Today I started work on a retreat I am leading next month, and I recalled one of my favorite quotes on seeing and belonging that I plan to use for the retreat – see the below reflection from Ronald Rolheiser. I’m also happy to share a new Tiny Desk concert that motivated me today during some welcome time at my desk. Blessings on your week ahead!
Blessing As Seeing
To really see someone, especially someone who looks up to you, is to give that
person an important blessing. In a gaze of recognition, of understanding, in an
appreciative look, there is deep blessing. Often, it is not so important that we say
much to those for whom we are significant, but it is very important that we see
them. . . .
Good kings and queens see their people; good parents see their kids; good teachers
see their students; good pastors see their parishioners; good coaches see their
players; good executives see their employees; and in really good restaurants the
owner comes round to the tables and sees his or her customers, and the customers
are, without being able to explain why, grateful that the owner took the time and
pain to see them. We are blessed by being seen. . . .
. . . today the young are not being seen enough in this way. Our youth . . . are acting
out in all kinds of ways as a means of getting our attention. They want to, and they
need to, be seen by us – parents, adults, teachers, priests, leaders. They need our
blessing. They need to see, right in our eyes, the radical acceptance of their reality,
and they need to read in our eyes the words: “You are my beloved child; in you I am
well pleased.” Youth need our appreciative gaze; mostly they simply need our gaze.
One of the deepest hungers inside young people is the hunger for adult connection,
the desire to be recognized, seen, by a significant adult.
The surface often belies this. We can easily be fooled and put off here. Our young
people will, precisely, tend to give us the impression that they neither want nor
need us, that we should go away and leave them to their own world. Nothing could
be further from the truth. They desperately need, and badly want, the blessing that
comes from our gaze and presence. They need us to see them. In the end, more
than they want our words, they want our gaze.
— Ronald Rolheiser
Keeping the Faith 