It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor…. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal…. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors…. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.
~ C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet,
~ from Psalm 8
Oh beloved, it is true. There are so many things that cannot be seen with just the eyes. We have to actually look in order to see them.
And today was such a day for this fool of writer. For some reason, i was at a mall, and passing through a sea of humanity. And in this same place – and at the same time – i (again) saw my own foolishness and utter inability to be what i needed to be in my own strength.
The pain of being misunderstood and shadows of the past were haunting me. And the flesh, that within each of us that is irredeemable, was in a fit – whining for a chance to give me “relief.” Thankfully, a part of me which has become wise, knew that any path back to my old dead man, would only lead to more death and destruction.
So, before crashing completely, i crashed boldly into the throne room of Grace to obtain the mercy i so desperately required and the Grace without which nothing else is possible.
“Help me Father!!!,” i bellowed in my spirit.
But still the pain remained.
It was as though my Beloved had gone away for a moment. And moments like this for a lover are desperate. And in the searching for Him, i could feel the watchmen of this world attempting to beat me and beat me back into the mold they had almost shoved me into in the past.
And He answered with, “Submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he shall flee from you,” and then the direct directive, “Tell it to go away son.”
So i did.
“Be gone. i speak this by the shed Blood of Christ, and by the word of my testimony as to what He has done in my life. Be gone forever. Do not return.”
Then, quiet. (Doubt not the reality of spiritual battle beloved.) Quiet, and the removal of the sense of choking on my own flesh, and the buffeting of my senses by an evil being. Further, a deeper and now (thankfully) completely known sense of being back where i needed to be in the spirit; utterly abandoned of any sense of my own strength and completely realizing my need for all elements of who i am to be yielded to – and moving with Him.
And then it happened.
Where a few minutes ago, i had been fighting the temptation to lust over the curves of a body, or to lose my patience with a body that had gotten in my way, or to just give in to some sort of despair about my own life situation… i saw something en masse that i had never seen before.
i began to see people as they are.
It was not that the physical went away, it was that i saw that the physical is but a phase of the overall reality of who a person is. People are luminous. And many of them are stunningly beautiful. From within the inner being of the person comes a light (shaped very much like who they are in the physical) that represents the state of their total life. All the Life and Love and Despair and Hope and Wishing and all of who they are can be seen.
And in seeing this for about 10 or so minutes, i saw that their (our) value is beyond the scale of anything we can even begin to comprehend. This creation could not begin to contain the value of every person if it were counted with silver or gold. i – in this moment – groaned with all of creation for the full revealing of the sons and daughters of G_d.
i Loved them, and i instantly knew that many of the people i was seeing were people with whom i would become dear friends in eternity. Bright, luminous threads of forever wove through the air in which i was walking.
It was Him. He is The Light. And it is His Light that lights the spirit of a man.
And then it was gone (for now.) But the Hope which grew within me today is a Hope which cannot fade. For when He takes more territory within us, He will not give it back.
So, are you hurting and feeling hopeless? Don’t. Ask Him to show you the Light. Dive into the Word and let it begin to light your path as He speaks to you. Tonight is your night beloved. Time to see.
