A Glimpse of Someone - Buechner

I'm reading Frederick Buechner's, Listening to Your Life, Daily Meditations. Today Buechner recalls a Da Vinci reproduction of a study of the face of Christ that greatly impressed him as a boy. I think that this is the one.

He writes, 'The head is tipped slightly to one side and down. He looks Jewish. He looks very tired. Some of the color has flaked away. His eyes are closed. That was the face that moved me and stayed with me more in a way than all the others, though not because it was Jesus' face, as far as I can remember, but just because it seemed the face of a human being to whom everything had happened that can happen. It was a face of great stillness, a face that had survived. It was as if in the picture I caught a glimpse of someone whose presence I noted in a different way from the others ... what haunted me was so strong a feeling of the painter's having in some unimaginable way caught the likeness just right that it was as if, without knowing it, I had already seen deep within myself some vision of what he looked like or what I hoped he looked like.'

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Unknown said…
Geoff, read this book last year as a daily inspiration but never looked up the da Vinci painting. Hope to read more of Buechner esp the novels.
Thanks for your's and Cazz's presence at Jessica's wedding on Saturday; it was a special day all round, i felt, esp seeing folks like yourselves. Inevitably we had to do the hosty bit but i hope we still managed to see something of you. Thanks also for your kind comments re parish work and making a difference, which i hope i shall remember! Will add your blog to my favourites and hope we may keep in touch through my course.

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