SEEING AND BEING SEEN

Being seen is everything. For those who have been banished to the margins of our society, being seen feeds the soul with dignity and a spirit of community. Mother Teresa once said, “The most devastating form of hunger is that of loneliness.” I have also heard it said that the opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference. I know these things are true because I have lived them. To feel invisible brings deep sadness and affects our sense of purpose and meaning of life. But to be seen can revive our spirit. When I encounter brothers or sisters whose only home is the streets, they may need a few bucks to get them through, but what is also needed is a connection, a feeling that they are part of the mainstream of life. We all need to be reminded that we are part of the community. We all need to have someone be curious about us and want to hear our story. When we do that, we both walk away feeling more connected to the real community of all God’s people.        

Part of the covenant we make with God when being baptized in the Episcopal Church is that we will proclaim the Good News of God in Christ, seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves, strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being. All persons, all people and every human being means everybody. Period. No exceptions. These are pretty good principles to live by and ones that could, if taken seriously, have an enormous positive impact on the world and how each of us live, and move, and have our being with each other.

To strive for real justice, peace and respect for the dignity of every single person is vital to our identity, and the state of our criminal justice system and mass incarceration says a lot about who we are as a global community and society. But this problem of not seeing people isn’t limited to the marginalized. How often do we really see the supermarket clerk, the parking garage attendant, the person taking tickets at the movies, or the person sitting across the dinner table?

When I was facilitating Sacred Journey Listening Circles in the jails, some of the work we did together was the Seeing Practice, where we break into twos and the partners sit facing each other about three feet apart. The practice is to simply sit and connect with the other, to really see them, taking in everything about their face and energy. It is a profound practice, and one that can be uncomfortable at first, because we are not accustomed to connecting in that way. But when we stay with it, one thing that often comes out of that connection is a sense of compassion for the other.

Once, after a Sunday church service in jail, and we were saying our goodbyes, I looked at a friend who had shared his pain during the group reflection portion of the service. I said, “I see you.” Tears welled up in his eyes. He hugged me. As we held each other, he whispered, “Thank you.”   

Brother Dennis