The Face of Jesus

For God who said, "Let light shine out of the darkness," 

is the one who shined in our hearts 

to give us the light 

of the knowledge 

of the glory of God

 in the face of Jesus Christ. 

 2 Cor 4:6

If you can muster the courage and spare the space in the midst of some muddied day, ask a friend to sit in front of you and agree to stare at each other for a long time. Uncomfortably long. Notice their eyes carefully and especially. Slowly (definitely not suddenly) subtle details will begin to accumulate, well-up and overflow. Little lines, colors, shapes and textures. Purely physical that somehow embody something unphysical. Physical immanence signifying and embodying some eternity hidden in there. 

Now that you're becoming wildly uncomfortable and awkward say something painfully ordinary like, "Hey, it's nice that Fall is finally beginning." Talking about the weather will remind you that you live in a world that is alive, created by a living God. You wont know you're being reminded of that. It's the commonness of talking about the weather that locates us in God's hospitality, his warmth, and his very personal investment in our lives. It's a great gift to meet in ordinariness. 

Keep looking at that face in front of you. 

If you can bear it, watch the magic of integration in the shapes, colors and shadows. How does light converse with their skin? Enjoy the little imperfections. Are their eyebrows bushy? Well-groomed? Penciled in? Or absent? Watch how the mouth and eyes work together to speak in the silence. Facial inflection. How many thousands of things can be said, in the absence of words, with that face? How many jokes can be told? 

Keep searching in that face. Pay the price of attention. 

Did you catch some meaning in the slightest movement? You're not even sure there was a movement, but something moved from their mind and heart to yours. Maybe it was fear? Quiet fun? Avoidance? Even the most passing, unintentional thought can make the most delicate movement call out in that face, if we look long enough. This is very hard work. This five minutes may be more work to us than sixty hours at a job. 

Hold on to that face. Hold on because your life depends on it. 

Ignore the excuses that rage and clamour in and outside of you. Every gong and cymbal that begs you to look beside that face... to the television, to the deadline, to the cell phone screen, to every screaming screen, the medicating veils, the numbing to-do's and to-get's. 

Listen deeply with your aching face to that other aching face. 

Have you known this face long? What of your together-history can you see in that face? Can you remember where the tears trailed down? The swollen redness. Remember how the perfume of laughter and the glory of tenderness bloomed from that face when the morning came and you could see you were still in God's well-weathered world.  Don't extract a lesson from that face, for Christ's sake, don't try to get the point. Do not make the mistake of working to possess for yourself, for your own use, any aspect of that bright, intimate, being across from you. We must always guard against trading in the stories for thin morals-of-the-story. Put down the severe knife of the de-mythologizer. That face you see is a myth and a mystery, eternally told. 

Before you look away from that mirror. That face that isn't and is you. Wait. Wait eagerly. 

See the story open before you. See it open its eyes and look at you. Remember it always.