I've Never Seen You, God: A Plea

I’ve never seen you, God,

at least not in the way I long to,

that is, up-close and face-to-face.

Neither here nor there have I seen you

but oh, how incredible it would be

to see you.

I’ve looked for you and caught glimpses

of you in others but never the full thing,

only in part as in a dim mirror

like the one fogged in the bathroom

after too warm of a shower,

moving and stationary objects barely visible

and faint to my sight

and dull to my senses.

Others have seen you more fully than I.

Adam and Eve as they accompanied you on

garden strolls in the cool of the day;

Enoch and Noah, who walked with you at

Godspeed, through their years.

Abraham saw you when you appeared to him.

Many, of course, saw you in your Son.

But I haven’t seen you; at least not like that.

It may well be that the closest I’ve

come to seeing you is in

the face of my wife in

a dress waiting at the altar;

the squeaky voice of my daughter

as she ran to wrap her arms around me;

the hungry orphans in Addis

who were distracted momentarily by

the hair on my arms they kept rubbing;

oh, and perhaps thousands of other instances

now that I think about it.

No, I haven’t seen you, at least not fully,

but, yeah, I’ve seen you—if only in part.

Oh, how I long to fix my eyes on you, God.

For now, I’ll look to Mr. David

who lies under the ripped blue tarp

down by the stoplight, the one

roped to a shopping cart and fence post,

who sits hungry, waiting for tacos again—

perhaps in hopes that he can share

with others and me—

who has no shoes and is in need of a shirt.

Last time I was there, even in

the uncomfortable darkness with

concerns for my safety, I think I saw you.

I’ll be back soon God in hopes of

seeing you again, even if in a glass darkly.

Will you meet me there?