“Jesus looked at him and loved him.”  Mark 10:21

“When you really look deeply at something, it becomes part of you.”  John O’Donahue[1]

When was the last time you opened your eyes?

Now, that’s a silly question, isn’t it?  We open our eyes every morning.

That’s not the type of eye opening that I’m referring to.  What I mean is opening one’s eyes to see  beyond what it is immediately visible, and look into the deeper meaning and essence of something.  This is true not only of the world around us, as Mary Oliver’s poem “Look and See” at the end of this blog indicates, but also true of the world within us—and within the “other.”

Years ago, as part of my Spiritual Director training, there was an exercise that we were assigned.  It was simply to sit for twenty minutes looking into the eyes of someone else.  I chose my oldest daughter Katie.  It was during Covid, so we had to participate virtually.  However, the effect was transformational.  I had known my daughter all her life—or so I thought.  The experience of looking at her was so profound it is indescribable.  Truly her eyes served as a window to her soul.  It seemed as if for the first time I really SAW who my daughter is.

In my work with those living with dementia and their care companions I encourage this type of seeing.  To merely look at behaviors that are symptoms of the brain changes a person is experiencing is to miss the deeper cause of the behaviors.  And to merely see the cognitive changes and deficits is to completely ignore the wealth and riches of the deeper self that continues to reside—and dare we say grow—deep within the individual.  There is a sacredness that lies buried deep within.  As O’Donohue says, “One could write a beautiful spirituality on the holiness of the gaze.”[2]

Too often our seeing is superficial.  We see only what we want to see.  We see only those things floating on the surface of our experience, forgetting to plum the depths that lie beneath.

O’Donahue delineates six different styles of “seeing.”[3]

The Greedy Eye:  “The more sinister aspect of greed is its ability to sedate and extinguish desire. It destroys the natural innocence of desire, dismantles its horizons, and replaces them with a driven and an atrophied possessiveness.  This greed is now poisoning the earth and impoverishing its people.”

The Judgmental Eye:  “When the judgmental eye looks out, it is always excluding and separating, and therefore never sees in a celebratory and compassionate way.  It enjoys neither the forgiveness nor imagination to see deeper into the ground of things where truth is paradox.”

The Resentful Eye:  “To the resentful eye everything is begrudged.  The resentful eye lives out of its own poverty, and forgets its own inner harvest.”

The Indifferent Eye:  “To ignore things demands incredible mental energy. Without even knowing it indifference can place you beyond the frontiers of compassion, healing, and love. When you become indifferent you give all your power away.  Your imagination becomes fixated in the limbo of cynicism and despair.”

The Inferior Eye:  “To the inferior eye everyone else is greater. The inferior eye is blind to its own secret beauty. The human eye was never designed to look up in a way that inflates the other to superiority, nor to look down, reducing the other to inferiority.”

THE LOVING EYE:  “The loving eye is bright because it is autonomous and free.  It can look lovingly upon anything. The loving vision does not become entangled in the agenda of power, seduction, opposition or complicity.  The loving eye sees through and beyond image and effects the deepest change.”

Do any of these resonate with you?  How do you see?  How do you engage regularly with a Loving Eye, neutralizes or even eliminating the other styles of vision? Have you ever sat with another and looked deeply into their eyes–and their soul? How can this be done on a regular basis, in our daily lives?

“Vision is central to your presence and creativity. To recognize HOW you see things can bring you self knowledge and enable you to glimpse the wonderful treasures your life secretly holds. ”[4]

Ponder if you will the deep seeing described in the following.

This morning, at waterside, a sparrow flew

to a water rock and landed, by error, on the back

of an eider duck; lightly it fluttered off, amused.

The duck, too, was not provoked, but, you might say, was

laughing.

This afternoon a gull sailing over

our house was casually scratching

its stomach of white feathers with one

pink foot as it flew.

Oh Lord, how shining and festive is your gift to us, if we

only look, and see.[5]

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[1] “Anam Cara” p. 61

[2] IBID. p. 62

[3] The following references are all taken from “Anam Cara”, pg. 63-66.

[4] IBID, p. 66

[5] “Look and See” by Mary Oliver.