Image

Crisply you took me out of my time-wrecked world

and showed me another that you said was more beautiful,

more eternal

but I didn't believe you and I clung to memories

which now I remember affectionately

but then they were the boring present

caught up

in the web of humanity.

You showed me places beyond me but within you;

they were so real that I thought them only dreams,

and I wanted to escape because perfection and eternity were becoming too much for me,

and I longed to get back to the familiar sinful earth.

I could not bring myself to believe that what was in you was what my life was aiming at and, having arrived there, I was so aware of me:

and the doubts began,

and I withered.

Now I know that having been shown beauty I cannot begin to appreciate it;

having been confronted with perfection, I shy away, like the race horse who will not enter the starting box;

I have looked into the mirror dimly

and seen beyond the mirror:

I have seen my image in eternity;

I have seen what I was always meant to be;

and am seeing what the miracle of my resurrection will perform.

But I have to look away again

because I am looking into your face Lord.

Continually it haunts me

taking me beyond myself

lifting me up when my feet want to be on the ground.

Yet there is no escape.

Perhaps I do not want an escape.

Perhaps I am content with looking in the mirror dimly.

Perhaps I am silently, secretly enjoying the rejection of walking away again.

Perhaps.

But I know I need you Lord

and I need your image to look into.

untangling the web