Psalms 139:13-14- I saw you while you were in the womb.
All of us as children loved to play hide and seek. When I was young, I lived in a rural area where I was always outside and relished the idea of hide and seek. Nothing was so exciting as finding that perfect spot, and watching with spine tingling excitement and my adversary walked right past, or over his quarry! I would protect the position of my hidey hole with the commitment of an NSA agent! Each day I would stride into the forrest with pride and confidence, knowing who was ‘it’, and where I was going to hide.
In today’s world, it is easy to play hide and seek. Depending on your work, family situation, and social network, you may have several ‘hidey holes’ you cherish. It is hard sometimes to see and be seen. We believe everybody is watching, all the time, or we believe nobody is ever watching, especially watching us. If we believe we are always being watched, evaluated, checked out, or just recognized as taking up space, we develop a series of responses, behaviors, and beliefs that direct how we view our world, and the people who view us. If we believe that we are not worth watching, or even being recognized as taking up space, we will respond accordingly.
Knowing we will be seen in some capacity this day can be a good thing. We spend time in the morning preparing the persona we will allow the world to see today. I decide if I will shave, how my hair will look, what color clothes I will present today, and any other to be seen apparel I decide is appropriate for this particular day. My wife Nancy is very happy that I shave, shower, and part my hair before going out in public. It is ok to look nice for the day. While this book is NOT about body language, power dressing, and how to speak through your shoes, I do want to address the whole spectrum of living in a visual world, with the knowledge that we are constantly seeing and being seen.
In the movie AVATAR, there are two scenes, one in the beginning, and, one near the end that speak volumes to this issue. The first scene is when Sully is learning how to ‘drive’ the AVATAR body he will use to interact with the large, blue creatures on the planet. As he learns the language and culture, he discovers that the word ‘see’ has a different meaning that on earth. Here, to ‘see’ someone is to see into their soul, their character, who they really are. For most of the movie, Sully spends time in the AVATAR body, interacting with the tribe, and falling in love with the chief’s daughter Neytiri. At the end, after the evil corporation scouring the planet has ben defeated, Sully has ben ejected out of his AVATAR body, and is left exposed to the toxic atmosphere of the planet. His love interest, Neytiri ,sees him for the first time as a human, much smaller and frail than she. Her first words are ‘I see you!’, and they are said with love, passion and acceptance. Don’t you long for those words to be spoken to you when you feel as if your world has left you small, frail, unable to ‘look the part’ anymore?
Personally, I didn’t ever want to be in that position. This world tells us that to be found in a week, frail position is to BE weak and frail. Nobody wants to be around those people. They may ‘catch’ what they have, the disease of weakness, and become like them. The problem is, we all face situations from time to time that potentially could make us look weak, frail, and unable to overcome. So we play hide and seek, we find our favorite hidey hole, and hope people will walk by or walk right over us. My worst nightmare would happen when, despite my best attempts, I would be found. I SEE YOU!!!!! Would be screamed throughout the forest, coming as a thunderous blow to my sense of security and pride. I had been found, and everybody knew it! Now the curse of being found would play itself out, as I became the person to have to go and find the others.
This still happens to us today. Living in a visual world, we know we will be seen today. Depending on how we view the world seeing us, this can be a good, neutral, or bad thing. If we believe we have value to the world around us, and can, with God’s help, make a contribution in some way, we take being seen in stride, and look for opportunities to be other-centered. If being seen means to us that we will be judged and found wanting somehow, we will respond in three basic ways. One is defensive, one offensive, and one is to hide. We will cover there three options in the next session.
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