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Lord most
high, what shall this exile do, so far from you? What shall your servant do,
tormented by love of you and cast so far from your face? He yearns to see you,
and your face is too far from him. … He longs to find you, and does not know
your dwelling place. … Let me … find you in loving you and love you in finding
you. (St. Anselm,
1033/34-1109)
Far from the
starting place where my life began, closer to the end of my days, the desire
doesn’t change.
The ancient
hunger, from age to age the same, stirs the restless heart, longing to glimpse
the face of the eternal, to touch the untouchable, the unchangeable and
incorruptible, to bask in the light in all that is light and bathe in the
fountain from which life springs.
How can it
be, I wonder, witnessing again a photo from Apollo 8? Three men from earth, rounding the dark side
of the moon, shoot a single frame of a little green and blue orb, so wondrously
and unexpectedly alive, floating alone amid the great darkness.
Earthrise, they called it. But what rises in
the heart is wonder. Why this? Why is there anything at all? And it’s so
small, this home of ours, so insignificant, so fragile. It could fall into
nothingness, swallowed by the yawning immensity, lost in timeless oblivion.
But no. We
are here. My heart beats alongside billions of others, blood running through my
veins, unanswerable questions in my mind and a mysterious love in my heart—love
for the wonder of being afforded life and love that is as real and sweet as my
beloved’s smile.
And for all
of this, the heart cries out to know and touch the Source of life and love, who
is the sweetness of every beloved smile.
Show
yourself to me. I
want … I need to see and know you. Nothing unusual in this. It’s the
longing of sensitive souls since time began, the innate desire for ‘I know
not what’ … that fires the desire to reach beyond ourselves to understand
and grasp the meaning of it all.
But how
shall we know you, Eternal Mystery? Where can we seek and find your dwelling
place?
Wiser souls
than mine, tormented by loving desire for you, wrestled with the Mystery you
are, their search collapsing in exhaustion, finding you finally in the mystery
of the love within them, recognizing you were never far off, but near as that
love for life and beauty … and for this little blue and green orb spinning in
the great darkness.
And you who
are incomprehensible love, the incorporeal mystery, the beginning of the
beginning, the light of light, you, we believe, took a human face, that we may see
and know the longing within us begins and ends in the love you are.
Come, Lord
Jesus. Come among us that we may see the face of you who dwells in the eternity
of time and the mystery of our hearts.
David L. Miller
