Those Who See

As adults, we lose our eyesight.  

I don't mean the kind that can be corrected by a visit to the eye doctor; I am talking about a more important kind of vision.  

One of my favorite authors, Anne Lamott, talks about seeing the world sacramentally, "to see everything as an outward and visible sign of inward, invisible grace. "

Some children are masters at this.  I remember years ago taking a walk with Courtney.  She was in third grade; her parents were divorcing, and I wanted to give her a little moral support.  We were walking along together and she suddenly stopped.  "Look at that flower!"  She forgot everything except the beauty before her.  I looked but couldn't see anything that could possibly have inspired awe.  She had to point to the flower right next to her before I could see it.  It wasn't too small for my eyes.  It was huge.  I couldn't see it, because it was a weed, an enormous thorny thistle in full bloom.  Patiently she taught me to see.  "It is soooo purple!  And soft!  Look, put your finger here.  Doesn't it feel like velvet?" 

Hating the nuisance and thorns of the thistle robbed me of my ability to be present and in awe of the color of the downy purple bloom.   

Seeing was a source of Emily Dickinson's genius too.  In the poem that inspired the name of this blog she says, 

Earth's crammed with Heaven and every common bush afire,

but only those who see take off their shoes...

I want to walk around my whole life with my eyes open and my shoes off, even when I walk among thistles.