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And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
There is no
shortage of witnesses. Thousands testify to the shining. I come across their
voices almost every week. Just yesterday, I found this:
‘Some people
make you feel better about living. Some people you meet and you feel this
little life in your heart, this Ah, because there’s something in them that’s
brighter or lighter, something beautiful or better than you, and here’s the magic;
instead of feeling worse, instead of feeling why am I so ordinary?, …
you feel glad. In a weird way you feel better because before this you hadn’t realized
or you’d forgotten human beings could shine so.’ (History of the Rain,
Niall Williams, 128)
A smile rose
from an uncontrollable something within as I read these words. Faces appeared, too,
including a few I had met but once or twice. Remembrance also released a
question. Where have I heard this before?
Was it Thomas
Merton? Standing on the corner of Fourth and Walnut in Louisville, Kentucky, he
was suddenly overwhelmed with love as he watched the people around him going
about their business. They have no idea, he wrote. ‘They are all walking around
shining like the sun.’
But maybe Merton
was borrowing from St. Irenaeus. ‘The glory of God is a human being fully alive,’
he wrote, 1800 years ago. I wonder, who was he thinking about when he wrote
that? Somebody shiny, I suspect.
But this vision
of glory is not reserved for saints and mystics. It also comes to those of no import,
like me, as I watch the faces of people returning to their seats, after
receiving Holy Communion.
They pass by
me in the aisle, one after another, making no particular impression, when for
no apparent reason, in the alchemy of the Spirit, a single face stuns me: A
young girl, hands folded in front of her, a white scrunchy around her head,
pulling together a long fall of black hair, a river of waves cascading nearly
to her waist. Smiling, her face alight, this is a loved child who knows she
belongs.
And with this,
Irenaeus and Merton are sitting there beside me, wearing smug, ‘I told you so’ expressions,
insufferably pleased with themselves, but not nearly as pleased as I am to witness
one more face in a lifetime of faces that make me glad to be alive in a place where
faith and love and beauty can strike you when you least expect. They can even make
you forgive and infinitely forgettable sermon that doesn’t matter a whit, now
that you’ve seen the shining.
‘The glory
you have given me, I have given them,’ Jesus prayed, speaking of his disciples
as he prepared to leave them. His giving didn’t end with them, as all who have
seen the shining can attest.
Glory may not
always shimmer, but it breaks out and sheds its light in lives of grace and
truth that make you glad to be alive, wherever and whenever you are awake
enough to see them.
For me, this gratitude
quickly gives way to longing and prayer. ‘Might I shine, too, my Friend,
just a little? knowing that Jesus doesn’t have all that much to work with
when it comes to me.
But the prayer
has already been answered. For in his light, we see light and become the light we
see.
