Eyes to See

Gregg’s Reflection

Two of my Gallup Strengths are strategic and futuristic. I can see further down the tracks than many. That was frustrating to me, because I couldn’t understand why others could not see what I saw. Then, years later, I realized it was a gift, and not everyone has that gift.

Some years ago, I was making another pass through the New Testament, and I was struck by the number of times Jesus said, “For those who have eyes to see, let them see, and for those who have ears to hear, let them hear.” I began to meditate on that phrase, and realized that the implication of those statements are that not everyone has eyes to see or ears to hear. This quote from Jesus in Matthew helped me understand in a deeper way.

Matthew 13:15-17: For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them. But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

I began to understand why some things God made clear to me were not at all obvious to others. I started to pray for eyes to see and ears to hear, and realized these were gifts from God. It is the Spirit that gives us wisdom and understanding. For years, like Solomon, I have been praying for the gift of Wisdom. What I did not recognize was that these prayers opened me to see things that had been in front of me the whole time, yet I had not been able to see them.

Years ago, I attended a 3DM event. I was quite taken by this simple power equation that Steve Cockram shared at the event.

I realized that I could increase the power of God flowing through my life if I could reduce my resistance to God’s will. Since that day, I pray each morning that the Spirit might strengthen me so I could turn from my selfish desires, and that God would shape me to be that which He would make of me. Some amazing things have happened. I keep finding people crossing my path who are wounded or in some place of need. As I have made myself available, and kept my focus on Him, grace-filled moments have multiplied, and God is using me to touch people with His wonderful grace. 

I was sharing this with my spiritual director, and he said something that clicked, “These opportunities have been there all the time, but now you are able to see them.” I went on to say that after a few weeks, the newness of this experience began to dim, and my sense of God’s presence also dimmed. To this he responded, “It’s like taking a step up. At first the terrain looks new, but after we have been walking for a while, the newness wears off. That does not mean that you have stepped back down from that step, just that it is becoming familiar.” 

Richard Foster’s book, Life with God, Reading the Bible for Spiritual Transformation, teaches that the purpose of reading the scriptures is that we might be changed, transformed. Paul says it this way:

Romans 12:2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

So, let me get this straight, after my mind is transformed, I can know what God’s will is. Before transformation, everything is cloudy. After, I can test and approve what God’s will is. So, part of transformation is that we can receive eyes to see and ears to hear God’s perfect will. What an incredible blessing.

Have you noticed how many references to ‘eyes to see’ and ‘ears to hear’ in Scripture? Have you ever prayed for eyes to see as God sees? Can you see the unseen connection throughout the web of life, that all human and other than human creatures are completely interdependent?

May you pray for wisdom, and receive it. May you have eyes to see and ears to hear, that you are transformed by the renewing of your mind, to see God’s faint path unfolding, and hear the still, small voice of the Spirit calling you forward into God’s perfect will.

Journaling Prompt: Research shows that our time with God is the most meaningful time, yet, we watch TV much more than we pray or seek God’s presence. What practices open your eyes to see more deeply into the world around us? Will you commit to making time each day for this practice for a month? I’d love to hear what you learn to see when you slow down and look deeply.

Scripture

God, you were here all along, and I never knew it.

Genesis 28:16

But to this day the Lord has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear.

Deuteronomy 29:4

For his eyes are upon the ways of mortals, and he sees all their steps.

Job 34:21.

No man can say his eyes have had enough of seeing, his ears their fill of hearing.

Ecclesiastes 1:8

You will listen and listen again and not understand, see and see again and not perceive. For the heart of this nation has grown coarse, their ears are dull of hearing and they have shut their eyes for fear that they should see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart and be converted and be healed by me…..  But happy are your eyes because they see and your ears because They hear. I tell you solemnly, many prophets and holy ones long to see what you see and never saw it, to hear what you hear and never heard it.

Isaiah 6:9-10

I will lead the blind by a road they do not know, by paths they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I will do, and I will not forsake them.

Isaiah 42:16

Son of man, you are living among a rebellious people. They have eyes to see but do not see and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious people.

Ezekiel 12:2

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Matthew 5:8.

The lamp of the body is the eye; if your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light.

Matthew 6:22.

Who­ev­er has ears, let them hear.

Matthew 11:5

The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand. Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.

Matthew 13:13, 16-17

Then Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.” When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’

Mark 4:9-12

For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. If anyone has ears to hear, let them hear.

Mark 4:22-24

You have eyes to see but you do not see.

Mark 8:18.

You have not learned to awaken to your God-given capacity to see the God-given, godly nature of yourselves, others, and all things. This is the source of all your sorrow and confusion.

James Finley, CAC Morning Devo, 6/5/24, commentary on Mark 8:18

Part of our work in spiritual formation is to open our eyes and ears to everything and everyone around us for signs of the presence of God and glimpses of God’s coming kingdom.

RENOVARE Bible notes on Mark 8:1-38

Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown. When he said this, he called out, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

Luke 8:8

Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.”  

Luke 10:23

You will indeed listen, but never understand, And you will indeed look, but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull, And their ears are hard of hearing, And they have shut their eyes; So that they might not look with their eyes, And listen with their ears, And understand with their heart and turn—And I would heal them. 

Acts 28:26-27

Unless we clear away the debris created by our own self-deception, all subsequent steps are likely to lead us down false trails.

RENOVARE Bible notes on Revelation NT p. 486

Ancient Writings

The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.

Meister Eckhart, Selected Writings, p. 179

And thus I saw him and I sought him, and I possessed him and I lacked him. (The lacking only increased the longing. Jim Finley Living School teaching). The constant seeking of the soul pleases God very much, for the soul can do no more than seek, suffer and trust. The seeking with faith, hope, and love pleases our Lord, and the finding pleases the soul and fills it full of joy.

Julian of Norwich, The Complete Julian of Norwich, Fr John-Julian, p. 95, 99

Seek out someone who is free from illusion about the world. It is very important to consult with those who are seeing things as they really are if we are to come to know ourselves.

St. Teresa of Ávila, Interior Castle, trans Mirabai Starr, p. 83

All things can be seen in God because God has all things inside himself.

St. Teresa of Ávila, Interior Castle, trans Mirabai Starr, p. 144

Modern Writings

The thing that we have to face is that life is as simple as this. We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and God is shining through it all the time. This is not just a fable or a nice story, it is true.

Thomas Merton, from Merton’s final address as novice; recorded at the Abbey of Gethsemani on August 20th, 1965

Can seeing with the eyes of mystics really have relevance in our busy modern world? I think it is not only relevant but absolutely necessary to change our levels of consciousness, which many religious traditions might have also called growth in holiness or divine union. Through a regular practice of contemplation we can awaken to the profound presence of the unitive Spirit, which then gives us the courage and capacity to face the paradox that everything is—ourselves included. Deeper levels of divine union allow us to forgive and show compassion toward more and more, even those we are not naturally attracted to, and even our enemies.

Mystics have plumbed the depths of both suffering and love, and emerged with depths of compassion for the world, and a learned capacity to recognize God within themselves, in others, and in all things. From such contact with the deep rivers of grace, we can live our lives from a place of nonjudgment, forgiveness, love, and a quiet contentment with the ordinariness of our lives—knowing now that it is not ordinary at all!

Adapted from Richard Rohr, introduction to What the Mystics Know: Seven Pathways to Your Deeper Self (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2015), ix–x

Truth sinks in like rain into very hard earth. The rain is very gentle, and we soften up slowly at our own speed. It happens by letting go; it happens by relaxing your mind, and it happens by the aspiration and the longing to want to communicate with yourself and others. Each of us finds our own way.

Pema Chodron, Start Where You Are; a Guide to Compassionate Living

Contemplation is any way one has of penetrating illusion and touching reality.

Parker Palmer

Every wisdom tradition tells us that “what we need is here.” We just need to open our eyes to see and appreciate all those "secrets hidden in plain sight." We can't do that when we're constantly obsessing about the past, fretting about the future, or allowing the million madnesses known as “the news” keep us from receiving the gift of here and now. Even on the hardest days, there’s something simple that can make us glad.

Parker Palmer

Give me eyes to see and ears to hear. I know there is light in the darkness that makes everything new. I know there is a joy beyond sorrow that rejuvenates my heart. Yes, Lord, I know that you are, that you act, that you love, that you indeed are Light, Life, and Truth. People, work, plans, projects, ideas, meetings, buildings, paintings, music, and literature all can only give me real joy and peace when I can see and hear them as reflections of your presence, your glory, your kingdom.

Let me then see and hear. Let me be so taken by what you show me and by what you say to me that your vision and hearing become my guide in life and impart meaning to all my concerns. Let me see and hear what is really real, and let me have the courage to keep unmasking the endless unrealities, which disturb my life every day. Now I see only in a mirror, but one day, O Lord, I hope to see you face to face. Amen.

Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devotion, 11/30/20

Spirituality is about awakening the eyes, the ears, and the heart so we can see what’s always been happening right in front of us.

Richard Rohr, Jesus’ Alternative Plan, p. 39

Christ is the light that allows people to see things in their fullness. The precise and intended effect of such a light is to see Christ everywhere else. In fact, that is my only definition of a true Christian. A mature Christian sees Christ in everything and everyone else. That is a definition that will never fail us, always demand more of us, and give us no reasons to fight, exclude, or reject anyone. 

Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ, p. 33

The God image, the self image, and the world-image are deeply connected. Normally,  when one of them changes, the other two have to adjust. So, when our God image changes, then we have to change. For example, if our God is a judge, then we will remain fearful little children. If, suddenly, God becomes love, we have to learn how to be in love. We have to change.

We become the God we worship, as so many have said. We can pretty much assess what a person is like and sense what their God is like. If they're fear-filled, we know what their God-image is. If we want to grow in these areas, we need to honestly bring our operative images of self and God to conscious consideration. It might even be good to journal about this over a period of time.

Avoid the temptation to be fashionable or socially acceptable, like merely saying, "My God is love." Don't write it down until it is a felt experience. Let's be honest. There are a lot of us who are still operating from the inadequate or even toxic images of God we learned as children. For example, we're afraid we're going to be shamed because our early experience of religion was largely of God as police officer. Our image of God will improve as we learn more about God. If it is really God we are meeting, it will only get better. Take that as absolute.

Richard Rohr, The Wisdom Pattern, p. 142-143

How Difficult It Is to See Clearly. Every viewpoint is a view from a point. Unless we recognize and admit our own personal and cultural viewpoints, we will live with a high degree of illusion and blindness that brings much suffering into the world. One of the keys to wisdom is that we must recognize our own biases, our own addictive preoccupations, and those things to which, for some reason, we refuse to pay attention.

Without such critical awareness of the small self, there is little chance that any individual will produce truly great knowing or enduring wisdom. People who have done their inner work also see beyond their own biases to something transcendent, something that crosses the boundaries of culture and individual experience. People with a distorted image of self, world, or God will be largely incapable of experiencing what is really real in the world.

They will see things through a narrow keyhole. They’ll see instead what they need reality to be, what they’re afraid it is, or what they’re angry about. In other words, they won’t see it at all. That’s the opposite of contemplatives, who see what is. Most of us will usually misinterpret our experience until we have been moved out of our false center.

No one willingly does evil. Each of us has put together a construct by which we explain why what we do is necessary and good. This is the specialty of the ego, the small or false self that wants to protect its agenda and project itself onto the public stage. We need support in unmasking our false self and in distancing ourselves from our illusions. For this it is necessary to install a kind of “inner observer.” At first that sounds impossible, but with patience and practice, it can be done and even becomes quite natural.

Richard Rohr, CAC Morning Devotion, 2/28/21

It’s quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes. —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince. Hugh of St. Victor (1096–1141) [1] and Richard of St. Victor (died 1173) wrote that humanity was given three different sets of eyes, each building on the previous one. The first eye was the eye of the flesh (thought or sight), the second was the eye of reason (meditation or reflection), and the third was the intuitive eye of true understanding (contemplation).

This image of “third eye” thinking, beyond our dualistic vision, is also found in most Eastern religions. We need all three sets of eyes to create a healthy culture and a healthy religion. Without them, we only deepen and perpetuate our problems. The third-eye person has always been the saint, the seer, the poet, the metaphysician, or the authentic mystic who grasps the whole picture. We need true mystics who see with all three sets of eyes. It is Paul’s “third heaven,” where “he heard things that must not and cannot be put into human language” (2 Corinthians 12:2, 4).

Richard Rohr, CAC Daily Devotion, 6/3/22

Just learn how to see, and you will know whatever it is that you need to know.

Richard Rohr, Naked Now, p. 62

After 40 years of teaching Scripture, I can say: You see the text through your available eyes. You hear a text from your own level of development and consciousness. All we can do is help people grow up, and then they hear Scripture maturely. We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are.

Richard Rohr, Naked Now, p. 82

Your image of God creates you-or defeats you. There is an absolute connection between how you see God and how you see yourself and the whole universe. Most people’s image of God is a subtle combination of their mom and dad and other authority figures. Without an inner journey of prayer and experience, much of religion is largely childhood conditioning. The goal is to grow towards an adult religion that includes reason, faith, and inner experience you can trust. 

Richard Rohr, Yes, and, p. 63

We must tune in to our ability to see beyond the physical reality that surrounds us, and awaken to the vast unseen world that exists. Then we can begin to see beyond sight and to hear beyond sound. We see the underlying structures that support our world, and life begins to take on new shape, new meaning.

When we live as multisensory beings, we find that we are able to comprehend the language of every living thing. We hear the voices of the trees, and understand the buzzing of the bees. And we come to realize that it is the interwoven substance of these floating rhythms that holds us in delicate balance with all life.

Then, our life and our place in creation begins to make sense in a whole new way. Our vision expands to see the overall order of our path, and our hearing tunes into a whole new source of information. . . . When we merge our internal rhythms with the rhythms of creation, we develop grace in our movement, and without thought or effort we are able to slide into the perfectly choreographed dance of life.

I remember my first moment of conscious engagement with this dance. . . . It was a warm early-summer day and I was seated in a meditative state in my backyard. . . . As I was sitting there, I noticed a tiny ant crawling across a blade of grass. As I watched the ant move along, his little body began to light up. Then, the blade of grass that he was walking on lit up. As I sat there and watched, the entire area surrounding me began to light up. . . . I sat very still, quietly marveling over this newfound sight, afraid to move and lose it. . . .

While I sat there breathing with the world around me, the firm lines of my being began to fade. I felt myself expanding and merging with all that I was observing. There was suddenly no separation between me, the ant, the grass, the trees, and the birds. We were breathing with one breath, beating with the pulse of one heart. I was consumed by this achingly beautiful and complete sense of kinship with the entire creation.

Richard Rohr, “Christianity and the Creation: A Franciscan Speaks to Franciscans,” in Embracing Earth: Catholic Approaches to Ecology, ed. Albert J. LaChance and John E. Carroll, p. 133.

A spiritual person will always be led to some form of prayer, meditation or contemplation—what the great traditions call wisdom seeing. Prayer is not a pious exercise that you do now and then to please God. It is an entirely alternative consciousness, created by the Spirit breathing and loving and desiring in you and through you, and often in spite of you! It ends up creating an entirely different set of eyes in a person, and surely a different heart for everything.

Richard Rohr, On the Threshold of Transformation, p. 269

The Four Worldviews:

Material Worldview: Visible universe is the ‘real’ world. Given us science, engineering, medicine. Creates highly consumer-oriented and competitive culture. Preoccupied with scarcity.

Spiritual Worldview: Recognize primacy of Spirit, consciousness, the invisible world. It can become ethereal, disembodied, disregarding human needs, social justice, considering the world largely an illusion.

Priestly Worldview: Generally sophisticated, experienced people and traditions. Feel their job is to put matter and Spirit together, holders of the law, scriptures, and rituals, including gurus and priests. View assumes the two worlds are separate.

Incarnational Worldview: Matter and Spirit have never been separate. This view relies more on awakening than joining, more on seeing than  obeying, more on growth and love than on clergy. Grounds holiness in reality instead of moral behavior.

Richard Rohr, Universal. Christ, p. 237

Here are three “ways of knowing” that can allow us to access greater wisdom: Images: Imaginal knowing is the only way that the unconscious can move into consciousness. It happens through fantasy, through dreams, through symbols, where all is “thrown together” (sym-ballein in Greek). It happens through pictures, events, and well-told stories. It happens through poetry, where well-chosen words create an image that, in turn, creates a new awareness—that was in us already. We knew it, but we didn’t know it. We must be open to imaginal knowing because the work of transformation will not be done logically, rationally, or cerebrally. Our intellectual knowing alone is simply not adequate to the greatness and the depth of the task.

Aesthetic: In some ways, aesthetic knowing is the most attractive, but I think it’s often the least converting. Art in all its forms so engages us and satisfies us that many go no deeper. Still, aesthetic knowing is a central and profound way of knowing. I’ve seen art lead to true changes of consciousness. I have seen people change their lives in response to a novel, a play, a piece of music, or a movie like Dead Man Walking. Their souls were prepared, and God got in through the right metaphor at the right time. They saw their own stories clarified inside of a larger story line.

Epiphany: The last way of knowing, which I’d think religion would prefer and encourage, is epiphanic knowing. An epiphany is a parting of the veil, a life-changing manifestation of meaning, the eureka of awareness of self and the Other. It is the radical grace which we cannot manufacture or orchestrate. There are no formulas which ensure its appearance. It is always a gift, unearned, unexpected, and larger than our present life. We cannot manufacture epiphanies. We can only ask for them, wait for them, expect them, know they are given, keep out of the way, and thank Someone aftlerward.

Richard Rohr, The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Disorder, Reorder, p. 127–132

The purpose of truly transcendent art is to express something you are not yet, but that you can become.” Alex Grey. All of us possess the eye of the flesh, the eye of the mind, the eye of spirit. Each of these eyes sees a different world- the world of material objects, of mental ideas, of spiritual realities. And each eye can paint what it sees. The higher the eye, the deeper the art.

Ken Wilber, One Taste, p. 6

Contemplation is born from the “cave of the heart”; it is the vision of a heart centered in God by which one sees the depth of things in their true reality.

Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution, p. 133

Boehme sees the mind as a kind of lens or magnifying glass that, in the freedom of the human will, can be turned in two directions. It can be held before the divine mind, so that it "magnifies the Lord," in the words of the ancient canticle, or it can be turned in so that it reflects and focuses on itself; it essentially becomes its own light.

Only when that lens is "resigned," held steadily up to reflect divine light, is there the possibility for the emergence of the true being of the soul, which is love. To be in the will of God, to be in the resigned will, is an immediate and direct opening, at an energetic level, to the Source of all being. It is a commitment not to turn the lens inward, not to break connection with that eternal "hearing, seeing, and speaking.”

Cynthia Bourgeault, Boehme for Beginners, Gnosis Magazine, Fall 1997

What if we could close our eyes and we could be interiorly awakened so that when we opened our eyes we could see through our own awakened eyes what Jesus saw in all that he saw? What would we see? We’d see God. Because Jesus saw God in everything. And what’s really mysterious about it when you sit with the Gospels, it didn’t matter whether he was seeing the joy of those gathered at a wedding or sorrow of those gathered at the burial of a loved one. It didn’t matter whether he saw a prostitute or his own mother. It didn’t matter whether he saw his disciples or his executioners. It didn’t matter whether he saw a bird or a flower.

Jesus saw God in all that he saw. And Jesus said you have eyes to see and you do not see. There is your God given capacity to see the godly nature of everything around you and you don’t see it. And this is a source of all your sorrow. This is the source of all your confusion. And the prayer is Lord that I might see. Lord that I might see through my own awakened eyes your presence right before me and everything that I see, the godly nature, the concreteness of things.

An interview with James Finley by  Ryan Kohls, ProgressiveChristianity.org Feb 17, 2023

Do we have eyes to see the divinity shining brightly before our very eyes?

James Finley, Living School teaching

Lord, that I might see you in this and every passing moment of my life.

JAmes Finley, Healing Path, p. xii

Our freedom from the prison of our own illusions comes in realizing that in the end everything is a gift. Above all, we ourselves are gifts that we must first accept before we can become who we are by returning who we are to the Father. This is accomplished in a daily death to self.

James Finley, Merton’s Palace of Nowhere, p. 48

Leadership is about creating a domain in which human beings continually deepen their understanding of reality and become more capable of participating in the unfolding of the world. Ultimately, leadership is about creating new realities.

And further: I’ve come to appreciate that one of the gifts of artists is the ability to see the world as it really is….If we could only see reality more as it is, it would become obvious what we need to do. We would do exactly what is required of us, right now, right here. Joe says we need to be open to fundamental shifts of mind.

We have very deep mental models of how the world works, deeper than we can know. One of these shifts is from seeing the world made up of things to seeing a world that’s open and primarily made up of relationships. When we go through this shift of mind, we begin to realize that the sense of despair we’ve been feeling arises out of a fundamentally naive view of the world. Joe said: When this fundamental shift of mind occurs, our sense of identity shifts, too, and we begin to accept each other as legitimate human beings.

When we start to accept this fundamental shift of mind, we begin to see ourselves as part of the unfolding. We also see that it’s actually impossible for our lives not to have meaning. There is a Paradoxical connection between our sense of helplessness and our ceaseless activity.

When this new type of commitment starts to operate, there is a flow around us. Things just seem to happen.When we operate in this new state of mind, grounded in this different commitment, something starts to operate around us. You could call it ‘attraction’-the attractiveness of people in a state of surrender. When we are in a state of commitment and surrender, we begin to experience what is sometimes called ‘synchronicity.’ Joe calls this phenomenon ‘predictable miracles.’

Notes from Synchronicity: Peter Senge’s Intro to Synchronicity by Jaworski

Our heart is called pure when it is no longer muddied by faculties in opposition with each other. Our heart is pure when our vision is no longer obscured by the vices which are the natural result of this opposition. To have purity of heart is to have eyes which can see.

Justin Coutts, In Search of New Eden, 4/18/21