I don’t want to see

I don’t want to see. I don’t want to change. I am happy as I am. Just like this. I am happy not to be challenged, not to go out of my comfort zone. I don’t want to see the deeper nature of things or look beyond the surface. It is much easier to keep doing what I am doing. It is much easier not to move homes. It is better to live in that old place with my old habits and narrow judgments. It is much easier to see the world as black or white, good or bad, right or wrong, left or right wing, sinners or saints, Christians or non-Christians, theists or atheists…

Leave me as I am. Let me work, eat and enjoy and my life. Let me grow old doing what makes ME happy. Get out of my way. I don’t want to see you in the ordinary. Let me go about my daily life without you encroaching on my space, telling me what to do under the disguise of love. Let me live with my old image of you, which is more a reflection of me rather than of you, a reflection of my old and tired superego that is afraid of a “software update.”

I simply don’t want to see.

Stop trying to flood me with your grace in my daily routine. Stop trying to speak to me as I wake up complaining that I have not slept all night and that I am over tired. Let me ignore your generosity in giving me a warm bed and let me be blind to the shelter that is over my head.

Stop speaking to me in the morning as the sun rises and reflects through the window of the lower carriage of the train that I catch to work, which gives warmth that reflects your tenderness and care for me and gives me new hope at a new day begins. Let me keep complaining about my fellow pilgrims who are silent and distracted with their technology. Don’t open my eyes to see them as sisters and brothers seeking a moment of silence ahead of their hectic day. Ah how my heart is addicted to the silence of the train! It has become my hermitage! (Please ignore this moment of enlightenment)

Leave me alone as I catch the train and complain that I must walk 4-mins to work next to a busy construction site. Don’t remind me of those who don’t even have work or how blessed I am to work in ministry. Who cares, it’s just another job. Let me walk past the people that do traffic control on the construction site and complain how boring that job is, rather than bow to their daily commitment and faithfulness to be where they are without missing a beat!

Stop trying to connect with me in the moments at work that give me life and energy. Leave me alone as I complain about this conversation or that person or this task I am given. Let me remain deaf to the unsaid. Let me keep complaining about how I wish I had financial freedom to not work and when I don’t work, I grumble how boring life is. Who cares about those smiles and words of comfort and affirmation that reiterate your ongoing reassurances to my deeply vulnerable and insecure heart.

Stop, I beg you stop trying to show me your indwelling Spirit alive in creation, in the spring buds on the tree, in those flowers that are greater than Solomon when I walk during lunch. They are just birds and flowers, in no way connected and in no way, profound!

Let me be! Stop trying to invade my lunch. Let me read my paper. Who cares about the taste of the food or the refreshingly energising drink and so what if someone sits opposite of me and I ignore them so that I may not hear your voice once again in the story of their lives!

And when I make my way home, let me complain how tired I am. Let me be. Why call me to gratitude in the smile of people? Why speak to me in the conversation, care and love of my family? Let me be annoyed with their habits and complain about who they are not and what they are not doing. It is much easier.

As for silent time at the end of the day, enough is enough. Don’t give me the desire to be still. Let me stay busy, lest you speak to my wandering heart. Let me be distracted, lest you tell me that I am the Beloved!

Lord, I don’t want to see. I prefer you small. It is easier, else I must come out and learn to love and see the world in a new way. I don’t want to experience your overwhelming grace; else I have to accept myself as I am. I prefer to keep dreaming about those illusionary changes that I will make to my character. Those ideas of perfection that are non-human. Those sins that I will eradicate when I become 20, 30, 40, 50 years old.

Leave me for it is a million times harder to accept myself; my wounds, weakness and brokenness; strengths, gifts and talents, and see how much you love me. To see myself in your eyes is so much harder.

I am not used to this love. Hold it back until I change and become superhuman. At least it means I can keep complaining rather than be overwhelmed with your sheer love, mercy and grace and then not know what to do and become so vulnerable! Oh, not that word!

O Lord what is wrong with me? What am I like this? Why? My heart yearns for your love yet is afraid from it. My heart yearns for a new image of you and a new me, yet trembles in fear at the prospect!

Alas, it would mean that my whole world would be turned upside down. It would be mean I don’t have to keep trying but just “be and stay” in your love. It would ultimately mean that I must love in the same way I am loved, and that would be catastrophic!

I am afraid to ask to see. I am afraid to desire to see. Ultimately I am amazed but ever afraid of your love. Oh Lord! Help me to see again!