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LOOK AROUND THE CORNER
Most of us are glad to discover our one true vocation. Esteemed Irish speaker Pádraig Ó Tuama has found at least three vocations: poet, theologian, and mediator in conflict resolution. In all these occupations, Tuama concerns himself with language, power, conflict, and religion. That’s an intersection ripe with possibilities.
In a remarkable poem, “Jesus of the Corners,” Tuama reflects on the gospel story of the woman who washes Jesus’ feet with her tears and dries them with her hair. Jesus turns to his host Simon, who’s been silently condemning this “sinful woman,” and asks, “Do you see this woman?” Not just her reputation and gender. Not just your prejudice regarding “women like her.” Simon, can you put down all that blocks your view and just see her?
This Jesus-of-the-corners sees everyone in the room for who they are, Simon’s disgust as clearly as the woman’s penitence. This allows Jesus to ask a question that reverberates through history: Do you see this child of God before you? Are you willing to see them? Or are you hell-bent on seeing only what’s lodged in your mind and heart about them?
Tuama helps us recognize that in calling this scripture passage “The Pardon of the Sinful Woman,” as the New American Bible Revised Edition translation does, we presume this story’s about a fallen woman and not her judger and accuser. But what does Jesus see in this holy encounter? At the intersection of language, power, conflict, and religion, there’s always much to see.
—Alice Camille,
reprinted with permission from TrueQuest Communications
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