Vine Branches

I think every parent has had that horrible moment in a store when you look down for one second and when you look up your child is gone. Last year I was in Target with Mary and TJ and they were happily looking at some costume jewelry so I walked one foot away around and end cap. I could still hear them. When I walked back around less than a minute later I realized that it was only TJ that I had heard. I called for Mary expecting her to be around the next aisle. When she wasn’t I started to get concerned and ran to the main aisle calling her name. At that point I saw a tear stained Mary being led toward me from quite far away by a nice looking lady. In the few seconds that I had been out of sight she had looked up and panicked when she couldn’t see me. The first thing that she thought of to do was to run to try and find me. She told me that she was afraid that I had left her.

When she had calmed down we had a talk. I told her that I had been close enough to touch when she couldn’t see me. I said, “If you ever can’t see me and you are scared just freeze and call  ’Mama!’ I will always be close enough to hear you because I will never walk away and leave you alone. Never run away when you are scared because you will always be running farther away from me.”

We have actually practiced that and now Mary is good about freezing and calling , “Mama!” if she can’t see me.

When I think about my images of God changing and growing I don’t think only of the picture I have in my head. It is not difficult to realize that of course God is not the old man with the beard or a blond Jesus in a toga. What is harder to change is the direction in which I look for God. I am used to considering God as someone who must be sought. Like Mary I sometimes panic thinking that because I can’t see God that God is absent or I have been abandoned. I have trouble getting used to a God to says. “I am always here. Just call. I am never far away.”

The most radical image comes from Jesus who said that he is the vine and we are the branches – am image of unity with God that seems to reach too far. It says that the direction of my prayers must change – from those of a child who calls and runs in fear – to those of one who grows in silence and looks to her deepest self to find the unity with the Eternal Vine.