When people began to notice the curious smile, words, and actions of Jesus--and found themselves curious--curious enough to ask, Where do you stay, what is your Source?" Jesus, no doubt with that curious smile, replied, "Come and see."
Curiosity about the important things in life leads to our salvation--leads to wonder, to openness, to wholeness, to fullness of life.
Everyone who responds to the invitation to Come and See, everybody who actually comes with eyes and mind and heart open, has a really good chance of seeing--of seeing a wider, deeper, richer, more malleable world than we've yet seen.
In the season of Christmas we celebrate Incarnation. We travel with the magi and see that God is in the world! We're so grateful that God is in the world our natural response is Adoration. We fall on our knees.
Epiphany is about responding in the next way.
We see that God is in the world and we get up, we get off our knees and onto our feet so we can follow, explore what Incarnation does in the world. And when we come and see, we see, we witness what Incarnation does in the world. And that leads to the next response, which is Inspiration--we're so stoked by and filled with energy and purpose and a fresh sense of the possible.
And then--if we hang in there--if we stay curious and keep our hearts and minds open, our next response is Imitation. Though we're not sure exactly how it works, we're sure that we too want to help, to share, to love, to make a difference in the world--in the world where we touch it.
In Chapel Hill last week, just before breakfast, my friend Newt Smith and I were in the living room reading and he said--"You wanna hear a good poem?"
I did.
He read.
What he read is a wonderful story of what it is to Come And See--what it is to come with an open mind and heart--what it's like to try to do our best to make a difference in the world.
Here's the poem:
Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport
Terminal
Naomi Shihab Nye, Apr 26, 2007
After learning my flight was detained 4 hours,
I heard the announcement:
If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands
any Arabic,
Please come to the gate immediately.
Well --one pauses
these days.
Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian
dress,
Just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to
the floor, wailing loudly.
Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her.
What is her Problem?
We told her
the flight was going to be four hours late and she Did this.
I put my arm around her and spoke to her
haltingly.
Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti, stani stani
schway, min fadlick, Sho bit se-wee?
The minute she heard any words she knew – however poorly
used
- She stopped crying.
She thought our flight had been cancelled
entirely.
She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical
treatment the Following day.
I said no, no, we're fine, you'll get there, just
late,
Who is picking you up? Let's call him and
tell him.
We called her son and I spoke with him in
English.
I told him I would stay with his mother till we
got on the plane and
Would ride next to her -- southwest.
She talked to him. Then we called her other sons
just
for the fun of it.
Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a
while in Arabic and
Found out of course they had ten shared friends.
Then I thought just for the heck of it why not
call some Palestinian Poets I know
and let them chat with her. This all took up about
2 hours.
She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life.
Answering Questions.
She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies
--little powdered
Sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts
--out of her bag --
And was offering them to all the women at the
gate.
To my amazement, not a single woman declined one.
It was like a Sacrament.
The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from
California,
The lovely woman from Laredo -- we were all
covered
with the same Powdered sugar. And smiling.
There is no better Cookie.
And then the airline broke out the free beverages
from
huge coolers -- Non-alcoholic -- and the two
little girls for our flight,
one African American, one Mexican American -- ran
around serving us all apple juice
And lemonade and they were covered with powdered
sugar too.
And I noticed my new best friend -- by now we
were holding hands --
Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal
thing,
With green furry leaves. Such an old country
traveling tradition.
Always Carry a plant. Always stay rooted to
somewhere.
And I looked around that gate of late and weary
ones and thought,
This is the world I want to live in. The
shared world.
Not a single person in this gate -- once the
crying of confusion stopped
-- has seemed apprehensive about any other
person.
They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all
those other women too.
This can still happen anywhere.
