The Gaze of Prayer

On this Sabbath morning, I thank you, I breathe you, I Am you, O Christ. You are the jewel I Am, yet whom I love. How can I be you yet love you? But I can! For I Am but a facet of your jewel, a face that sparkles in your diamond heart. I Am the one I love, I love the one I Am. And the mystery of lover and beloved is this, that love is not mere union, but communion.

My Lord, you told me, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” And you said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” The crystal rests as one, yet glistens with multiplicity. The kingdom in my heart is your kingdom. The mansion is me is your home. My flesh is your temple, each atom is your fortress, each photon and neutrino is your light. When I gaze at your light in my body, I see the splendor of distant suns, I see galaxies swirling at the edge of the universe, I see the glory of a boundless creation. Yet in your Presence, distance is illusion. I am the cosmos.

Every particle of me is threaded to a star. Intimacy dissolves the separation. You are nearer to me than I Am. This gaze of prayer, O Christ, transports me from myself into you, from you into myself. I hear the Psalmist sing, “Deep cries unto deep.” Is there more than one depth? We breathe the same breath. My breath is the atonement, your breath the gift of forgiveness. Breathe out I, breathe in You. Selah.

Uniting us as one, yet longing and sighing in us as two, this breath is your Holy Spirit. What does matter if I call her Shakti or Ruuh, Qi or Shekinah? Let me call her Mary. Let me call her Magdalene. She is the very soul of my breath, and she is your breath in me. For union is not the mystery. The mystery is communion.

And what does it matter whether I call this love the Holy Trinity, or Sat-Chit-Ananda? You in me, I in You, united by a breath of love. The mystery is this particular morning. A fragile still-green moss cathedral of the ordinary. An angel wing of frost, melting back into its dewdrop. The shattered radiance of faces in a jewel. Pure light, broken bread, still warm.

Image: classic Russian icon depicting the Holy Trinity in three persons.