Lit from Within
For Lindsey, who is maybe reading this in the elevator, whose kindness is a balm to all she encounters.
There are no ordinary people.
You have never talked to a mere mortal.
– C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
Lit from Within
Based on the life of Thomas Merton
It was on the sidewalks of Kentucky,
Thomas said undoubtedly
Familiar, dull, concrete
When something overcame him
Like the Spirit overshadowed Mary.
His vision dove inwards and then came up again,
fresh and clear, gasping for air
having conceived of something
so wonderful
he scarce could take it in:
The invisible made visible,
every person and every blade of grass
trembling with glory,
seeming lit from within.
He saw the undimmable fire of Divinity,
the Maker’s image permanent
as a hand’s impression in wet cement.
A passing moment, and the vision left—
though he never saw the same.
How can this be? Mary asked, full of grace
and so did Thomas, and so do we
every time we kneel
to thank the grass for remembering
to clothe the earth’s naked form—
for daring to push through concrete
while we walk on pavement made of
water and dust—the same substance as us,
Breath and Dirt bowing beneath
the weight of eternal glory
Every one of us shining
like suns undimmable,
lit from within.
I took a morning walk this week in search of freedom from the ever-narrowing confines of my anxious mind. Breathing in deeply, my lungs remembered what they are for as I strode through streets that were shining with the alchemy of late night rain and early morning light. I paused and knelt every so often to take pictures of leaves and reflections in puddles, of late autumn roses clinging to life despite the evidence. I thought of the late Catholic monk Thomas Merton, of how it was on a morning much like this, perhaps, that his walk through the streets of Louisville, Kentucky was arrested by the sudden realization that the world was his to love—given, broken, blessed—and that through the eyes of love, he saw the world around him and the people in it shining undeniably with something of their original glory. Here is how Thomas describes his experience in his book Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander:
In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world. . . But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
Shining like the sun is how I see the world and the people in it when my eyes are at their best, when my vision is clear and I am beholding how I was meant to: with wonder and reverence, joy and delight—everything lit from within. There is no way to summon this reverential way of seeing at will, though something does seem to happen when we put ourselves in the way of beauty—when we pause to kneel, to give thanks, to simply pay attention with the currency of patience.
I spent the rest of the day consumed with good things that are not great things, things that will seem trivial in a month or so. But the glory of that morning walk has left its imprint on me, shining like a handprint made in wet cement. Today and every day, may you be given the grace to see something of what Thomas saw: the ever-present reality of Heaven kissing earth, kissing you—you who are lit from within, shining like the sun.
Amen.
Going Deeper: Listen to “Every Star Is a Burning Flame” by Andrew Peterson, a song about seeing like Thomas saw.
I remember Mr. Green and I
Were walking down a busy street in Louisville
The sign said, Merton looked around
And all the people passing by
were shining like the sun and beautiful
And the wonder of it caught him by surprise
Oh Lord, I wanna see the world with those eyes
I wanna look into the night and see a million suns
Rise