Seeing Things

Just like that the invisible shifts to visible,reality's bold finger of lighttaps something here in the mind, dimmedfear suddenly spotlighted, its nameelusive but its image clear-faced and wholelike the hallucinations once hidden

in my daughter's brain, no longer hidden:Outside our house, a father, invisibleto others, walks toward her. And yet, the wholenight he sleeps beside me. Morning's lightdoes nothing with such visions but namethem "crazy," less than whole,

and yet all around me—dimmedin the reality of every day—the hiddenangels and saints somehow still namethe invisible within the visible,still break the shadows with light.And can this make us whole?

When Merton spoke of such wholeness,did he know the mystery of our dimlives that still serve as lightto others' visions, too often hiddenbeneath a thousand bushels, until, visibleagain, they shine a common name?

Today, the world's chaos speaks namelessness,but not meekly, no holycall to seek fecundity in the invisible.Instead, the ancient revelations dimbeside the bright glare of what we hidefrom each other. Take the truer light

of what binds these worlds and lightensour heavy but shared epiphanies—boldly namedor meekly nameless, spirits hiddenand revealed, our hope for wholeness.Come, though our visions dim,we trudge and trip together toward such light

where … in all visible things an invisiblefecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness,a hidden wholeness.