One of the many ailments that Mom endured during her life was macular degeneration. As with her other maladies, she would often incorporate the effects of them into her conversations. Many times she would compliment someone on their appearance, for example, saying, “…my…you look as if you’ve lost weight.” After the recipient of the compliment enjoyed the observation made by Mom, she would then suddenly quip with the epilogue “…of course you realize I am legally blind,” and then burst into laughter.
A treasured image in my heart of her, which I hope remains and grows within me for the rest of my years concerning her eyesight is that of her recognizing her visitors as they approached her. From a distance I could see her initially not aware that someone was approaching her and then upon realizing that someone was coming toward her, her expression became intent on determining who was approaching. And then, the beautiful moment when the recognition occurred. Her eyes changed from intense query and transformed in a split second. Her face would light up like a Christmas tree and she would speak your name and greet you.
Sometimes you would have to be directly in front of her in order for the recognition to occur. Our Advent prophet Isaiah says something of this in the Nativity scriptures today (IS 52: 7-10) http://www.usccb.org/bible/isaiah/52:7. :
“Hark! Your sentinels raise a cry, together they shout for joy, for they see directly, before their eyes, the LORD restoring Zion.”
In one sense this can be seen as a possible commentary on our inability to see things until they stare us in the face. So much of the Gospel message seems to be just about this. The evangelist John (JN 1: 1-18) http://usccb.us8.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b927174dbe854683d4b527f98&id=82bbb64b99&e=2b2352d024 in his prologue, tells us that it is the difference between light and darkness:
“He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him…
What came to be through him was life and this life was the Light of the human race…
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world came to be through him”
So, John’s “nativity” is precisely that God is here and always has been. Yes Jesus the Christ became flesh, but there is perhaps an even deeper truth – that God has always been here – it’s just that we fail to see God. It’s almost like God became human flesh as the most extreme “hint” of “Hey! I AM here – can’t you see Me? – I am even one of you now.”
Yet, we keep missing Him. She eludes us. Not because God hides, but because we turn away from the Light which is our very Life, instead of seeing it “directly before our eyes” as Isaiah points out.
God is not a foreigner. God is native. But we cannot focus our eyes (or perhaps can but choose not to). So God remains invisible and unrecognizable. So we dismiss our Source of Life and walk in the dark. But the gravest mistake is that we fail to see that “the light shines IN the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” It cannot! The creative and healing light of all Life cannot be extinguished. It will always shine and with all the more brilliance even amidst the darkness! The only thing we can do is to either try and see and embrace the light or try to fool ourselves into believing something different by seeing only the darkness. What terrible and violent deprivation we so often choose for ourselves and our world!
The theologian, Virgil Elizando, in his book, “Guadalupe: Mother of the New Creation,” describes this way of destruction and darkness as the failure to recognize our own inner and outer dignity, beauty, and infinite worth” (New York: Orbis Books, 1997, p. 86). He speaks of the “way of Incarnation” as an approach to Life that starts from inclusivity and reverence rather than domineering darkness. Life is then an honoring of a brilliance in enfleshment that really is Divine. As the letter to the Hebrews (Heb 1: 1-6) http://usccb.us8.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b927174dbe854683d4b527f98&id=70645d0f43&e=2b2352d024 declare it, “…the refulgence of his (God,s) glory, the very imprint of His being!”
The advent of Light is here now because it has always been here. The Light is Native. We simply must choose it, which ultimately has more to do with God than us. God will focus the light – we simply must Be in it and allow it to bathe us in the undying hope for Life. When we are bathed by and in God, we are refreshed in our native origins and then we can begin to see that the Rays of light extend over and infuse all of us. Everyone and everything! Then the gathered rays of hope can burst into the song of joyous recognition of which Isaiah speaks:
“O ruins of Jerusalem, For the Lord comforts his people,
He redeems Jerusalem.
The Lord has bared his holy arm in the sight of all the nations;
All the ends of the earth will behold the salvation of our God!”
This joyous season of Christmas that we begin to celebrate today is not just a remembered event, but a way of life. As Father Elizondo says, the “way of incarnation” allows us to recognize what is already here and, like Mom, we can joyously and reverently greet the Light by name in its wonderful Nativity!
Peace
Thomas