The way God sees us

I can't tell you the number of times I have reflected on this photo.

The face looking out into the playground is that of a young girl who near the end of her first day at day-care sees, with sheer delight, her older sister looking in at her.

I don't care who you are, what you've done - each of you, indeed each one of us, is meant to have a face looking in on us with such unutterable delight, we are totally transfigured. What deep welcome we know, when someone finds such consolation and joy to see us.

And our reply is meant to be reciprocal. In their seeing the warmth and welcome on our faces, their world loses its strangeness and indifference. We look on their vulnerability and transparency with such tenderness, they feel special in being seen. They see they are not alone.

Then I think of the sisters and brothers separated not by glass but a wall. They see no face of welcome, no face to shatter the isolation and the cold indifference they feel.

We live in times which demand we pray and work to convert every wall into a window - whether a border wall or any other wall built by suspicion, hatred and fear - so that in the faces looking out and in the faces looking in - we discover the consolation and delight we all so desperately need.

It is the way God sees us.