1. How does having “x-ray vision” help us endure as Christians?

2. In what area(s) of community life does GMH have “x-Ray vision”?

 

“I experienced burnout some years ago. I had lost my ability to see in the middle of institutional dysfunction and the never ending stream of urgent tasks demanding my attention. Over time, I discovered that one way past this crisis was to recover a kind of mindful wonder at the beauty that shows up in my work and life, even when the stories are hard or tragic. I found a friend who helped me relearn how to see the world, a friend with a mind adept at using images that mine the riches of creation's treasure house. He saw significance where others saw only shapes. He had learned to ask of the shadows that form in this strange universe what they are shadows of, and what light allows such shadows to be cast.” - Dr. Raymond C. Barfield

 

Pied Beauty, by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things – 

   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; 

      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; 

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings; 

   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough; 

      And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim. 

 

All things counter, original, spare, strange; 

   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) 

      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; 

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: 

                                Praise him.

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