though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see;
Only thou art holy; there is none beside thee,
Perfect in power, in love, and purity.
---Reginald Heber, 1826
It has been a little while (ahem) since I last studied child development, so this week
I did a bit of refreshing on the concept of ‘object permanence’. The theory behind object permanence is this: once
human comprehension develops to a certain level, we can grasp the idea that
objects can exist, even when we cannot see them. I was imagining that the age
for developing this sense might be a year to 18 months old, and was surprised
to find that current research supports a range of three to eight months as the
time frame for this understanding to emerge. Imagine how terrifying a game of peekaboo would be for a young child with no sense of object
permanence --- when you cover up your face, you are actually gone!
Though we would all agree that God is not object, this hymn
suggests that a sense of object permanence is necessary in visioning Godself,
for us individually and as a people. At times both the shadows of this world ---
hate, violence, disregard, presumption ---
and the shadows of our own souls --- hurt, fear, envy, pain,
disappointment --- keep us from laying eyes
on the glory, the evidence, of God’s presence with us. None of those shadows,
though, none of them, keep the reality of God’s presence from us.
As we, then, whatever our stage of human or divine
development, seek a sense of communion with Holiness, may we remember: seen
or unseen, hidden or revealed, speaking or silent, God is with us, close as
breath, holy.
