Born blind

We are born blind,
we never had eyes,
we have never seen light,
nor known it,
nor experienced it,
we have no idea even of what it is,
just what others have told us.
But did they have eyes?
Were they born with sight?
Or do they speak of what they imagine but never see?

This is how it is, for us,
for every human being who has ever walked the earth,
but One.

We are born blind.
We hear the world around us,
but cannot see it.
We know it’s there,
we bump into it,
sometimes hurting ourselves,
until we learn how to navigate through the darkness.

Darkness?
Our world doesn’t look dark to us.
It’s light, it’s beautiful,
there’s so much in it to see and experience.
Yes, but all that you say we are seeing,
all of it, my brothers,
is dark and featureless,
as shallow yet as deep as a starless night,
and yet you say you see.

Let me,
one blind man who does not see but feels, tell you
that as wonderful as it would be for a man born blind
to be granted the faculty of sight,
that is how wonderful, and even more, it will be
when we who have been born blind and see only this world
are granted to really see.

To really see,
when we have received our sight,
we cannot remember anymore that seamless darkness
that was what we thought the world to be.
We will be able to close our eyes for a moment—
only the demons are eyelidless—
and see the world we left behind.

And just as we close our eyes to better pray,
so there will we close our eyes for our brothers
who live yet in that world born blind,
which never (since it sold them) had eyes nor sighted birth,
as we intercede without ceasing
for those who await with longing to receive their sight.

And open them again,
to receive Him who was always everywhere present,
filling all things,
the Lord and Creator of Life,
to receive Him into our hungry eyes,
to become what we behold,
finally, finally,
after waiting for what seemed for ever,
waiting only to be fulfilled,
to see only Him.
x

He

Yes, I am still alive.
I have to pinch myself sometimes,
just to make sure.

I have to read a word I’ve written,
to make sure I have not gone mad,
or gone missing.

Where am I?
Always and forever, here,
because He is here.

Am, because He is.

Mine,
because He has given me myself,
His gift, once and only,
inimitable, unfeignable,
the same yet different from all His other gifts,
which as they gently fall from His caring hands,
form themselves into worlds,
persons, creations, visible and invisible.

He is Lord,
and we are nothing but praise,
returning back to Him
the reflection of His blessed face,
which He has imprinted in our depths,
singing back to Him the song
with which He sang all that is into being.

Empty,
so that He may fill me.

Silent,
so that He may teach me.

Slow,
so that He may quicken me.

Dead,
so that He may raise me.

O Lord, how wonderous You are among Your saints!
x

Day by day

Day by day,
never perfect,
never worthy,
never righteous,
never wise,
but trying to walk by faith, not by sight,
trying to follow the Master whose blessed feet
tread not the tame path of religion,
but get dusty from the world’s roads,
following Him even when it hurts,
even when tired,
even when unhappy,
even when tempted,
even having sinned,
even when accused, judged and imprisoned falsely,
day by day.
x

Morning

The morning sun
just rising over the eastern mountains
cutting slices of reality
with its sharp shafts of rose-red light
claiming its share of the white stucco walls
of old Portland row houses,

and the birds strangely silent,
perhaps watching with stunned anticipation
the arrival of another cloudless day,

and I, sitting quietly looking beyond
mere computer screens into the world’s utter west,
populated by trees upon trees,
greens now slowly awakening
to the gold-washed waves pouring over them,
and wondering what the day will bring.

My morning tasks still unformed
in the empty future ahead of me,
one unpleasant task,
the return of a broken-glassed picture frame
that would not yield to assembly.

What treasures will arrive on my doorstep today?
Already they have been piling up
against my unopened front door,
waiting for me to discover them.

Joy, joy, amidst suffering,
blending what cannot be with what is,
and all held in fragile friendship in the hands of God,

who for the love of His suffering siblings
joined them to prove on the battlefield of His body
that victory is at the bottom of defeat,
and that redemption can be purchased
only at a price beyond our paying,

and that of all worlds this one is the best and only,
because our Beloved has pierced our defenses
and shown us the way out,
to perfect freedom,
fearless, radiant, unfleshly
and immortal.

He is glorified by the piping of a solitary bird
that now sings, again and again, the threefold call,
‘Holy, Holy, Holy,’
out of the wooded depths.

Your day, O Lord,
Your day that You have bestowed on us,
grant us to behold Your face in every moment,
and feel Your touch.

Savior, come, and do not delay.
x

Trapped in a world without love

Trapped in a world without love,
when we realise this, where do we turn?
To what or to whom?

Nothing worth having is worth having well,
is worth anything unless we can share it.
But whom can we share it with?

This question has driven many to suicide.
Not seeing the Invisible—how can they?
Without faith they are blind—and trusting the visible,
entrusting themselves wholeheartedly to images of desire,
they miss the Beloved as He walks by,
Who is no image,
Who is not what but Whom they were born wanting.

These are not thoughts that can be shared with anyone,
not doctrines that can be taught to anyone.
The Wanted awaits the wanting.
Faith unsprings the trap that ensnares us.

My young friends.
Some of them already broken,
some hoping to be broken no more.
Youth wanting to escape the trap walking right into it.

Life freely beckons as we walk unknowingly
onto its battlefield of justice,
unaware that we either fall in battle slain by our own desires,
or stand alone alive in possession of a kingdom
but none with whom to share it.

Why?
Because we look and look again,
but do not see.
Listen and listen again,
but do not hear.
The chariot driver of our souls whispers to us,
and we pause, then take aim,
and pursue still the objects of desire, but He alone is Lord.

We sleep.
Then we awake.
Alone with Him, walking the long beach
and leaving shallow prints on its glistening sands.

He tells us the truth of all things.
He tells us who we are, why we lived, why we died,
how it is there is nobody here but us.

‘From before the beginning, Beloved,
you were Mine, and I am yours.’

Hidden, always hidden, yet walking beside us,
everything in His hands.
Everything.

The world vanishes.
Trapped in a world without love?
What world?

There always was only one,
one world, one time, one being, one life, one heart, one love:
Yes, only one joy.

We were born wanting.
The Wanted awaits us.
Faith unsprings the trap.
Faith, faith, and more faith.
Only faith has eyes.
x

It can only happen

It can only happen, when you give up all.
It can only start, when you have sold all your possessions.
No, not your house, your car, your job, your clothes—
though if you want to leave these to others, you may—
but possessions kept so close, held onto so tightly
that no one but you sometimes even knows they are there.

The ownership of privacy is the root of all evil,
though the love of money can take second place,
but both stop the sun from rising on your neighbor’s field.
To wish for ourselves a happiness that excludes all others,
to hedge about our garden to keep out all comers,
this pride of privacy hides the truth, and mocks the life.

Not only world rulers despoil and defraud the poor,
but meek shepherds lolling in the sheepfolds smiling lies
hoard for themselves not money only, but stranded souls.
Not only vineyard laborers beat and blaspheme the past,
but presently murder the Owner’s sons and daughters,
with stone arrows shot from behind their lookout towers.

It can only happen, when you walk away shaken.
All your pockets emptied, your feet unshod, hands staffless,
heart moved like mountain cast into churning sea,
driven out by the darkness that enfolded you in your tomb,
blasted open with the dynamite of unexpected light,
when you walk away shaken, your eyes and ears, opened.

When you have sold all your possessions,
return and follow Me.
No point in questioning until you want to hear the answer.
Playing a game of rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief,
preventing others, by your privacy, from entering in,
stopping all at the gate, demanding what cannot be given,
only your door have you locked and barred
and sealed by unbelief.
x