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Being Seen by Jesus

In spite of the air conditioning working overtime in Christ Chapel, I was sweating. It was August in Texas and I was wearing a suit, but I wasn’t sweating for those reasons. I was sweating because I was anxious. I wasn’t sure if I would fit in at the Seminary of the Southwest. I wasn’t sure if I would fit in anywhere. I felt this way ever since I left the Army about a year before.

I wore my black suit to the Matriculation Eucharist. It was a custom-made suit donated to me when I left the Army. It’s a nice suit, worth more than some cars I’ve owned.  Before I left my College Courts apartment for the Eucharist, I pinned my mini Iraq Campaign Medal pin to my lapel.
It was the first time I wore it in public. I wasn’t sure what I was saying. I didn’t want to be the “crazy veteran” in the field jacket, with the cut-off sleeves and bandana.
After the service, the Dean, the Very Rev. Doug Travis, who presided over the whole event, walked right up to me. I froze. I worried I’d signed the Matriculation Book improperly or something worse. The dean smiled, held out his hand and said, “Welcome! Are you a veteran?”
When Jesus walked on this earth, all four evangelists begin many of their stories with Jesus “seeing” someone. Jesus sees a beggar, a blind man, a tax collector, and Mary weeping for dead Lazarus.
Most miracle stories start this way.
In that moment, in that handshake, I knew Jesus saw me. He saw my little pin that connected me to my war. He saw my anxiety about fitting in “back here” after I’d been “over there.” He saw the demons in the long afternoon shadows, and the familiar ghosts that show up in the night. He saw the burned-in memories of my own failures during combat that just won’t go away. He saw the love I carry for the women and men who killed and died for me. He saw that part of me that was marked by war.
Most miracle stories start this way, with Jesus seeing someone. On this Veterans Day, 2014, I’m thankful the Seminary of the Southwest community saw me, took my hand, and taught me to see the way Jesus sees.

David W. Peters is a student in the Master of the Arts in Religion program at Seminary of the Southwest.  David served as an enlisted Marine and Army chaplain in Iraq.  He is author of Death Letter: God, Sex, and War.

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