Images of the Cross. Holy Week, Thursday. "Christ plays in ten thousand places...."

It was Gerard Manley Hopkins who described a way of looking at the world Christologically. To see Christ everywhere, to celebrate the ubiquitous presence of Christ round every corner we turn, to see in common things the uncommon grace of God, and to have the wit, or the wisdom, to see what is revealed.

Epiphanies are of two kinds; the ones we discover, and the ones we are given. The ones we discover may simply be those everyday moments which, once we have lived through them, we realise come only every thousand days. The ones we are given are when we know, we just know, we have glimpsed the trailing clouds of glory, briefly sighted a truth both dazzling and elusive, but confirming a depth and texture to life which sustains those deep heart realities of hope, trust, love and joy.

But sometimes it's impossible to say which moment of recognition is which; our discovery, or unlooked for gift. The photo was taken at the sea front in Aberdeen. The old breakwaters had been exposed by stormy seas and I was walking along close to the sea edge. Waves, the play of sky on water, blue on grey in a symphony of colour, sound and movement in rhythm and with a timing that was both regular and varied by water that was restless in motion and restful to watch and hear.The sea is its own orchestra, its motions and sounds and its endless variations in orchestration and composition a 24/7 performance of inexhaustible creativity.

At precisely one angle of looking the old broken timbers opened in a cruciform window, and I was transfixed. I stood and looked, astonished and my eyes watering with something other than the cold wind and a longing in my heart that came from God knows where; and I'm glad God knows where. The contrast of aged timber against sea and sky, the window of the Cross opening out towards the horizon, a moment in my life when whatever else I was thinking or feeling was eclipsed by this glimpse of glory, and I was summoned to pay attention, to wait, and watch, and without conscious decision, to know this moment is one where the heart kneels and "prayer is valid".

Hopkins' poem is a revelling in grace, seeing Christ everywhere and in everything. "Christ plays in ten thousand places"; and one of those places was Aberdeen beach, on a cold January morning when, unasked and unexpected, Christ played, and I cried, "What I do is me: for that I came."  

 

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

I say móre: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —

Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces.