Horizons

Beyond the horizon, we are blind. The horizon ends our field of vision. Yet we long to know what it is that is over there, out there, beyond the horizon – at, and even more, beyond the limit of what we can see. This powerful, primaeval urge sets scientists studying the cosmos, travellers travelling, mountaineers climbing and explorers risking their lives. It is the explanation for all human striving.

Where is the horizon? It is far away or very near, depending on where my eyes focus. It may be that line I seem to see that divides sea from sky, mountains from cloud. It may be whichever thing, or person, that is right in front of me now, up close enough to block my view of what lies beyond. With my eyes closed, the inside of my eyelids are my horizon.

When I look at you, you are the limit of my view. You are placed here by Providence precisely for me to look at you, to see you. I cannot see through you to what lies beyond you. When I look at it, that tree is the limit of my view. It is placed here by Providence precisely for me to look at it, to see it. I cannot see through the tree to whatever lies beyond it. These are my horizons. The people, the living and inanimate things which constitute the whole of creation.

And... beyond the horizon of all creation? Ah, that is where what I cannot see begins. My horizons are the beginning of infinity, not merely the end of visible reality. They are the point at which the invisible starts.

The invisible Creator is utterly beyond the visible creation. Beyond my horizons. Immediately beyond them. Precisely where my vision ends, there the Creator is. At one moment, that seems impossibly distant but if I close my eyes my horizon is as close to me as I can possibly imagine. This is why I close my eyes when I pray. Not to blot the visible world out but to sharpen my awareness that the invisible Creator is so near, so utterly and intimately present in my very existence.

The Creator is hiding behind his visible creation. If my vision ends with this tree, the Creator lies immediately behind it. I touch this side of the tree, which is my horizon, and at that very same instant its Creator touches it, too, on the other side of this horizon which is the tree. If my vision ends with you, if I touch you with my eyes or my hands, at that very instant your Creator and mine is touching you, too, touching the part of you that must remain invisible to me.

Everything that I can see or sense in creation is a horizon. My horizons are everywhere that I look. They are my natural limits, proper to my creatureliness, my finitude. The Creator is immediately beyond everywhere I look and everything I look at, surrounding and looking at me and at all else that he has created.

Thus in him we live and move and have our being.

Christ, in His life on earth, wholly human and wholly God, was transparent to those who believed in Him so that the power of the invisible Trinity could reach and act on them directly and immediately through the Son's visible humanity, inspiring, converting, healing and saving. There was a stupefying, terrifying glimpse of the reality of His transparency to the Godhead at His Transfiguration. The disciples could not grasp what they saw and when He came back down the hill He had to reassure them with comforting words, 'It is only me, don't be scared'. When His suffering ended and He was risen, never to suffer or die again, He became so fully, so utterly and eternally transparent to the Father and the Holy Spirit that His friends at last grasped His words, 'Anyone who has seen me, has seen the Father'. In Him and through Him, they knew that they saw God.

I look to my horizon, yearning to see the face of God as they did, and I fail because I am a limited creature and must wait for that longed-for vision. But even now, beyond every one of my horizons, far and near, the invisible Godhead is. I look at you and I see a beautiful creature placed in my field of vision by the One who created us both for love's sake and who is constantly and eternally looking at you, and me, with ineffable, infinite love. He commands me to try to see you through His eyes. You, and every other person alive. I can have no enemies among humankind. I must love, too, and care for all creation because God loved it all into being: every sparrow, every blade of grass, every star, every person, for love's sake.

So I look at the horizon, at you, at the tree swaying in the breeze beyond my window, at my sweet cat, and Love is right there, just on the other side of each, where my vision cannot go. Because each is my horizon and the beginning of the invisible, each is to be cherished because loved by God and placed before me by the Creator as an indicator of his eternal love.

I close my eyes to bring my horizon as close to me as possible and there is Love, the Holy Spirit of God, breathing Love.