There is a light that you cannot see.
It is the light of heaven
shining from your eyes.
We are like people
who look in a mirror
to see ourselves in freeze frame.
There is no movement of grace,
warmth of hand,
connection of one iris with another.
And there are no words in the mirror
like the echo of our friend’s face
in agreement.
Yes, we cannot see ourselves,
that might we wonder if we could in truth
discern our beauty,
that heaven might be the backdrop
we are seen against
and the light in which we walk.
Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
February 2021
Living Tree Poetry 
This is beautiful, Ana❣️❣️ It took me back to Merton’s Epiphany on the corner of Fourth and Walnut.
This part speaks to me in the same way that your words speak to me: “I have the immense joy of being [hu]man, a member of a race in which God . . . became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now [that] I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun. . . . Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed.” (Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander)
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Oh Yes, how we can forget this wonderful epiphany of Thomas Merton, it has blessed us all.
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