SEEING BEYOND

 

SEEING BEYOND

A lady said to us recently, 'The trouble is people don't listen to one another.' She's right. We don't listen. We don't look either. Too much of the time we are enclosed in our own narrow preoccupations and we fail to take in what's right in front of our eyes, or to hear anything but our own thoughts. We see what we expect to see. So, what we see is all in the mind. Our vision is remembered vision and what we hear is often just an echo of something going on in ourselves. Hence the malentendus, the falling outs, the wishful thinkings. We miss the cry for help under the banalities of 'how are you ? Fine thanks'. We miss one another, not really making any connection. So we never really know one another at all.

The ability to empathise helps us to open up. But we have to be willing to give ourselves a little bit, to give it time, to listen, to look. Artists are always going on about 'looking'. Really look and see what really is there, they tell us. David Hockney urges us to see the amazing colours all around us, to see the shapes and to feel the presence of everything, trees, plants animals, stones ; all of nature has a presence, if we spare the time to tune into it. People speak volumes without words. Animals the same. Even plants. Have you ever stood really still and listened to birdsong ? It speaks to the heart. Have you closed your eyes and felt how nature suffers in a drought ? Have you seen Jesus in your neighbour ? Have you listened for the voice of God and entered into his peace ? Remember how Philip tells Jesus he will be satisfied if he can only see the Father ? Jesus replies, 'Have I been with you all this time and you still do not know me ? Philip, to see me is to see the Father.' Philip had seen Jesus merely as another human being and had failed to see beyond his humanity the light that was shining through him – the divine light of the Trinity itself. Have YOU seen the light ?

The truth is we can't see beyond the end of our noses. It's a common human failing and probably why global warming and its catastrophic effects on the planet have remained so low on our list of priorities – up to now. We really do need to open up, to look and listen with the eyes and the ears of the heart, and not just see and hear what we expect to, but to look beyond. It's not just about human relations. It's about our relationship with the planet. It's about our relation with God.

In iconography, angels are always depicted with ribbons flying, one each side of the head. Those ribbons are the sign that the angel is forever listening out for God's prompting. He flies at the prompting of God to do his will. The French have an expression that expresses this quality ; it's being : 'à l'écoute de Dieu'. Seeing and listening beyond is a state of being. It's living in God, in harmony with nature and with one another. It's the future we all look to : 'creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly but because of Him who subjected it in hope ; because the creation itself will also be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.' (Romans chapter 8)

In these days when we are waking up to the imminent danger that our planet and all that lives on it is in, we might find hope in the promise of a new heaven and a new earth. Jesus himself rose from the dead and heralding our own rising into new life. We will become the children of God spoken of by Paul. But all of nature, the whole planet will also be renewed to enjoy with us the same promised glorious liberty. Two thousand years ago Jesus made the sacrifice which made it all possible. But we are still sleeping the sleep of our selfishness and have not fully wakened to his call to follow him. So for the the sake of humanity for the sake of the planet, for God's sake, let us wake up. Let us open the eyes and ears of our hearts and start to see beyond the immediately obvious, to see how far reaching the Lord's law of love really is, and how far reaching his resurrection. Following his teaching, let us start to really live in creation and not just in our own heads. It is our hope for the future kingdom, for the brotherhood of man, for the coming of the children of God and even the new heaven and earth.