Through a glass, dimly

During that period in my life when all my friends were getting married, it seemed to me that there was a passage from the Bible -- First Corinthians, Chapter 13 -- which was read at almost every ceremony.You know the one:

"Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; Love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."

It's all about love, which is why it seemed so appropriate to wedding ceremonies. But there's this odd bit near the end of the passage that always leaped out at me:

"For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; Now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known."

It's very mystical, and doesn't seem to have much to do with love. Perhaps it has to do with the way love evolves over the course of a relationship; certainly the love that emerges in a context of dinners and movies in the dating phase evolves into something quite different over the course of a long relationship, developing -- or, sadly, often losing -- the flexibility to embrace joy and hardship, sickness, health, loss and wealth.

Or it could have to do with 20-20 hindsight, that ability we have to look back over a lifetime together and better understand how certain patterns developed.

But this morning I began reading a book called Christophany, for a retreat I will be attending at the end of this month. And it seemed to me that this passage might also be about the human tendency to see everything through the lenses of our own experience; that when we watch, or criticize, or love, or test our mates -- or anyone, for that matter -- we are usually watching, criticizing, loving and testing our own image reflected in them, filtered through a lifetime of preconceptions and prejudices.

And it isn't until we become considerably more enlightened that we begin to see both their unique and completely separate value as individuals and, at the same time, the ways in which we both are manifestations of that single divine spirit that ignites us all.

With luck, over time, that clearer vision that emerges extends across the whole of humanity, so we can come to see the differences -- between red and blue states, between Christian and Muslim, between black and white, between male and female -- in the same way.

Perhaps then the "Objects in Mirro" -- whether it is our own reflection or something completely other than ourselves -- will awaken within us the respect and reverence that is due all of God's creation.