Over my two years of study and personal development, I have been trying to make a better acquaintance with a man I find irresistibly attractive… You may know Him, though differently than I, for His name is Jesus. I do not claim to know Him as fully as I long; it is for this reason that I think I am in an unending, restless pursuit of knowing… investing in the exercise of love which created room for the action of faith in order to obtain more from the ceaseless of fountain of His life. How can I describe Him to you, you who know Him so differently than I? He is wrapped up in mystery, only through a mystical union in the spirit of His body, held together by love, can I fully know Him or perceive your ability to know Him. Let me try and introduce You to my unfathomable treasure, my Jesus:
I cannot see Him, my eyes have never seen a full picture of His face—only now and again do imagine that the eyes of my Lover are perceptible to my gaze. Yet I know Him… as foolish as it sounds, so it truly is. I know Him because He loves me and the warmth of the inner light He kindles in my soul consumes me like a devouring flame in my bones… it drives me beyond in external pursuit while the furnace of my inner being is overwhelmingly satisfied by His Spirit. I pursue Him, yet I have Him, all at once. It is this veil of life I as a dutiful bride wear over my eyes, hiding myself from my own perception as His inner chisel conforms my being to His own liking… as I surrender the riches of my heart to His melding put where all is scorched and consumed and melded together. With Him I am nothing, for He floods my soul until I have willingly drowned beneath His flood; though at the same time I find that the floods are not killing me but reviving me to a life beneath and inside of His waters which I could never have drempt of. Thus are His mysterious inner workings in me, absorbing all that I am and routing my desires by the winsome glances of His eyes. He is a voracious Lover, though I am difficultly compelled to His will, for its truth is truly the desire of my heart.
He, my invisible beloved, has sought a body on this earth; He has honored my vitalized corpse of dust to be the indwelling of His Holy Temple. Every day I arise from the soul’s sleep to find He resurrects in me, through me by the nourishment of His word and His love. His love is alive in me, incomprehensible though He is, and I engage Him in that love through pursuing a deeper demonstration of Him: my soul alone wastes away under the exhaustion of seeking when I am alone too long. I am ravished by His Word and tender presence when He presents His hands before me… they are not my own hands, though His wounds burn within me when I feel His love. I seek the stigmata of His people, in whose hands my Thomas eyes may see the beauty of His likeness and in His people my Mary heart may lavish the riches of blessing He has bestowed in the box of my alabaster memory. I am His and He is mine… the flesh in which I walk carried responsibility beyond self to be enjoined to Him through His people… that scattered body of His, dismembered in individual, but unified in wholeness of love. It is love I must learn, but my loneness robs the feeling from my soul, my perception of Him dims when I cannot see the likeness of Him entwining me into the wine of His fruitful wine reflected in the life of another.
I have said He cannot be tangibly perceived; yet my hands ache for existential reality. At times I have stretched them out to heaven, feeling as if my soul would give anything to bear that agony of my Jesus in order to be so perfected, that my love might do no more harm. My soul exists in an arbor of His love, though my wandering sometimes drifts into the chill of loneness and I find I have abandoned Him, though He is still within me and His heart beats within me… I cannot escape His love. It wraps me like a tender covering, leading my childish soul through gradual steps of maturity as I learn that He is not scattered, but still whole amongst a broken people. I receive the Eucharist tradition of His broken body and emptied blood… and yet I know He is whole and perhaps it is for my solace that He breaks Himself in celebration, for no more of His blood is to be spilt, and no more of His flesh to be torn. His wounds are a constant reminder of His undesired love, which is too intense for my soul to bear. Intensity and tenderness combine into one to present me a picture of active loving, a concept I still fail to understand, for I feel Him only as much as I engage with Him.
He is with me in the midst of life, though my perception distances me from Him. Sometimes I think He is God and am awed by the splendor and beauty of my husband the King, yet He disrobes Himself of the glory so as not to overwhelm me; the brilliance of God is in His face no matter how much man I may see Him as. No matter how little I may feel Him, I have been made a part of Him, a picture of Him, to go out as His trusted confidante to represent His desires. I am as dearly coveted as His own child and jealously guarded as His treasured wife. He knows of my wandering; my youth and disbelief present many a time to learn of His gentle mercy in drawing me back from where my hand has already been stretched out to act. When I wound the sight of His eyes by violence to myself, He disarms me of my wounds, causing me to weep at the memory of their presence on Him; my wounds do not hard Him now, my Lover is too strong for that. My scars vanish into His glowing skin, and I am made whole before Him.
He covers the shame of my foolishness, wrapping me in His own robes so I am not uncovered and guarding with His arms; I am covered like the fortress of a strong tower from which I can gaze upon all of life… yet from the tower, He tells me it is armor I must learn to bear to go out amongst all the land… He is too loving to hide me away forever. In His arms I am gathered and I want for nothing… hunger and thirst flee from my being as I drink in the fragrance of new life from His robes and recover strength of spirit by His guiding hand. When I am weary, He is my strength, working His Godness to produce constant guard as long as I will remain with Him. Softly He teaches me submission, for my will is more foolish than I know it. A kiss from the words of His mouth teaches me the fullness of my life with Him, in Him, for I have become an unworthy embodiment of my Beloved, learning the love beyond the quiet confines of my books in the lives of others so that:
In the abundance of his glory may he, through his Spirit, enable you to grow firm in power with regard to your inner self,
so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love,
with all God’s holy people you will have the strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth;
so that, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond knowledge, you may be filled with the utter fullness of God.
(Ephesians 3.16-19)
This is just a part of my Jesus, won’t you seek in yourself a shard of the mirror of His image, with the lamp of the spirit of Yhwh to uncover the veil from our eyes and see as things truly are, for they will become as they were truly meant to be?
