I always love to hear what people are saying behind my friends’ backs.
Not the gossipy, slanderous stuff of course, which happens in the playground (and even there is to be sharply reprimanded). But the good stuff. The glowing reports. The heartfelt compliments. The lovely assessments of character.
This happened recently on Mother’s Day, whenever a friend’s daughter posted an online tribute to her, and there was a landslide of responses from people who also wanted to tie their own flower on the bough. And of all the beautiful words and experiences shared, there was one which stood out to me the most. Someone wrote about her, ‘I met her once for a short time, and this is exactly how I felt – I felt seen by her.’
I don’t think she could have paid her a higher compliment, Because the nature of true love is always to see. To look, and to notice, and to pay attention. This came to my mind recently when thinking about an episode which happened in the last week of Jesus’ life. As people were putting their money into the temple treasury, a poor widow came along, uncurled her fingers and dropped everything she had – two copper coins – into the pot, where they made such a small sound that only she could hear it.
As far as she knew, no one saw her. But then again, no one ever saw her. She was one of life’s minor characters, one of the invisible people who come and go without anyone noticing what they do, or what they have on, or when they leave the room. She was just an insignificant, a nobody – one of the extras who ring the stage while the major characters stride around in the middle, dazzling everyone with their fancy words and costumes.
In the temple that day those major characters included rich people and very religious people – people who knew that other people were watching them and who seemed used to it, even pleased, when heads turned and conversation stopped for a moment as they made their entrances. These were the somebodies – the ones whose names were in the bulletins, and whom people wanted their children to know. They were educated, rich, impressive, upstanding members of society… clearly the ones to look at. The only thing was – Jesus was not looking at them in the temple that day. He was not paying attention to what was happening at centre stage at all because he was far more interested in what was going on in the wings, and in one woman in particular.
I wonder how she caught his attention? She didn’t catch anyone else’s, that’s for sure. As a widow in that world, when she lost her husband, she not only lost her place and name, she lost her face. She had become invisible. People looked right through her as though she were not there. No one saw her anymore. No one, that is, except Jesus.
He saw her walk to the temple treasury to give up her two coins, and something about the way she did it – maybe the length of time she stood there, or the way she cradled them in her hands like they were her last two eggs – something about the way she did it let him know that it was everything she had, and he couldn’t help but call it out. He told his disciples that this poor widow had just given more by her two coins than all the rich people with their donations together.
Now of course we could park here in the story and pick it apart if we wanted. We could ask, are we really supposed to admire a poor woman who gave her last penny to a morally bankrupt religious institution? Was it right for her to surrender her living to those who lived better than she? What if this was one of your elderly relatives, giving all they had to some religious charlatan or prosperity preacher? Would it be admirable, or scandalous? Would it be a good deed or a crying shame? But that’s not my point just now. My point is that love saw her, paid attention to her, only she never knew it. She walked into the temple that day with her two last coins in her hand and she walked out again without them, totally unaware that she was being watched. As far as she knew, no one even saw her. As far as she knew, no one ever saw her. She came in with no name, and she went out with no name. But unbeknownst to her, her gift, her life, her existence were being acknowledged with the greatest tribute! Love was seeing her, only she never knew it. I only wish Jesus had said it to her.
In 1966 the Beatles released their song Eleanor Rigby, about the solitary lady who lives and dies without anyone to really pay attention. The chorus of that song nails home the pathos:
All the lonely people, Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people, Where do they all belong?
Right now loneliness is an epidemic in our time, and I’ve spoken to people right across all the divides who feel it. Feel it in a crowded room, or in a ‘perfect marriage’, or at the peak of their career. That sense of feeling invisible, wondering if all people see when they look at you is your title, your role, the contribution you bring to their lives. Myself, I remember what it feels like to come home after work as late as you can, and then stay up watching TV until you’re so tired you know you’ll be out as soon as your head hits the pillow, because that way you won’t have to lie there, awake and alone.
If this has something to do with our existential angst as humans, then I ask – even if there’s not a permanent cure for this – is there at least a balm? Maybe, and I think it’s to be found in this experience of being seen. The realisation that love is paying attention. Where can this be found? Not everyone who sees us has our best intentions. Indeed to be seen without being also loved can be terrifying – the sort of stuff that thrillers are made of. And on the other hand, to be loved without being truly seen is mere superficiality. I remember how irked I used to get by the Christians in the church who gleefully exclaimed ‘Love you, brother!’, without taking time to know the first thing about me.
No, the balm for our pain is in being both simultaneously loved and seen, and if we’re lucky we might find this in our dearest, or in our kin, or through our tribe… But even if all that fails, and we still deep down sense the wrench of being among the lonely people of whom John Lennon sings, then maybe we can find at least a ray of comfort in the words of the one who saw the unseen widow that day:
But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered; Fear ye not therefore.
CLANRYE NEWS 