Sometime during my grade school years one of my teachers made a bulletin board that left a lasting impression on me. The title of the bulletin board was Perspective. The board was filled with photographs of ordinary places and ordinary objects shot from unusual points of view. I can still recall my confusion as I looked at these views and tried to figure out what they were. It took me a long time and a lot of patience to recognize the scene in the photo as something familiar. I was awed by the realization that something so commonplace could be so baffling and confusing when photographed in unusual ways. I had to learn the process of letting go of my habitual way of looking and let myself see in a new way in order to recognize what was strikingly familiar in the photo.
An important aspect of the spiritual life is learning to see and to hear the unknown in the midst of the known, to listen into the depths of human experience and recognize God working mysteriously in and through these depths. Often, it is familiarity and routine that prevents us from seeing and hearing more deeply. What blocks our eyes and ears is not external but carried internally in what we think we already know and in our attitudes toward what seems challenging and new.
The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell the story of Jesus preaching in the synagogue in Nazareth, the town in which he grew up. After Jesus reads wonderful, hope-filled, liberating words from the prophet Isaiah about bringing good news to the poor, liberty to captives, giving sight to the blind, and freeing the oppressed, he tells them that these wonderful promises of God are being fulfilled through him that very day. At first the people listening are amazed and speak highly of Jesus, they feel the depths of mystery in their encounter with Jesus but before this good news settles into their hearts a question emerges,
Isn’t this the son of Joseph?
Luke 4:22
In other words, don’t we know him? Isn’t he familiar? We knew him as a child. Old memories, old stories about Jesus block the vision of the eyes of their hearts and they return to the surface of life and miss all the hope in the depths of experience Jesus longed to reveal to them.
A major component of learning to see from a new perspective is unlearning our habitual ways of seeing. Habitual ways of seeing prevent us from glimpsing mystery. We miss the growth, the growth in others, and the growth in ourselves. We keep looking for the mustard seed we were familiar with and walk right into the tree it has become while we were lost in our circling thoughts and anxieties.
I remember reading that one indicator of a healthy family is how adult children feel when they visit. Parents in healthy families allow for growth and change, and fully accept their adult children. These parents are able to look at their children from a new perspective, welcoming the growing unknown, while still seeing the strikingly familiar. By contrast, unhealthy families fight against growth and change and the adult children in unhealthy families do not feel accepted for who they have become. Because of this lack of acceptance, unhealthy family gatherings are marked by stale boredom and repressed feelings. Expressions of love, joy, spontaneity and care are diminished.
Mark and Matthew tell us that in Nazareth, Jesus was affected by the people’s refusal to let go of what they thought they already knew about him and learn to see him from a new perspective. Because of their refusal, the love and power of God Jesus hoped to bring them was diminished.
So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.
Mark 6: 5-6
When we refuse to let go of our habitual way of seeing, refuse to see from a new perspective, we diminish the ways God hopes to work in and through the people we encounter as well as the way God hopes to work through us.
In her book, My Grandfather’s Blessing, Rachel Remen suggests an exercise to a man suffering from depression. She asks him to answer three questions at the end of his day,
What surprised me today?
What moved me or touched me today?
What inspired me today?
Rachel Remen
These questions help us to break through our stale ways of viewing our ordinary lives and teach us to be sensitive to mystery. The mystery of God can be encountered right in the midst of what seems most familiar to us. Opening the eyes of our heart to see deeper into our everyday experience awakens us to the ever changing, ever renewing, ever growing life of love God calls each one of us to embrace.
