See Reality As It Is

  

Eyes to See

“Closely associated with the ability to be is the capacity to see: to see reality as it is, to see ourselves as we are without pretense. This seeing arises from the depths of spiritual discipline; it is knowing from the heart.”

Wayne Teasdale (The Mystic Heart, p.167; New World Library, 1999)

          The Mystic Heart is about common themes found in all the world’s religions. Seeing is one of them. Jesus frequently finished his parables with the invitation, “He who has eyes to see, let him see.” He explained to his disciples his reason for speaking to the people who followed him only in parables: “…because having the power of seeing, they do not see; and having the power of hearing, they do not hear, nor do they grasp and understand.” (Matthew 13)

          Years ago, Margaret Mead, the great anthropologist, was asked, “What is the first sign of a civilized society?” She answered that it was a healed leg fracture—"a healed femur”—because that would indicate that someone was taken care of by others until they could heal. She concluded, “Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts.” If you don’t mind, read that sentence again.

          By this measure, in our society, civilization is still an ideal, unachieved. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like we are backsliding—we have eyes to see, but we don’t see. When did we become a society of “me first” and “I’ll get mine and too bad about you?” It shows up in the strangest ways—like seeing people pile up 5 flats of bottled water on their cart at Costco knowing that less than 1% of those bottles will be recycled. And like small signs on empty shelves in grocery stores saying, “only 1 to a customer because of short supply.” It shows up in the hoarding of covid tests, and the refusal to get vaccinated because of “my rights!” Consideration for all the people who get sick and die from this virus is strictly secondary to my exercise of “my freedoms.” When did we get there?

          Wayne Teasdale, in The Mystic Heart, says that seeing also depends upon self-knowledge, “it is really the gift of perspective, of being able to see everything in its proper place. It means being able to rise above the pettiness of life and see the larger picture.” The larger picture here is that we are all hurting from this pandemic—everyone in the world is hurting from this pandemic—and we must each do our part to pull all of us through. Selfishness is not a survival skill—it is simply an indication that civilization has not yet taken root. Anyone who has eyes to see, let them see.

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane