Honey Locust at Heartland Farm, November 2014
I will soon receive one of the
quintessential signs of growing older: bifocals—well, “progressive
lenses,” to use the more exact term. I'm not sure a hipper sounding
name will make them any more welcome on the bridge of my nose. Though
I wore eyeglasses throughout my childhood, I've managed to do without
them through most of my adult years. Now, the passage of time has
caught up with me and my eyes are letting me know that they require some
assistance.
As I sat through my eye exam last week
I marveled at the mechanics of sight. Vision is no small miracle; it
is, in fact, the result of a whole chain of miracles. There is the
strange miracle of light, behaving as both wave and particle, there
is the evolutionary miracle of the eye itself, and its linkage
through a nerve-cable to our brain—our miraculous, wondrous
brain!—which flips the images we see right-side-up and helps us
process, remember and make meaning of what we see.
Sight is also connected to our heart.
I do not mean merely the heart that pumps away at the center of our
chest, but the very heart of our being, that living center of
existence where our body, mind and spirit are woven together as one.
This is the heart spoken of in scripture, such as the refrain found
throughout the psalms: “I will praise you, O Lord, with my whole
heart.”
What we see is connected to this heart
of our being. If we are willing to look on our world and our life
with open eyes, our hearts will inevitably be wounded by what we see.
To possess vision is to be wounded.
I remember seeing, for the first time,
a homeless person sleeping on the streets. I remember seeing my
parents and family members weeping at my young cousin's funeral. I
remember seeing death for the first time. I remember more than one
occasion on which I saw the painful results of my ill-spoken words
and my hurtful actions. These were wounding sights. One cannot un-see
such things. Once seen, they become part of us, wounds deep within.
Such wounds, if we do not deny or ignore them, have the potential of
awakening greater compassion, wisdom and insight.
Our sight is wounding because
sometimes it is wounding to be seen. It is said that “the
eyes are windows to the soul,” and it is not always a comforting
thing when someone looks into our eyes, our soul, and sees something
we might rather hide from view. There is a wound that comes when we
know ourselves as fully seen by our neighbor and by God, and grow
more vulnerable and humble in their sight. Once again, this is the
sort of wounding of the heart that can soften us, deepen us and open
us.
If you have been given the gift of
sight, give thanks for it this day. It is precious, and not to be
taken for granted. Gaze on your life and the world with curiosity and
wonder. Remain open to both the beauty and the brokenness that you
see. Have the courage to let yourself be seen as you meet the gaze of
beloved ones in your life, and as you live in the loving sight of
God. In this way may our hearts continue to expand and open with
love.
