I am; therefore I see

I was fortunate enough to have my eyes opened a bit tonight.  A friend of mine put together a lesson on video gaming and hit on several points of why people become "gamers".  I'm not talking about the occasional hobby type but the obsessive lifestyle living-in-my-parents-basement image we get when we think of true gamers.  He spoke of a desire for community, power, achievement and safe intimacy.  We watched several testimonials of people that live their life through gaming.  They create an alternative beautiful or robust avatar to live in a world they fabricate and thrive in rather than the reality they merely exist in.  Some of these memories even become real.  One young woman spoke with excitement about the number of friends she has in her version of a real world.  Is this world that bad?

SEE ME!!! please see me, all of me... and still love me.  

This is the deaf scream that I heard from so many. 

Sure, there are exceptions but the harsh reality became so real.  So many of these people look for an alternative body to live in because we tell them they are not beautiful enough.  They look for achievement and power because we tell them they will never be enough.  You ask, "How can I tell them this! I have no part in it.  It's the media's fault."   I'm not proposing that as an individual we must rush out and rescue every hurting soul.  It's impossible.  As a Christian I'm learning that to "rescue" even one is not of my own.  I'm simply challenging that we begin to SEE the people we encounter.   I feel this so real in their lives because I've felt it in my own. 

I titled this "I am; therefore I see" because I have come to the realization that the more my personhood is intact the clearer my sight becomes.  When I have a sense of self and feel comfortable in being who my Creator designed me to be then I am better able to see and to love.  I am no fool to deny that my own fears and over-analysis (the occupational hazard of being a counselor) play into this cataract view.    

Herein lies the problem.  Being consumed in self and fear renders me unable to see others.  Other times I realize that I need to fit them into a box in order to understand them and feel safe.  Researchers call this a schema which is sometimes used to develop a fixed action pattern.  In other words, we try to fit someone in a box so we know how to act and react.  This is great when a shady character is about to mug you but it's unfortunate in relationship.  It cuts off the totality of the person and doesn't allow us to accept the fluidity of their personhood and/or character in a variety of situations.... sometimes their weak... sometimes their strong.  

There is a quote I heard a long time ago and I'm not sure of its author.  It say, "We see people as we are not as they are."  I've made it a point to burn this in my memory and try to live against it.  Sadly it rings true more often than not.  However, the more I live outside of my fears and the less I try to fit someone into a schema, the more I feel free to SEE them and to love them.   Maybe we sometimes fear seeing people because we're afraid we won't have the capacity to love them and maybe sometimes this is the reason we're afraid of being seen.   

Good old C.S. Lewis brings it home in his book The Screwtape Letters.  Uncle Screwtape teaches his demon nephew Wormwood how to corrupt relationships from the inside out.  His "pointers" are particularly directed to the home life but I believe they can be applicable in all relationships.  

Pointer # 1 - Keep his mind off the most elementary duties by directing it to the most advanced and spiritual ones

Pointer # 2 - It is no doubt, impossible to prevent his praying for his mother, but we have means of rendering the prayers innocuous. Make sure that they are always very 'spiritual', that he is always concerned with the state of her soul and never with her rheumatism.  

Pointer # 3 - Bring fully into the consciousness of your patient that particular lift of his mother's eyebrows which he learned to dislike in the nursery.  

Pointer # 4 - Your patient must demand that all his own utterances are to be taken at their face value and judged simply on the actual words, while at the same time judging all his mother’s utterances with the fullest and most oversensitive interpretation of the tone and the context and the suspected intention.  

The first time I read this a couple of years ago the simplicity of these truths made perfect sense.  I wish I could say it is always a part of my daily interactions.  However, there are many relationships I have that are painted with the fulfillment of these “pointers”.  My hope has been to heal those areas and be conscious enough to prevent them in the future.  A hope that in order to be fulfilled, grace is necessary.

This idea has been itching at me for quite some time.  Maybe years.  But I've never quite been able to scratch it (develop the concept this far). This is an area I’m working on so I am pleased to see this more fully, my heart more enlighten for a challenge.  My prayer is that I grow more in who I am and what I am created to be so I can see.   

I would love your thoughts on this topic.