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Finding
God
In the Eyes of a Child
By Mary C. Earle
Recently
as I stood in the check-out line at my local grocery store,
a little girl of about two years old caught my eye. She
was sitting in the shopping cart, just getting ready to
fuss. As the unmistakable beginnings of a whine began to
grow, and as her mother stiffened in response, the little
girl looked at me. She stopped whining and just looked.
I was caught by the gaze of a child. She did not smile.
She simply stopped and looked, studying my face very soberly.
I smiled at her. She did not return the smile nor did she
frown. She simply looked, with eyes wide open and attention
focused. In that moment, I had a little glimpse of the
heart of God in Christ, a moment of the inbreaking of grace, a
startling reminder of the mystery of life, the mystery
of the Incarnation, there in the checkout line, next to
the copies of Good Housekeeping and the National
Enquirer. The Incarnation calls us,
urges us to seek the face of God, to know with
heart and mind and soul that God's face is a human
face.
That
little girl held my gaze far longer than most adults would
have done. She took me in with her wonder and curiosity.
A lovely stillness sat in that moment, as if only she and
I were in the line, as if the gazing had allowed us to
really see on another. The beholding each other, face to
face, revealed the inherent sacredness of the moment and
of each of us. And from that 'inner CD player'that
all of us have, I heard this line from a Christmas hymn:
How
silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven.
The
mystery of the Incarnation cannot be explained. As much
as we might want for this mystery to be logical or for
the mystery to submit to analysis, neither will do. Love
is at the heart of it. Not sappy sentimental love. Not
even jingle-bell love. This
mystery is known in moments when we glimpse each other
as we really are. I knew a bit of the mystery
while I was held by the steady gaze of that little girl,
her undivided attention somehow both revealing the sacredness
of her own person and rending the veil of grocery store
reality. No one made the moment happen. It could not be
forced. Yet for a moment, there was a pause, an opening,
a lifting of the veil, a mutual indwelling of earth and
heaven.
When
Jesus was born we began to know something of the face of
God. The birth was known to Mary and Joseph, and then to
some shepherds in the nearby regions. Only much later was
the birth perceived to be something extraordinary. In the
moment, as with any birth, there was a woman in labor and
a father fretting as a baby made the dangerous journey
from the womb into the world. The
mystery of the Incarnation is both out in the open, and
hidden away. Hidden as was this birth in
Bethlehem. Hidden as the glance of a child in the middle
of the grocery store. Welsh poet Iwan Llwyd perceives that
to
the world of the supermarkets
there
came to us also, in the tumult of the night,
a
chance to touch the stars.
(in A Welsh Pilgrim's Manual, p. 106)
Underneath
all of the busyness, the rushing, the effervescence of
the holidays, there is the mystery of infinite love, waiting
to take flesh yet again, to surprise us, to remind us of
the hope and the promise that comes in the stable in Bethlehem,
in the stable of our own hearts, in the stillness of the
winter night. The mystery awaits us at all times and in
all places, some filled with joy, some filled with sorrow,
some as ordinary as the line in the grocery store. Be on
the lookout. This God who clothes divinity with human flesh
seeks to behold the divine image in each of us, and in
the whole human community.
Copyright ©2004 Mary Earle
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