My song, “Baker Park,” is out today. Here are the links to listen to it: Spotify // YouTube // Apple Music. And here’s what it’s about:
The other day, Alli and I were seated in an Indian restaurant.
Across the dining room, a family finished their dinner and made motions to leave. Their two-year-old daughter preceded them down the aisle, between the tables, toward the door.
I’ve learned from experience that it’s polite to appear unaware of other people in public. Rather than, for instance, greeting each new guest to a subway car with a stare and raised eyebrows, you should let your eyes go unfocused and pretend you’re in a sort of coma. You may as well be blind, or floating in space, lightyears away. Certainly you’re oblivious to the dandruff on the shoulder of the man whose raised arm is four inches from your face. (This is also what phones are for.)
Toddlers haven’t learned this etiquette yet, though. They can’t be bothered not to see.
So as the little girl ambled down the aisle of the Indian restaurant, step by wobbling step, she maintained aggressive, unblinking eye contact with me. I was mid-bite of Chicken Rogan Josh. I hadn’t thrown up my defenses; I couldn’t look away. She was interested in my face. Eventually, she passed in front of our booth and waved. Caught, I waved back.
“That was awkward,” I told Alli when the family was out the door. “I think her mom thought I was creepy.”
“Isn’t that sad?” Alli asked. “We should wave more often.”
It’s hard work, seeing.
Really seeing, I mean.
Just think: When Jesus healed the blind man, it took two tries.
“Do you see anything?” Jesus asks, having just spit on the man’s eyes.
“I see people,” says the not-quite-as-blind man, blinking and wiping saliva from his face. “But they look like trees.” (I’ve always wondered at this. Trees? How?)
Let’s try this once more, thinks Jesus, and again he puts his hands over the man’s eyes and takes them away. This time the cure has gone all the way through – the man can, as Mark records, “see everything clearly,” and Jesus sends him home, the job done.
Modern science has replicated this miracle, minus the spit. Annie Dillard, in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, recounts the experiences of people who have had cataracts removed. “For the newly sighted,” she writes, “vision is pure sensation unencumbered by meaning… In general the newly sighted see the world as a dazzle of color-patches. They are pleased by the sensation of color, and quickly learn to name the colors, but the rest of seeing is tormentingly difficult.” Some people, after being healed, choose to walk around with their eyes shut. It’s easier.
I can imagine why. It seems simple enough to let colors wash over you like waves on sand or cars over asphalt. But this passive reception of light doesn’t help you live. It isn’t really seeing. To really see, you need to attribute the full weight of meaning to the colors and lights.
And Dillard is right. This is tormentingly difficult.
When I was a kid, I was concerned about homeless people.
I would see an unkempt man with a cardboard sign asking for help, and I would make intentional eye contact with him from the back seat of the minivan. I’d try to convey sincere sympathy with my gaze; I would worry about him even after the light changed. Sometimes, if we’d thought ahead, we would roll down the window and hand out little bags of food or toiletries before we drove away.
I don’t do this anymore. I’ve learned to let my eyes go unfocused until I’m floating in space, lightyears away. The full meaning and weight of other people is overwhelming.
It’s easier to be blind.
God, I would like to be healed, though.
