The Saints Have Their Eyes Wide Open

“The Christian saint always has her eyes wide open.” This is G.K. Chesterton’s gloss on the primary difference between Christian and Buddhist iconography, or paintings and visual representations of the truths of faith. Self-denial means something different for each. The Buddhist denies their experience in order to clarify their inner identity, he says, but the Christian does the opposite: the Christian denies their inner identity in order to clarify their experience. Self-denial for the Christian is about putting our desires in order so that we can be tenaciously, gently and above all truly present to God and to the world outside ourselves. It’s about learning to accept a gift which comes from outside yourself. I don’t know enough about Buddhism or Eastern culture to know whether Chesterton’s contrast is accurate, but he has heard a true thing about the gift we receive as Christians: God works in, with, through and under us to accomplish the giving of the gift, but fundamentally it comes to us from the outside. So keep your eyes open, and your hands outstretched. You will know it in the breaking of the bread.