the silent lover. //

 

"A silent lover is one who doesn't know his job."

-Father Robert Farrar Capon

 

there are many things we learn to do as we get older.

we receive different responsibilities, we take on different challenges, and we change, or are changed, by a constantly maturing worldview.

 

in the case of Christians, sanctification is responsible for all of that.

as Christ shapes our hearts for Him, we grow up.

we receive callings, and passions, and roles.

 

but perhaps most importantly, we receive new eyes.

we begin to see the world the way He wants us to see it.

like little children experiencing everything for the first time,

He removes the scales from our eyes,

and we look around in wonder, new wonder,

at everything.

 

this is one of God's most magnificent graces:

this ability to look around us and see the world, His world,

as our world,

our gift.

 

there are two possible responses to this gift.

we can deny it, or simply fail to see it.

we can go on living our lives as "Christians" with no passion-

no joyous sense of being not just receivers, but loved children.

we can passively see the world through glazed-over eyes,

repeating the Apostle's Creed dully to ourselves,

but not truly acknowledging that Christ is our Maker and our Father.

 

or,

we can take our greatest joy, our greatest passion,

in looking at the world through new eyes,

children's eyes,

and seeing with every new morning what our Father has done for us.

we can say the Apostle's Creed

and truly understand that Christ is Maker of Heaven and Earth:

this earth.

the one with roses and green grass

and light, warm winds that rustle oak leaves.

the earth with so many beautiful things

that don't need to be here, that aren't crucial to our life-form in any way,

but that He gives to us

simply because He wants to.

 

this is our gift of sanctification.

it is the ability to see the world the way He sees it.

to love it the way He loves it,

and to love it loudly and exuberantly.

 

we cannot be silent lovers

because He is not a silent God.

through everything around us,

every simple unnecessary mercy,

He proclaims

"Look."

and so we, with our new eyes,

look indeed.