THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY

 

THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY

The doctor’s waiting area had four entrances. The wooden floor was old but polished. Nurses and patients came and went, all intent, in a steady unpredictable flow. They shared a common purpose of healing or being healed and a common humanity. They formed a temporary community of transitory connections. Without saying so, they wished each other well. They got on with the silent thoughts or their texting. The atmosphere was charged with unspoken anxiety. Like waiting for exam results or the verdict of interviews.

It was a provisional community. In another place, at another time, they would have chatted and learnt each other’s business.  They would have broken the silence and allow connections to develop. They would have revealed who they are and what were their hopes.

          The orchard where the tree grows is judged on the quality of its fruit,

          Similarly a person’s words betray what he feels.

 

So speaks Ben Sirach and he goes on: we cannot praise a person until we hear them speak. Words are like those daubs of paint that build up the whole picture. And they reveal whether the picture is full of promise or threat. When Jesus came, he spoke extraordinary words, words that penetrated the meaning of this planet. Yet they were simple words, easy to understand, like the instructions on a medicine bottle. ‘Lose your life and you will find it.’ They were words full of hope.

 

Easy to understand but so hard to learn. The Russians have invaded Ukraine. All the words they used in the build up pronounced they are acting in self-defence. A powerful country attacking a weaker one in self-defence? It is overwhelmingly sad. There is now so much anger at this situation, so much pain and sadness. It forces us back to the words of Jesus and calls us to pray. In quiet personal prayer or in public or on the internet or whatever way. People are losing their lives and those who remain live in fear. All because we ‘cannot lose our life – in the sense Jesus means - and so find it.’

 

Can we imagine what the world would like if we could live these words? All our doctors’ waiting rooms, sports grounds, musical venues and theatres of war – are the raw material of our relating to one another. There are so many opportunities to choose to reach out to others or, on the contrary, think only of ourselves. This attack is a huge step back for humanity. After all we have been through, we cannot see it, even ‘through a glass darkly’.

 

27 February 2022