Through a glass, darkly

Those local to where I practice in Hove will know that a large fire broke out a few days ago and for a brief hour or so, transformed our usually zesty seafront climate into an eerie world of pungent smokiness and ash. Thankfully no one was hurt, but it reminded me of St Paul’s observation that we “see through a glass, darkly.” He meant that we, as fallible and fragile humans, somehow fail to see life’s whole picture. Our vision is obscured, we cannot see either our own vital worth and potential or that of those around us. What if our vision of ourselves and others is as vague as this photograph of my garden, taken as the fire billowed vast plumes of smoke? And if our vision is this obscured, and I believe it frequently is, then we are missing out on all the giftedness our lives and relationships could offer us. A sobering thought, to say the least, but one that also reminds us, in Thoreau’s words “to suck the marrow out of life.”