do not Listen with the ear of my heart.
In her poignant memoir, Eat This Bread, Sara Miles writes, "There was an immediacy of communion at St. Gregory's, unmediated by altar rails, the raw physicality of that mystical meal. There was an invitation to jump in rather than official entrance requirements. There was the suggestion that God could be located in experience, sensed through bodies, tasted in food; that my body was connected literally and mysteriously to other bodies and love without reason."
One of the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius is Finding God in All Things.
In both the nightmares and the prayers.
In the untidy school uniform and in the tears.
In the blunders and in the serendipitous.
In the loved one and in the outcast.
It led St. Benedict to write (in The Rule), "Let everyone that comes be received as Christ."
If that is true, be ready today. You will meet, and you will be, Jesus with skin.
Poems / Prayers
I Thank You
I thank You God for most this amazing
Day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
And a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
Which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(I who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this the birth
day of life and of love and wings; and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth:
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
ee cummings
The Fragrance of Christ:
Dear Jesus,
Help me to spread your fragrance everywhere I go.
Flood my soul with your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly
that my life may only be a radiance of yours.
John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
Peace,
Terry Hershey
