Letting Christ Play

One of my most faithful readers sent me his Christmas letter. It was inspired by this blog, and does much better than I usually do at naming some of the places that Christ is playing in this world. And one of Jim's great gifts is in sticking with the hard things long enough to see the grace breaking through. And I'm humbled by and grateful for the way he sees Christ playing in my life. Here's his letter:

Christ plays in 10,000 places
Lovely in limbs and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

- Gerard Manley Hopkins

Dear Friends all,

This Christmas letter is a record of places I went and people I met in the hope of seeing for myself Christ "playing" in our midst.

First, there was the pretty fourteen-year-old who was raped. She held her own against her parents, grandparents, a $400 abortion doctor and just about everybody she knew. She told me she knew the baby inside her was a gift from God. I argued with her father. I never prayed so hard in my life. I got to be there when the little girl was born and I was the first to hold her. I was there when she confronted the rapist in court to ask him what she had ever done to him that he would take her virginity away from her. And I get to see her go back with the baby to day care at the school she attends. Christ plays in that place.

Then I tagged along to Jeanne's Peace Corps reunion. 40 years ago, Americans; Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Mormons - tossed everything aside, careers, family, money, to go to Malawi to help some beautiful African people. These Americans taught, nursed, sang and played with the friends they made. They came back to America but were never the same. Now they were even more generous, more fun. I got to see them being Christ to the Malawians - and to each other.

And then I met some Jesuit Volunteers who went to work at an AIDS hospice after graduating from a Jesuit University. They could have made big bucks. Instead they saw the face of Christ playing in another place. The motto of the Jesuit Volunteers is "It will ruin your life." And it did. No longer can they go back to making money. "No longer at ease here, in the old dispensations."

I have a friend who teaches Theology. She got her Ph.D. the hard way, after helping both her parents through their final illnesses. After her father died, she took charge of her schizophrenic brother. She lets him live with her. Have you ever lived with a schizophrenic? Christ plays there.

A friend from 50 years ago asked me what heaven would be like. I told her I hadn't a clue but I didn't want to go there if she wasn't there. Her 6 children and 10 grandchildren are going to miss her. They stopped her chemotherapy months ago. Now she lives on morphine and is all swollen and ugly. But it is in her face and in her life that her children and grandchildren, and I, have seen the face of God.

After another friend wrote to me that he had Alzheimer's, I went to see him. When he answered the door, he apologized for not recognizing me. He said that the Alzheimer's is really hard. He can't drive any more because he gets lost. I will take him to lunch this week. He was always Christlike in his dealings with others. He is my ideal of what a social worker should be. It's not hard to see Christ gently taking over the life of this once brilliant man.

At an intersection on my way home, a car was stalled. The old lady behind the wheel looked terrified as cars honked and the traffic piled up behind her and passed her. From out of nowhere and from four different directions, came burly young men, some tattooed and ear-ringed. They pushed her car to safety and saw that she was okay. They made her smile. Another place Christ played.

There were actually 10,000 such places. I just didn't notice them all.

Merry Christmas.

Thanks, Jim, for the reminder to keep looking, and to keep letting Christ play in our eyes, in our limbs, in our lives.