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I once used this for a retreat. I asked people to
reflect on this and I asked them
what they thought various parts of it meant.
And afterwards one of the people came up to me and said when they
looked at John’s hand here
it just seemed that he was tickling Jesus [laughs]
which probably isn't what the iconographer had in mind.
And yet and
and yet there's something really kind of delightful about that image of John
being so close to Jesus,
both emotionally and physically,
that he can tickle Jesus [laughs], I mean you don’t, are you probably shouldn't
tickle people that you don't know [laughing]
boundaries, boundaries!
But here John is so close to Jesus
that he could potentially be tickling him.
I don't think that's what John is doing here but it's kind of fun to imagine that.
I think what John is doing here
is he's pointing to
this image of love,
and that in itself is it as an image of love,
John reclining on the breast of Jesus
and in such a way that that perhaps
John can hear the heartbeat
of Jesus here. And
so that's a - if you were
going pray with this icon, that's another way that you could pray
with this icon just simply to see if you can
quiet yourself down am so much
that you can hear your heartbeat
and just become aware
of your heartbeat. And in a sense by becoming aware of your heartbeat
becoming aware of
God’s heartbeat and God’s
heart beating in love for you.