Eyes to See

Glory to you O Lord, glory to you.

To see, to hear, to think, to search, to comprehend.

We are sensual creatures, processors of that which we interact with.

Everything which interacts with the soul leaves a trace of itself and the soul is constantly interacting with newness, newness of already existent things.

To speak is to love.

Language, that act of love, the desire to engage with another, is performed through the usage of sensational things which are commonly understood.

Today being Saint Lucy's day I am contemplating the idea of communication.

She who had her eyes removed, and received them again through a grace of God.

Last summer I spent three months in a very foreign environment to my own, working alongside agricultural communities in North-East Brazil, I had to communicate with people in a language and culture I did not understand. It soon became apparent that the tiny lexicon I had with me would be sufficient.

Living with a family cut off from the rest of the village on the top of a canyon, where night was deepest black and the bathroom consisted of a bucket with a dried squash skin for a ladle, I quickly realised that any difficulty of living was on mine, not their part. These people knew how to live, they did it naturally yet I, I found every movement challenging. I haven't even mentioned the rats which would run across the rafters throughout the house.

Anyway, I was greatly received by them in expression of love and curiosity. And though I didn't speak much, if any, of their language, I was willing to learn. But learning did not consist in practicing calls and responses, it was to be found in interaction with them, in watching television, feeding the hens, eating the food. My actions, my gestures, my presence. These were the real forms of communication. Language was only secondary to that.

I became quite desperate in my desire to communicate with these persons with whom I had been made in  contact. All this change of scenery had been, for my soul, a great deal of new information which needed to be made sense of.

My eyes saw not as their eyes,

A bucket remained in the shape of a bucket, that which the bucket spake of was different.

We relate to this on an every day basis. For some, the water may be hot, for others, tepid or even cold.The difficulty of language is made easier when it is understood as being that act of communion with another person, another human, weak and precious as oneself.

It is to Saint Lucy that I owe this insight.

Lamenting in these struggles, and continuing to unpack my possessions, I looked above the bed to see a weather faded image of a lady with two eyes on a plate, and I understood her to be Lucy. Seeking her aid, I prayed that she may intercede for me so that I can be granted a closer understanding of what it means to be there for others as guide, listener, and counselor.

§78 We share in the image of God by virtue of the intellectual activity of our soul; for the body is, as it were, the soul's dwelling-place. - St Diadochos of Photiki, 'On Spiritual Knowledge'

C. S. Matthew, MMXII