The Symmetric Property

Scriptures related to the poem posted a couple days ago, "Father of Lights":

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, nor turning shadow. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.  (James 1:17-18)

   Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you know him, and have seen him."
    Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us."
   Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you such a long time, and do you not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How do you say, 'Show us the Father?' Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I tell you, I speak not from myself; but the Father who lives in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for the very works' sake. 
    Most certainly I tell you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also; and he will do greater works than these, because I am going to my Father. Whatever you will ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you will ask anything in my name, I will do it. 

    If you love me, keep my commandments.   

   I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, that he may be with you forever,— the Spirit of truth, whom the world can't receive; for it doesn't see him, neither knows him. You know him, for he lives with you, and will be in you.

    I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you.   Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more; but you will see me. Because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
   One who has my commandments, and keeps them, that person is one who loves me. One who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will reveal myself to him." (John 14:6-18)

"[...] Giving thanks to the Father, who made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love; in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins;who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. (Colossians 1:12-15).

His Son is the radiance of his glory, the very image of his substance. (Hebrews 1:3a)

GK Chesterton wrote in St Francis of Assisi,

"It may give a much milder shock if I say here, what most of us have forgotten, that if St. Francis was like Christ, Christ was to that extent like St. Francis. And my present point is that it is really very enlightening to realise that Christ was like St. Francis. What I mean is this; that if men find certain riddles and hard sayings in the story of Galilee, and if they find the answers to those riddles in the story of Assisi, it really does show that a secret has been handed down [...]"

Christ was like St. Francis and we can know Christ better, because we know something of St. Francis.  We accept and can recognize as truly historical - as something that really happened, based in some true source, the flavor of St. Francis' joyful dependency on God.  The haze lifts when we understand that these truths really were embodied and lived.

Christ is the very image of the substance of the Father and we can know the Father better, because we know something of Christ.  Who is this Father, this invisible God, to whom our religion calls for such devoted affection?  He seems so out of reach.  We must believe Christ's word on this.

"If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you know him, and have seen him."   

We must grapple with this co-identification of qualities until we believe it. We must remind ourselves daily until the recognition becomes habitual. Based on the symmetric property,

if a=b, then b=a (where "=" refers to spiritual characteristics), 

we can and should, without hesitation or fear of approach, apprehend the Father, who otherwise seems so hazy and hidden, as being so full of comfort and grace and human sympathy as Christ.

Source: mreiafrica, http://www.slideshare.net/mreiafrica/math-6-project-alice-in-wonderland-ch46

And so, in every humble thing that St. Francis loved, in the daily elements of our life where ever mercy and humility is found, there is Christ and there is the Father.  Father, we want to know you more. Let us open our hearts to the real You. 

That is enough to rest upon and absorb for our whole lives. But Christ goes on, audaciously, to say that the same symmetric property can be applied backward to us, we who are abiding in Him... and the love, intimacy, fellowship, and submission flash like light through a circle of symmetry, between us and Christ and the Father and to us...