Only the Lover Sees
Boring Hikes, Josef Pieper, and Grass Clippings in My Hair
A few weeks ago, having determined to spend the afternoon hiking, I found myself in a predicament.
You see, I was at a loss as to where I should hike. All my usual spots felt boring, overused, and too familiar. I drove to the hike closest to my house, but before I even got out of the car I decided to continue driving towards a different spot. My next destination was my other favorite spot to hike, but it too felt old and bland. I wanted to experience something fresh, unknown, and thus (in my mind) actually challenging. In this state of mind, my familiar paths seemed almost beneath me, as if I’d “graduated” from them, and now required a new, uncharted experience.
But as I set off down the familiar trail, I began to realize how foolish I’d been. Yes, perhaps I had technically traveled this path before. Maybe I was “retracing” my steps. However, the realization struck me that I had never entered these woods before in the way I was entering them now, in the present moment, on this particular afternoon. Never before had I hiked this trail as the person who I was on this day.
Suddenly, everywhere I looked, new wonders caught my eye.
Had I ever noticed the yellow daffodils that lined many parts of the trail? Was the babbling brook ever as cheerful and mesmerizing as it was now? Were the trees taller? Was that curve in the mountain really that steep?
Every tiny detail burst out before me in wondrous beauty, filling me with quiet awe.
And when I got to an opening in the trees near the top of the mountain, I could see way down below, across the valley the steeples of a church, beckoning me to the Lord. There in the middle of the national park, I fell to my knees, for though the valley stretched before us, the Lord seemed to call me close. Though I had spotted the steeples from this vantage point before, never before had my eyes seen the truth so clearly as they did in that moment. To think I had wanted a new and exciting trail!
Josef Pieper’s writing has been on my mind lately, and as I thought about this hike, the below quote from his short essay “Learning How to See Again” stuck out to me.
Or again, at table I had mentioned those magnificent fluorescent sea creatures whirled up to the surface by the hundreds in our ship’s bow wake. The next day it was casually mentioned that “last night there was nothing to be seen”. Indeed, for nobody had the patience to let the eyes adapt to the darkness. To repeat, then: man's ability to see is in decline.1
We cannot see because we don’t have the patience to let our eyes see. Rather than waiting and entering into the mystery before us, so often we simply rush, get bored, and give up completely.
As I prepared for Easter, this hike once more came to mind. While reading the Passion Narratives, a temptation crept into my heart that each passage felt too familiar, too heavily trod. Like the foolish hiker thinking the familiar trail had nothing more to offer, a momentary thought flickered in my mind that I had already gleaned all I could from these scripture verses. But when I recalled the hike, I knew the fleeting thought was but a temptation. God’s Word and His Creation never cease to amaze us. Truly they are beauties ever ancient, and ever new.
I have been extremely busy lately, and as a result, I have been experiencing a bit of a creative drought. Once again, Pieper hits home.
Before you can express anything in tangible form, you first need eyes to see.2
He continues:
The mere attempt, therefore, to create an artistic form compels the artist to take a fresh look at the visible reality; it requires authentic and personal observation. Long before a creation is completed, the artist has gained for himself another and more intimate achievement: a deeper and more receptive vision, a more intense awareness, a sharper and more discerning understanding, a more patient openness for all things quiet and inconspicuous, an eye for things previously overlooked.3
In other words, through the act of creating their art, an artist gains a new way of seeing, with eyes that are tender and attentive, or as I immediately thought, with eyes of a mother. Before giving life to our creative endeavors, we must first receive life.
If we are to create beautiful things, we must not let our wells run dry.
In her humility, St. Thérèse thought of herself as a “little flower,” but as I sat in the chapel and prayed this past Monday, all it seemed I could offer to the Lord was a handful of unkempt leaves. “I’m not a little flower,” I thought, “I’m just some scattered leaves or weeds, blowing in the wind.”
Suddenly the memory of two of my friend’s children pulling up handfuls of grass this past Sunday and (for some inexplicable reason) scattering them onto my head and into my hair flashed into my mind. In the moment, I had begged them to stop, insisting with bemusement them that it’s not nice to put grass in people’s hair.
But now, as I offered up the littleness of my life to the Lord, those handfuls of grass brought me to tears. All I have to offer to God is a little fistful of grass. In my clumsiness, I don’t place it lovingly at His feet in a tidy bouquet. No, rather, I imagine my fistfuls of grass go flying about, getting caught in His hair. My haphazard offering may not be eloquent, but as long as it is as persistent as my friend’s children, it cannot go unnoticed. Unlike an impatient grown up who practically brushes the grass clippings out of her hair, Our Lord cherishes the simple offerings we bring Him, no matter how messy they may be.
We may only see dirty hair, but the Lord sees love.
Indeed, only the lover sees.
Josef Pieper, “Learning How to See Again,” in Only the Lover Sings. Emphasis is my own.
Ibid.
Ibid.