The Hiddenness of Revelation

At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.

- Luke 10:21

The other day I was working on a task with a client of mind who has a sensitive heart and is highly perceptive. As usual, I was lost in self-absorbed dreaminess, when my client startlingly remarked; "she's feeling sad, isn't she?" His eyes had compassionately met another staff's look of despair across the room. 

It's been said that the eyes are the windows of the heart, and the tears forming in her eyes began to flow freely.  She could barely get the words out. She had just received a phone call: a close relative whom she loved dearly had unexpectedly passed away that morning. She was still reeling in shock. To be sure, my client is no Grief Counsellor, but I was so moved to watch the healing he initiated (or rather, a Divine initiative that he responded to), as other staff gathered around her to be present in her pain and grieving.

Like Jesus, he was moved to compassion; "when he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." (Matthew 9:36) Like Jesus, he saw the person standing in front of him, and could see something into her heart that was hidden from plain sight. 

I had clearly missed the point, or rather, the person standing right in front of me. While living in Japan my wife shared a deceptively simple Japanese proverb that I keep running into: the lighthouse shines afar, but not at one's feet. In other words, we so often miss that which is staring right at us - investing in abstractions far removed from our lived experience. 

There's not much time or space for detached abstractions where I work and live anymore. People with developmental disabilities keep me solidly grounded and close to the heart. As Henri Nouwen observed, what is most personal is also most universal. Whatever their disability may be, in a way I can't fully explain, they keep what's happening at one's feet in perspective. 

I feel more safe in a world of disembodied ideas - flight from vulnerability - but I eventually come to my senses with the people I work with and learn from: "the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us" (John 1:14a). I'm threatened by that which is personal, I retreat from that which I can touch and be touched by; I don't want to get too close to others, nor do I feel comfortable with them becoming too close to me; but they have a way of touching me and inviting me to draw near. 

  

Why is it that the revealing God is so often hidden to the so-called "normal" people of the world? "The trouble with normal", as Bruce Coburn sang, "is that it keeps getting worse". Perhaps, at heart, God is not an impersonal abstraction for us to manipulate and recreate in our own image. "God is love", so the Bible says, and we've been created in God's image; created to love, created for intimacy, created to be in relationship.

They're no self-appointed prophets, but people with developmental disabilities often speak into our lives with a prophetic voice. My client that day could have been John the Baptist, a voice in the wilderness crying out; "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near." That unmistakable voice - the Kingdom at hand - straightening crooked paths, leveling insurmountable mountains. 

It often takes the physically blind to expose our spiritual blindness, the deaf to overhear and tune into our unresponsiveness, those with intellectual disabilities to open up and breakthrough our hard-heartedness. They are shining lights that illuminate what's been hidden all along; right at our feet.