Icon and Image

In a strict, time sense, I have not had much of a day. I have been awake about ten hours and it is now 11pm. I am not particularly proud of this fact, but like the man of Jesus' parable who works an hour to be surprised by a full day's wages, I feel blessed beyond measure. Please, just let me just share with you:

8am: Groggy eyed, dull minded, and weak-limbed, I fight to stay present while I am in the company of Saints, praying before the Icon of Christ, listening to the confidently untrained chants of Tim Lindwall. He sing-speaks Psalms, prayers, and passages from Galatians while Father David, in all his Priestly array, holds vigil over this little piece of Earth. The black robes are a Peaceful, practiced presence, ever-patient as he guides Tim's voice with a long-fingered point to the next prayer. There are seven bright souls that stand together, braving the day by bowing in submission. Our right hands take a familiar form - first two fingers together with the thumb, last two pressed into the palm - and remind our tired brains that we worship a God that is Three in One and follow after a God-Man who possesses two natures. We bow before the Icons because our backs and hamstrings, like our souls, are stiff from sleep. We touch the Trinity-remembering fingers to our forehead to say, "MIND wake up!" our chest: "hey HEART," and shoulders, "BODY, you ready to carry this thing?" We have drawn our cross on our chest, owning the hard saying of Christ: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." We have begun our day as: Christians.

8:30am: Now I am surrounded by books - Shelves and Shelves and Shelves of words, words, words, words, words - seated at a massive, oaken table where the gold-crossed Priest sits to my right and three bright college eyes sit before me. Ron Sider's book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, is our morning meal of the mind, and I sum up the hundred-or-so pages I've already read. Our discussion takes us to the plowshare-edge of what's happening in Orthodox communities; the American Orthodox Church is mobilizing to fight global poverty. A wind of courage sails into the room with Father David's smiling remarks.

9am: Back to the room, back to the I-can-almost-imagine-they're-still-warm covers.

1:30: Whoops! NOOO WAY! Was I that tired?!

3:00: A mad scramble to catch up on a full day's housekeeping work in an hour ends in the expected phone call: "Hey Zak, it's Laurie... I'm just outside." "Laurie!! I'll be right down." Begin the two-hour friend bonanza: coffee first, let's catch up!, tour the building, how's Westmont?, what about the Magic Theatre?, have you ever been to an Orthodox service? Today, Laurie Nieson is Joy and Hope and Life swirled into a cherubic smile and sparkling eyes. Full and expectant Life is before her, and she is ready for it. I could not have asked for a better remembrance of what it feels like to sit in the dorms of Westmont College.

6pm: (sung) "Ooooooohhhhh, the Lord is Good to me, and so I thank the Lord, for giving me the things I need, the sun and the rain and the apple seed. The Lord is good to me. Amen." Plates and forks clink as food circles each table, and all the green-aproned volunteer waiters are moving through the dining room with smiles and "Would you like some coffee?" To my right is the recently-returned-from-Kansas Melissa Shippy, a woman so slight of being that her words, which come only slightly above a whisper, feel like they should be cupped in the palms of hands and gingerly brought to the ear. To my left is Kimberly Gregory: social worker, New York actress, mom, Bright Spirit; her deep, from-the-earth laughter makes the Angels laugh right along with her.

8pm: Kimberly and I swirl the wine in our glasses; this Chestnut Street wine bar is a tucked away Napa-meets-da-Club delight. Some funky waiter with a mustache, a plaid shirt, and wacky charisma asks us what we want. "We'd like to try a couple; reds for me, whites for her." "This'll be fun," he says with a glint-in-the-eye grin, and away he bustles. Kimberly, the aforementioned Angel entertainer who also happens to be the lead actress in the play I'm working on, speaks as one who has found her calling and is delighted to live every day in that calling. She speaks of acting as a gift she gives to other people, not altogether different from the social work she's been a part of for most of her adult life. Her Spirit is... talking with her is like... hm. Praying before an Icon.

Now stick with me, people. I realize that it's taken me all this time to get to what I really want to talk about; the English Majors in the audience will have to forgive the unashamedly meandering introduction.

Icon and Image. Image and Icon.

Tonight speaking with Kimberly, and this afternoon speaking with Laurie, I saw "behind their eyes," as it were, a spirit that radiated the Light of the Spirit. Now, of course, I was speaking with them, to them, about our lives, about our day-to-day joys, but at times it's as though our conversation Broke Through. And it's really this idea of through that fascinates me.

In Orthodoxy, the Byzantine-style Icons, with their gold halos, holy looking Saints, and ornate lettering, are meant to be prayed through. Ok, yes, the icons themselves are wood, paint, and gold leaf; they are a two-dimensional likeness. Believe me, as a Protestant, I understand this. But... they are also Portals. Gateways. Thin Spaces. Icons bring us, actually and mysteriously, right up to the Heavenly Kingdom. Now how can I say this authoritatively? Hm. I suppose I can only point to feelings, experiences, moments that get at what I mean: that glorious moment of "giving over" when you "forget" that there's a worship band playing in front of you and get lost in the words and the sounds and the experience. Or the moment you fall into the pages of a good novel where all time and space seems to vanish as we loose ourselves to a world of another's creation, completely unaware that we are, in fact, turning pages. The same is true of performance. When I performed as Oberon in a Midsummer Night's Dream, my best moments were the moments I had fully given myself over to experiencing life in the character, willfully forgetting that I was 'acting.' An Icon frees us to do that in our prayer lives. It channels our attention, focuses our spirit, allows us to disappear into the act of praying. And disappearing into the act of praying - like a musician would disappear into his music - is a disappearance into the Kingdom of God. A transport-ation. This is what I mean, roughly, when I say we are meant to see through Icons. (Interestingly, this seeing is an active process. Our reason can only take us so far, then our souls require a leap. This "seeing through" that I'm talking about happens in the leap.)

In the same way, a great conversation can be a Portal, as well. Today, in speaking with Laurie and with Kimberly, I found myself marveling at the beauty of their personhood, their being. "This is a Beautiful Person," I thought to myself. "Wow, God really did know what he was doing, making this woman." I believe I was seeing some... essence... something refer to as Light. The Imago Dei. The Image of the Living God, stamped mystically onto and into each person, that sometimes just radiates to a degree we can see it. Like a cracked earth pot with a candle inside, rays just bursts forth, triumphantly proclaiming the Power within.

The deeper I go, it seems, the more of Christ I see.

Today was a good day.

Peace be with you.