In thanksgiving for my parents,
John and Daphne,
who taught me about faith
in ways that they would never have imagined
We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard,
what we have seen with our eyes,
what we have looked at
and touched with our hands,
concerning the word of life—
this life was revealed,
and we have seen it and testify to it,
and declare to you the eternal life
that was with the Father and was revealed to us—
we declare to you what we have seen and heard
so that you also may have communion with us;
and truly our communion
is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
1 john 1:1-3
From time to time you lead me
into an inward experience quite unlike any other,
a sweetness beyond understanding.
If ever it is brought to fullness in me,
my life will not be what it is now,
though what it will be I cannot tell.
st augustine, The Confessions, Book X, 40.65
It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen,
knocked breathless by a powerful glance.
The flood of the fire abated,
but I’m still spending the power.
Gradually the lights went out in the cedar,
the colors died, the cells unflamed and disappeared.
I was still ringing.
I had been my whole life a bell,
and never knew it until that moment I was lifted and struck.
I have since only very rarely seen the tree with the lights in it.
The vision comes and goes, mostly goes,
but I live for it,
for the moment when the mountains open
and a new light roars in spate through the crack,
and the mountains slam.
annie dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
In: Karl Rahner, Culture and Evangelization
Author:
Anthony Mellor
Anthony Mellor
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