Our fellow tribemember Gigi offered a great addition to the JTN manifesto:
Looking out at the world with and through eyes of love.
When I read this suggestion, it took me back to grade school.
I used to walk a half-mile to and from school every morning and afternoon. As I walked, I looked at the ground.
I have vivid memories of cracked chunks of sidewalk that could trip you up if you weren’t careful … or strange names and symbols scrawled into the concrete with a stick or a pencil when the concrete had first been wet … or patches of weeds and grass pushing up through the sidewalk slits.
I carry these memories because I looked at the ground as I walked.
When I got to junior high, I walked the indoor hallways between class periods staring at the floor then, too. I still remember that tightly meshed orange and black pattern that was probably put down in the 1970s. I remember the tiny greenish square tiles of the bathroom floors.
And in high school, I got to know the wide, expansive walkways between each building on the campus.
Then there are the ways this shows up in my adult life:
- It is always easier for me to look others in the eye while they are speaking than while I am speaking.
- I avert my gaze instinctively when encountering another in the aisle at the grocery store.
- I assume the hipster riding his bike down the street devalues my presence on the road.
It’s strange, this proclivity in me.
I’ve been aware of it for many years, but it wasn’t until last summer that I began trying on a different posture with conscious attention.
I believe the impetus was my irritation with the checkout person at the grocery store. She struck me as utterly rude, and for no particular reason at all. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why she’d acted so short with me.
She’d probably just been having a really bad day.
I pushed my cart to the car in steam. I drove home with pursed lips. I thought of all the pointed remarks I wished I had said.
And then I found myself wondering:
What would it be like to love her?
This is the equivalent, to me, of looking out at the world with and through eyes of love.
Instead of assuming an inferior posture (read: looking at the ground while we walk) or a defensive shield (read: fuming at someone else’s actions or inactions), it means adopting an approach of welcome. Embracing another’s presence with a smile. Holding our heads up and looking other people in the eye with confidence and gladness.
I desire to live that way with ease and readiness.
I’m still working on it.
As I said above, it’s something I’ve begun to do with more conscious attention. But it’s not natural to me yet. I still drive down the road and assume I’m the least deserving one to be there.
I suppose that’s the adult equivalent of still watching the ground while I walk.
What about you:
What is it like for you to look (or not look) out at the world with and through eyes of love?
Something in me that I have noticed is that when I make eye contact with someone in the store I instantly smile. No reason, I guess it is just a thank you response from my body. Maybe if the “eyes are the window to the soul” as we say, then it is a spiritual moment as well when you make eye contact. If we are closed up spiritually to God and others, I bet we just do not look others in the eye out of instinct.
I can always do better at looking through the eyes of love. Being an apartment dweller gives me LOTS of opportunity for that. Upstairs neighbor and a crying baby that they let cry for hours is a good test. I get angry because it is always at the same time I am trying to drift of to sleep. I can work on that.
Good post my friend.
Carl, I love learning that you are someone who instinctively smiles when you see someone in the store! You are just the kind of person I love to encounter when I’m shopping. Meeting upon people like you is the reminder I often need in that moment to do the same.
Your story about the upstairs neighbor reminds me of a time when I lived in an apartment building and a group of guys moved in below me. They drove low-riding cars with tinted windows. They always had large groups of people crowded around the cars and going in and out of the apartment all day. I wondered what they did for a living, since they never seemed to work. I figured they probably sold drugs.
I was afraid of them and would always hurry past (looking at the ground, of course!) when I walked by to go up the stairs.
What would it have been like, at that time in my life, to look confidently at them with eyes of love? This question really helps me get at the root of some of my deep-seated fears.
I learned not all that long ago what it’s like to have someone assume the worst about you. It’s awful — and it doesn’t matter whether it’s friend or stranger, but I can say that having it come from someone a counted a friend? That hurt an awful lot.
Probably the way I see this “looking at others through eyes of love” is conditioning myself NOT to assume the worst about others, whether it’s a person who’s rude at the grocery store, whether it’s someone who cuts me off in traffic (or who hits me and runs off), or whether it’s someone who is, from my point of view, unnecessarily short with me.
When any of these things occurred in the past, I would instinctively respond by muttering something mature and intelligent under my breath like, “Jerk!” or, “What the !@%$?”
I can’t remember when I started doing this, but I remember I began wondering what kind of day these people had had, what kind of news they had received, whether they had a fight with their spouse or kids, or whether they were suffering from neglect. Instead of seeing a jerk, I learned to start seeing fellow human beings who like me, were subject to bad days, bad news, tiredness, and conflict, just like I was. In short, it meant acknowledging their humanity and simply refusing to see them one-dimensionally as “the person who did/said ‘X’ to me”.
It’s made all the difference in the world.
It’s interesting to think about this in the terms you described: assuming the worst about people.
I know that for me, my shielded posture seemed a lot like protecting myself from harm. It’s true that this belies an assumption that others will do harm. And the fact that this can happen is indeed true, too.
But you’re right … it comes back to conditioning ourselves toward a more expansive posture, a more generous spirit, a greater embrace of others we meet along the path. This has to come about through consciousness — consciousness that we have believed others will do harm, consciousness about why we have come to believe that, consciousness about replacing this with a new truth, and consciousness about living into that new truth with intentionality.
I think, in a nutshell, that’s the journey toward nonviolence. We become aware of where we are, we look at how we got there, we question the path we took to get there in light of other options, and we begin moving toward another road.
Hmmm . . . good question. I think I fail to look at people with the eyes of love when I assume that they’re going to pass judgment on me. Maybe this is similar to what Christianne was writing about, but I know that there are certain times and certain types of people who I “just know” are going to have something negative to say. If I loved them, I think I’d learn to ignore that voice until I knew what they really thought.
Ooooh … I love what you’re saying here, Sarah, about reserving judgment until you know what someone really thinks. That’s part of allowing someone else to be themselves instead of what we make of them or want them to be or expect they will be. There is something incredibly humanizing in that decision. Thanks for sharing that.
Wow, I love the conversations going on here. Everyone has chipped in a lot of rich musings. I have to say, I think this is wonderful. But, I am not sure where I am in the walk of life when it comes to actually practicing this. But, when something sinks in, I do try.
Christianne, I love the way your life inspires others to be the best they can be. I think that comes very unconsciously for you and I find it to be beautiful.
Tammy, you’re welcome here at whatever stage of the process you are! Some aspects of the nonviolence journey will come easier to us than others. This one about looking through eyes of love, as you can tell from my stories, has been more challenging for me to learn … and I’m still learning it. It’s all a process.
I’m glad you’re here along with us for the conversations and the journey. You bring a lot to the discussion each time!