The Hidden Truth

If you have ever been visibly pregnant, chances are that someone, somewhere, whom you do not know, has reached out to touch your stomach.

I’ve had this happen to me, and sure, it’s a little strange. Generally, I prefer people to ask before they touch me. But it’s also very sweet, this great mystical excitement inspired by a pregnant belly. We know that belly is special. We know enclosed within it is hope and potential — the very future of our world. Hidden, but real. How can we help but venerate it?

It’s why the pregnant Madonna is my favorite devotional image. I even prefer it over the depictions of the Madonna and Child because I find in the sight of Mary’s swollen belly more to meditate upon than I find in the unveiled face of the Christ Child. Salvation and redemption, enclosed in flesh, moving, and growing and breathing, but I cannot see it. It’s real and it’s true and it’s there.

And it is hidden.

There is much about God that we know with certainty. But there is so much that remains beyond our sight, beyond our comprehension. Questions of evil and sorrow. Pain and tragedy. Life and death. Why don’t we have all the answers? We grow very impatient about this. We’re like teenagers who want to be trusted with all the family secrets. We hate feeling left out of the loop.

But truth, like life, does not come to us showing its face. Perhaps this is because we could not bear its terrible beauty. Perhaps it’s because we would not recognize it if it was laid bare for us to see.

But it’s there, right in front of us. We can reach out and touch it. We may not see it. We may not understand it. But we can know it.

©LPi