Food for thought

As I was sorting through some documents this week I stumble upon this quote I had jotted down while reading a tragically beautiful book.  I highly recommend picking up The City of Joy if you haven’t read it yet; below is one of my favorite conversations from the book.

‘Who is that?’ he asked, surprised.

‘It’s Jesus.’

The leper looked incredulous.  ‘Jesus?  No, it can’t be.  He doesn’t look like he usually does. Why does your Jesus have his eyes closed and look so sad?’

Stephen Kovalski knew that Indian iconography reproduced images of Christ in abundance, but those of a Christ with blue eyes, triumphant and brightly colored, like the gods of the Hindu pantheon.  ‘He has suffered,’ said the priest.  The Pole sensed that further explanation was necessary.  ‘His eyes are closed, so that he can see us better,’ he went on.  ‘And so that we, for our part, can look at him more readily.  Perhaps if his eyes were open, we wouldn’t dare to, because our eyes are not pure, nor are our hearts, and we carry a large share of the responsibility for his suffering.  For if he is suffering, it’s because of me, you, all of us; because of our sins, because of the evil that we do.  Still he loves us so much that he forgives us.  He wants us to look at him.  And to love him.  And  to do as he does and forgive everyone and love everyone, especially those who suffer like him, they invite me to love you who are suffering like him.’

The leper seemed deeply moved.  His dark eyes were shining.

‘He is in pain,’ Stephen Kovalski went on, ‘but he doesn’t want us to weep for him, but rather for those that are suffering today, because he suffers in them, in the bodies and hearts of the lonely, the abandoned, the despised, as well as in the minds of the insane, the neurotic, and the deranged.  You see, that’s why I love that picture, because it reminds me of all that.’

The leper nodded his head thoughtfully.  Then, raising his stump in the direction of the picture, he said, ‘Your Jesus is much more beautiful than the one in all our pictures.’”

~Dominique Lapierre, The City of Joy