Seeing while Blind

The Kingdom of heaven is like a woman who owned a show horse.

She raised him to be a “dressage” horse, specially trained in obedience and precision of movement. Soon after he began to learn the art, the horse contracted a severe infection that nearly killed him and left him completely blind. The doctors told the woman her only options were to let him out to a treeless pasture or put him down. She did neither. Instead she determined to train him to the highest level of dressage possible.

“How was this going to work practically?” the woman wondered. The horse could not tell what she wanted or where she wanted him to go. He was terrified to leave his familiar stall. She thought to herself, “There is only one way I am able to communicate with my horse. I will be still inside myself and watch his body language. I will understand what makes him tick and attend to his fears, needs, comforts, and personal quirks.”

Thus, from within her quietness and patience, she led him, one stumbling step at a time, out of his stall.

Once she had taught the horse to walk around the arena without panicking or falling down on his front legs, she determined to ride him. Although after a few steps forward he could not maintain his equilibrium and went to his knees, the woman stayed on the horse and calmly leaned back until he again got up. Then they continued at a painstakingly slow pace, building the foundation for a life-long team effort.

Over the course of many years the two developed a very close relationship, and one day the woman realized her horse was ready for more challenge. It was time to prepare him to reach her dream that he be a dressage horse. At the beginning, his moves were not at all beautiful. As would always be the case, the horse’s two main challenges were to keep his balance and accept the woman’s assurance.

Finally, the horse was ready to go to the equestrian festival. His relationship to the woman was so secure that although the noise of horses, riders, and shouting trainers swirled around them, he kept his composure and listened only to her. Once the competition began, horse and rider continued to focus completely on one another’s signals, a habit that continued through one competition after another. By the end of the season, he had developed his skill to such a degree that he won one of his classes.

It all came down to trust, the woman said.¹

¹ Story source is from Jeanette Sassoon at http://www.valianttrust.org/. See also http://blindhorses.org/ and http://blog.rollingdogranch.org/.

Come, Thou Long-expected Jesus

On my mantle I have arranged the couple dozen figurines of my Fontanini nativity set, each character frozen in a perpetual gaze. The young pan piper seems lost in his melody, and another youth leans against a fence, musing toward my hearth. The shepherds and most of the sheep lift their faces to my ceiling. The goose girl and the old garlic farmer, too, pause to watch. An ox and donkey rest in the stable, ready to chew their cud, while a token angel hovers in the background. Joseph and Mary kneel near them, hands raised in anticipated adoration. The two look down at an empty manger, because high church tradition and common sense ask me to leave it so until the Day comes to celebrate Jesus’ actual birth. Each creature in my crèche holds its breath in a resin-bound chest. Waiting for God.

I, too, wait. But what kind of God do I expect?

I wait for an accessible God, a Holy Infant, who in his vulnerable innocency softens our fearful and resistant hearts and makes a manger his crib. How gentle is a God who thinks it best to slip unobtrusively into the human race amid only a couple dozen witnesses. Such action St. Isaac of Syria calls “exalted humility.”

The Word who became human clothed himself with humility, and thus spoke with us in our human body…Creation could not behold him unless he took part of it to himself and thus conversed with it: only thus was creation able to hear the words of his mouth face to face.*

I wait for a restoring God, a Saving Victim, because life’s experiences deny us the naiveté of “children nestled all snug in their beds.” When the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Child matures, his creatures behold him but cannot bear to hear his words. His humility descends even lower, for far from respecting him at least as a decent human being, his own ravage the very body designed to embrace them. How merciful is a God who thinks that his bloodied hands give best the healing touch a broken creation needs. He willingly makes a manger his coffin.

I wait for an intervening God, a Warrior King, as thousands of African women protest unrestrained mass rapes in Congo, and Port-au-Prince residents hope in vain for homes. I plead for his sovereign power to rescue the oppressed and destroy evil once and for all. How just is a God who thinks that truth and righteousness must prevail. Yet, as in the Bethlehem grotto, he seems to have hidden himself.

I finally catch a glimpse of the Warrior King in the hazy cosmic distance of the last book of Holy Scripture. St. John’s apocalyptic vision reveals he is not at all what I would expect: a Lamb looking as though it had been slain. But this humble, sacrificial Lamb standing in the midst of the throne of heaven is more like a royal lion. He takes command of all judgment of the world and ushers in an everlasting kingdom of peace. Infinitely outnumbering my token figurine, angels encircle the throne and sing; this time every creature in heaven, on earth and sea, joins in**:

 Worthy is the Lamb,

who was slain,

to receive power

and wealth

and wisdom

and strength

and honor

and glory

and praise!

Returning to my Fontanini crèche, I defy tradition and common sense to place my tiny lamb figurine in the empty manger. Someday, God will make it his throne.

Come again, long-expected Jesus.

 

*Daily Readings with St. Isaac of Syria, p. 66

**Revelation 5:6-13