Naked

As the years have drawn on, I increasingly avoid looking at myself naked in a mirror.  It’s the same reason I avoid looking at current photographs of myself.  Mirrors and digital cameras have an uncanny ability to reflect back to you what you actually look like.  And if you are like me, you more than likely do not like what you see.  Why?  Because each of us has an image of our self – of what we think we look like – and the mirror or the camera often shatters that image.  When I see a photo of myself in my thirties, I often remark how that man in the picture lives inside of me – somewhere!  I notice how much less hair I now have, how the dreaded “turkey neck” has appeared, how the wrinkles make me look older than I feel. 

The funny thing is that other people see me the way I appear in the mirror all the time.  They have no preconceived idea or image.  They see me and they love me with “added” weight, thinning hair, and wobbly skin under my chin. Funny. That’s the way God sees me – and God loves me nonetheless – loves me more, I dare say, than I love the real me. 

Ash Wednesday begins the liturgical season of Lent.  Lent for me has become a time of standing in front of a mirror, naked – a time of making myself see what is really there so that I can start loving the me that lives, not some fantasy image of myself.  It is a time for aligning the way I see things with the way that God sees things – only then can I begin to experience the love God has for me, a love great enough to sacrifice the life of God’s only Son.

When looking into the mirror, I may see things that I don’t like.  If I really don’t like them, I can set to work to change the things I can, to accept the things I cannot, and to seek the wisdom to know the difference.  This is what Lent is for – seeking that wisdom. 

This Ash Wednesday I resolve to stand naked before God and pray that in the days to follow, I will begin to see as God sees.