I was speaking with a client the other day who told me of a time when he was deemed crazy and committed to a psychiatric ward for three weeks. He told me that he was “real sick.” When I asked him what he was experiencing at the time, he told me that he thought he was Jesus. It was so bad, he said, that even when he looked in the mirror, he saw the face of Jesus.
I have often thought that sometimes those patients inside psychiatric wards are deemed “crazy” simply because they are in touch with a reality that the rest of us can’t see.
What if, I wonder, he was in touch with a profound spiritual truth?
Is it “crazy” to be able to look at ourselves and see the “Christ within?” What would it be like to have the gift of being able to look past, or look through, the physical world and see the sacred? Is that crazy – or profound?
What would it be like if we had the ability to see the sacred, both in ourselves and in everyone around us?
In my meditation time this morning, I came across a passage from the Berean Study Bible, citing Matthew 13:15, “For this people’s heart has grown callous; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.”
It is so easy to look in the mirror and see all of our flaws: the wrinkles that reflect our age, the hair that is too curly or too straight or the wrong color, the imperfections of our complexion.
In our current political climate, we are experiencing great division and judgment to the point of bitterness. We look at others and so readily demonize those whose perspectives are different from our own.
What would it be like if we were crazy enough to be able to see the sacred everywhere we looked, whether in the mirror or in the political realm?
Those of us who have been raised in the Christian faith have been taught that God made everything and everything God made is good. We have been taught that we all have been made in the image and likeness of God. If those two statements are true, then logic dictates that everything in the physical world is good, including ourselves and those with whom we vehemently disagree.
To use different language, we all have an Inner Magnificence that too often gets covered up by life experiences. As Jesus said, our “heart has grown callous,” and we have lost sight, our eyes are no longer able to see, the spiritual truth.
So, here’s my invitation for today: Be crazy enough to live from your Inner Magnificence, be crazy enough to practice looking at the world to see the good in everything and everyone, including ourselves.
This might be our biggest challenge ever, but the extent to which you accept my invitation is the extent to which Jesus said you would be healed and you’ll be able to say, “I feel good about being me!” … and that’s a promise!
