The Child is Reaching Out

In the back of the Chapel at the Monastery of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, there is a small alabaster sculpture of Mary, the Holy Mother, balancing the child Jesus on her left hip. He is no longer an infant, perhaps a toddler. He reaches his left hand out in a gesture that now makes sense to me.

I’ve been visiting that Chapel for a while. It is what the Celts would call a “thin place:” things happen here. Here I have learned to hold my energy soft and open, with no expectations The Holy Mother has caught my attention, but Jesus on her hip hasn’t. 

My relationship with Jesus, well, it’s been humbling–and growing. Over forty years ago, in the era of Jesus Freaks, a friend confessed that she had been holding against Jesus the folks he hung out with –or who said they hung out with him. This got me to A Moment. I could let go of all the projections I had ever heard or read about Jesus. So I tossed out the challenge that if he is real, he can make himself known to me—as he truly is – if he exists. 

It’s been more than half my life since that challenge was tossed. The easiest metaphor is a snowball. One of the ones that rolls itself, ever-growing, down a slope–when the conditions are right. Unnoticeable at first, with a few widely separate clues, then what could be the beginning of a movement. Recently things have been moving along with increasing weight and intensity. I’m grateful for those years of scant clues and subtle movement. I learned to pay attention and not jump to conclusions; to hang on and observe how things develop. Because of this lengthy apprenticeship, I now have the confidence to share my perceptions. 

Which returns me to the statue in the back of the Monastery Chapel. A while back, I was there on retreat. It was night, my favorite time in the Chapel: everyone else has gone to bed, the lights are dim, and I have the place to myself—and whatever may happen. My attention was drawn to the child on Mary’s hip. The figure sort of lit up, and the gesture of the hand conveyed energy that felt, well, imperious. It wanted something. As I rested in its presence, it seemed that it wanted to grow up. It is tired of being encased in the alabaster of conventional Christian understanding. It wants to claim life, its life, the fullness of the CHRIST life. This Child is more than Jesus. It is the fullness of Jesus’ purpose manifested two millennia ago: to awaken humanity to the CHRIST within all life and within themselves. Ourselves. 

Can we help the Child crack open the alabaster? Can we help the CHRIST grow up, in us and through us? Can we choose to recognize its fullness stretching to be known in everyone we meet, everyone we think of? Can we support it in becoming what it was (is) created to be? Can we? Shall we? Will we?