I was born in 1974 with a perfectly good set of eyes.  They were (and still are) brown like my mother and father’s.  I have never had to wear contacts, glasses, or even a Planter’s Peanut style monocle in order to see things near or far.  So far, and I take nothing for granted in this regard, I have been one of the fortunate few in this world with 20/20 vision.  I consider myself blessed.

But as I have been reading Annie Dillard’s Pulitzer Prize winning book Pilgrim At Tinker Creek (which was first published the same year I was born) I am beginning to wonder if I have really seen anything at all with my two good eyes fully open.  Maybe that statement sounds a bit drastic.  It is; but some books (sadly only a precious few) have that kind of effect on you.  Scales fall away in a flutter and you think to yourself, "Wow, can the world really look like this to someone?  To me even?"

This is not a book review.  Sorry if I have mislead you.  I have only just finished reading a few chapters of Tinker Creek myself which I have had to wade through carefully–donning galoshes and sloshing my way through the wondrous minutia of Dillard’s creek which seems chock-full of beauty, wonder, and spiritual insight.  But some of her initial discoveries that she writes about in the first few chapters have caused a stir in me, a faint longing, a slight itch which has me wanting to pack my sleeping bag and toothbrush to set off on the pilgrim trail once again. 

I have to admit it’s been a while since I have felt this way; I have been a bit road-weary.  You see, the nomadic life of the Spirit often sounds more glamorous before you set out, when you are nestled into houserobe and slippers, than it does when you are trying to trick your mind into thinking that the rock behind your head feels something like a soft pillow.  The dirt, sweat, and tears have no place in our pre-trip fantasies.  We want the spiritual rewards without the blisters or the blind alleys.  At least that’s how I have been feeling this year.  I’ve been desiring the T-shirt without taking the trip, cause the trip itself is a hard one.   But despite the realization that I’ve just wanted to coast a few miles, in a sense I have tried to keep the donkey moving in the right direction at least; I’ve tried to stay alert; keep my eyes on the road, stay awake–but I might have been dozing off…

And then Annie Dillard comes along, tapping me on the shoulder, and gently saying, "Open your eyes.  WAKE UP!!!!"

Like that.  Gentle, then loud, not proselytizing, but inviting me to see, really see and notice, this intricate, shocking, living world lying all around me that I bump around in every day with barely a glance of awe or even recognition.  (It’s weird and I know I sound like some fruitcake who collects carrots that look like celebrities from 70s sitcoms right now.  Oooh, Eric Estrada.  And I do apologize if you do that; I’m not saying you are a fruitcake.)

But the reason all of this is important (yes, there is a point) is because I am coming up with a New Year’s Resolution that I am actually excited about and here is what I have so far:

In 2008, I resolve to really see things. 

Pretty profound, eh.  Ha! 

I have good eyes, good vision at least, but have I been seeing the right things?  Am I laying hold of the things that are really there and really true?  I want to see this beauty that pervades our world.  I want to learn to look much deeper and dig for those small treasures that beauty often hides in because, as Dillard would say, it is only there–in the broadening scope of seeing–that I will be touching on the "hem" of the Divine.  But I’ll finally let her words speak for themselves.  Some quotes:

It could be that God has not absconded but spread, as our vision and understanding of the universe have spread, to a fabric of spirit and sense so grand and subtle, so powerful in a new way that we can only feel blindly of its hem.

***

Cruelty is a mystery, and the waste of pain.  But if we describe a world to compass these things, a world that is a long, brute game, then we bump against another mystery: the inrush of power and light, the canary on the skull.  Unless all ages and races of men have been deluded by the same mass hypnotist (who?), there seems to be such a thing as beauty, a grace wholly gratuitous.

***

We don’t know what’s going on here. If these tremendous events are random combinations of matter run amok, the yield of millions of monkeys at millions of typewriters, then what is in us, hammered out of those same typewriters, that they ignite?  We don’t know.  Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf.  We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what’s going on here.  Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling hand of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise.

***

It is still the first week in January, and I’ve got great plans.  I’ve been thinking about seeing.  There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises.  The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand.  But–and this is the point–who gets excited by a mere penny?  If you follow one arrow, if you crouch motionless on a bank to watch a tremendous ripple thrill on the water and are rewarded by the sight of a muskrat kit paddling from its den, will you count that sight a chip of copper only, and go your rueful way?  It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won’t stoop to pick up a penny.  But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days.  It is that simple.  What you see is what you get.

So, I’m keeping my eye out for pennies in ’08.  They’re out there waiting to be snatched up.  Hope you see some, too.  (More Dillard quotes in the weeks to come, I’m sure.)