The Willingness to See

Jesus once asked a blind man, “What do you want me to do for you?” and the man replied, “Lord, I want to see.”

Well, naturally, we think. Who wouldn’t want to see? But actually, to choose to see is an act of bravery. To see means to risk being moved by beauty and by the suffering of others. To see means stepping beyond the safety of isolation to the messiness of connection with others who see what we see. To see on a spiritual level means enduring the discomfort of removing the log in our eye that Jesus spoke of — be it our pride, our selfishness, or our fear of loss —that keeps us from seeing clearly.

Sunita Puri, MD, a palliative care physician, has spent a lot of time with dying patients and their families. She said, “Eventually, I realized that it wasn’t my job to protect people from their grief or to solve it.” However, she discerned that it was her job to offer compassion, and “The prelude to compassion is the willingness to see.”

 

When we have the willingness to see, we stop observing the splinter in our neighbor’s eye and instead see the whole person, who is doing the best she can given her life circumstances. We can then extend compassion and forbearance to her, and to ourselves as well, when we act out of weakness, greed, envy, or anger. This leads to seeing ourselves and others as God sees us.

 

Jesse Manibusen wrote a song for those who want to see. The first verse goes like this:

 

Open my eyes, Lord.

Help me to see your face

Open my eyes, Lord.

Help me to see.

 

It’s a lovely song, but we need to be aware that we will need to pay in kind for having our eyes opened: we will be called to offer compassion to all those in whom we see the face of God.