Behold, the Christ
Just a little, of It was easy to see You
in holy faces, holy places,
God made flesh in a mother’s voice
or in the gentle hands of a nurse,
or the smile of a grandfather
or the laughter of small children.
Every presence of love and beauty
proclaimed your advent.
I needed eyes sharpened by suffering
before I was able to see You
in the pain of human poverty.
The man who stared at a prison ceiling,
the alcoholic mother, the hungry child,
the old woman who died alone in her flat,
the young victims who grew up
to become abusers themselves,
the people who were in despair
at their inability to make changes,
when I could look at them
through the experience
of my own crucifixions,
I realised they all looked back at me
with your eyes.
It took much longer to see You
in places of affluence and power,
in parliament or at the stock exchange,
at the helm of a luxury yacht
or residing in a summer palace
surrounded by material wealth.
But now I discover that in these places
You have the same eyes as the poor,
the disabled, the imprisoned,
the same eyes as the grandfather,
the children, the hospital nurse,
the same eyes that I see
each morning in the mirror.
And I begin to understand a little,
Just a little, of the truth
of who You are.
Psalms for the Road – Joy Cowley
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