Advent Day 13: December 14th
When We Begin to Truly See

Every year I reread a classic, digesting it through new eyes. I recently reread C.S. Lewis's classic, The Great Divorce. In the story, Lewis imagines life on earth observed from the perspective of heaven. He pictures a heavenly guide standing beside each newly arrived soul and together they watch life on earth unfold. The idea is compelling. The new soul is finally at a distance from the events in life, which seemed so formidable at the time. Now, with the advantage of a greatly altered perspective, the soul watches circumstances on earth unfold. But it does so with knowledge of the gift such a crisis might ultimately reveal.

As I read, it was impossible not to think of miseries of my own that bore no resemblance to a gift at the time. It is almost always that way. Looking only at the surface of things, so much is veiled. From that vantage point it was almost impossible to glimpse the work of love, and even harder to imagine that pain and loss might be a vehicle for something much greater.

I think about the number of gifts I've failed to see and how many events I've embued with a power they didn't have. And what if, instead of being outraged when I experience setbacks, I found the power within to trust that the present darkness might ultimately be transformed into a blaze of love?


by Paula D'Arcy, Redbird Foundation
from the book: Daybreaks