34 Years Ago…

I first realized that the world was not entirely my friend thirty-four years ago today. It was during that season when I always see the world through a veil of phlegm and tears, thanks to the dogwoods around my neighborhood and their incessant need to procreate.

Through my next-door neighbor’s window I saw my mother come running out our back door, her eyes watering more than mine and an expression on her face that she could only explain to me years later. At that moment, when she burst out into our yard, she was asking my brother why he couldn’t have made it look like an accident. My brother lay in his room with a gun in his hand. There are times when we all wish his death had been more ambiguous.

The Image of God

In my last entry I was writing about my wife, comparing her to a Rembrandt before I digressed into self-deprecation. I’m afraid my metaphor was heinously inadequate, or at least I am afraid she will read it and think so. But then, can any metaphor hold all the glorious wonder of personhood that is contained in human beauty? Can words describe the process by which I came to realize the lustrous candor of her eyes after I had already fallen in love with the glory that is her breasts?

The Bible says that we humans are made in the image of God, an image that the theologians tell us is not visual, but that we should see in every man and woman we meet. I think I realized this when I realized that my wife became more beautiful when I knew I loved her. The image of God, like the image of beauty, is a thing that when understood shines upon the mind of humanity, affecting our senses in the same way prisms expose the colors in light.