MIDNIGHT, 2019

Icon, 2008

Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” (Mark 10:46-49)

I'm moved, every time, by the part where "Jesus stands still..."  How is it that the Child of God stills his body, his heartbeat, his soul...when you and I cry out?  How can it be that Jesus of Nazareth--the sun in his hands, the moon in his eyes, the stars in his heart--brings all of this energy into stillness and quiet, into a moment in time?  He's receptive, even in the busy street.  He's patient and present, fully available to the desperate and broken.  "Take heart," the followers say to Bartimaeus (and to us, too).  "For he is calling you."  

Tonight the house is quiet: the kids at their parties, my wife sound asleep with a winter cold.  I take an old icon--a memory from an iconographer in Bethlehem years ago--and I sit in meditation and prayer.  "Jesus, Son of David," I pray, "have mercy on me."  Just that.  "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on the ones I love."  Only this.  "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on my country, and all who seek solace and safety here." Kyrie Eleison.  

And for fifteen dark minutes, just a candle and an icon before me, Jesus is still.  The sun in his hands.  The moon in his eyes.  The stars in his heart.  And I know.

He is calling me.  He's waiting for me.