Journal of Sacred Work

Today's meditation was written by Cathy Self, Senior Vice-President for the Baptist Healing Trust.

"I look through my eyes, not with them" – William Blake (1757-1827, English poet, painter, largely unrecognized during his lifetime).

     William Blake, probably better well-known for his words than for his paintings, noted how we can look at the same image or object and see different things: "This world is a world of imagination and vision. I see everything I paint in this world; but everybody does not see alike. To the eyes of a miser a guinea is more beautiful than the sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a vine filled with grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others is only a green thing that stands in the way." We look with our eyes and do not see.

     Blake's imagery, both written and painted, came from his understanding of seeing through his eyes. The idea of seeing through the patient's eyes is among the clarion calls on the Servant's Heart. For many caregivers, seeing through the patient's eyes means providing what some scholars have called emotional and social support. That support may be expressed through positive affect, including the sense that the one being cared for is loved and esteemed. Yet too often those words are met in retort with protestations of needed professional distance or even self protection from the 'burden' of entering into the space of our patients' suffering. The less demanding idea of compassion trumps love in the eyes of those who protest, but the patient wants and needs love.

     Sadly, caregivers are often experienced as uncaring people more focused on the task at hand than on the person being touched by cold hands. Perhaps at the core of the challenge is that as caregivers we may tend to only look with our eyes rather than through them. How many patients do we encounter each day who have become invisible to our seeing? Or how often do we look and see only the body but not the person, diminshing further with greetings of "Hello, Honey" or "Mr. Smith, I'm here to…."

     The painting by Blake (above) titled "Woman Clothed with the Sun" is a famous image that on first glance may appear as an angel surrounded by light. Through Blake's eyes we see a vision of a pregnant woman surrounded by a dragon overhead and figures drowning in a tempest of high seas. I wonder how we see our patients at first glance. What might we see if we look again? What does your heart tell you as you see through your eyes today?