Sight

When I was in college, one of my roommates was a stunningly beautiful, blonde 6 foot tall woman. She was kind, fun, good AND beautiful. Time after time, men would come up to her, remember having met her (how could they forget?) and then turn to me with "and what was your name?" It didn't matter how many times previously they had met me, if I was standing near my friend, their reaction was proximal amnesia: She was the powerful magnet to the hard drive, erasing any memory of my existence in their brain. It mattered not a bit if I was glitteringly witty, fun, intelligent or downright strange. In her presence, I was, above all, invisible. I found during that same time, that I could go entire days without saying a single word. My classes didn't require comment and there were enough volunteers that my silence was not glaring. I would realize at the end of such a day that I had not opened my mouth at all. I was invisible; I was mute. One evening, my roommates had convinced me to find a date for a girls' choice dance and we were having a reasonably enjoyable time. My date was cordial and he could see me, though we were not a match made in heaven. At some point during the evening, I made a sly pun quietly to myself--for my own amusement--since I neither expected anyone to hear nor to notice me. My roommate's date, who had been looking absently at the floor, lifted his head up suddenly and looked straight at me. And laughed. He heard me. He saw me. He saw me even though my stunning roommate was right there. That electric feeling of being seen when I had become accustomed to invisibility, being heard when I had been seemingly mute. I will never forget it.

Sometimes we say we wish the earth could swallow us whole, that we wish no one would see us. But I don't think that is actually true. We want to be seen; we need to be seen in order to be loved. It is a deeply vulnerable place--allowing ourselves to be seen. But it is a devastating place--to ask to be seen and still to be invisible. Horton could hear the Whos--'a person's a person, no matter how small' or so Dr. Seuss told us. What do we do with the people we see? The thing is, we can't see all the people all the time. Our brains are just too mortal, too finite. But God sees. We can be certain that we are visible to Him. He made us after all. He promises throughout the scriptures, throughout all time, that He will never forget us, we are graven upon His side, upon His hands, the chastisement of our peace is upon Him. Since God sees us all, we can ask Him to help see better those who most need to be seen. It's as if the Lord, in His role as Great Healer adjusts the prescription on our glasses, our perspecticles as it were, so that we can see each other as He does.

Being invisible during that time some twenty-ish years ago did something to me that I am only now and only sometimes able to move beyond. I don't want to forget though, that invisible, mute feeling entirely, because hopefully it helps me to pray better, to seek better to adjust my vision. To see who the Lord needs me to see, to see what needs to be seen.