To Be Seen and Not Fixed
by bill pautler
November 2024
I was
returning home from a long urban bicycle ride, it was almost sunset as I rolled
into one of my favorite spots on the trail.
A gorgeous round marble table with six stainless-steel high-backed
chairs fixed around it Out of the
middle of the table is a stainless-steel sculpture growing toward the sky. The beveled marble is five inches thick, five
feet in diameter and is pearl, alabaster and green in color.
As I park my
bike and take a seat at the table I see Alicia walking out of the shadows. I stand as she approaches and give her a
huge hug. Alicia is one of my street
friends, her husband Nate and I have been friends for years. I remember the day she showed me her wedding
ring and her marriage certificate. Her
joy was uncontainable, but this was not one of those days.
Nate had
been in jail for a week, Alicia hadn’t seen him, she had no money, no food and
no protection from the other characters on the streets. Her home was a small tent under the bridge. As I held my small statured, smelly, dirty
friend she started to sob.
We sat at the
gorgeous marble table as the sun set and Alicia sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. Barely catching her breath, she tells me how much she misses Nate.
In those
thirty minutes of her tearful sobbing, her experience emanated the deep beauty
of longing we all have for another soul to love us. I held her hand and offered just a few
words of encouragement, but all Alicia really needed from me was to be
seen. She needed another soul to see her
grief and to see her love. To
acknowledge her experience.
As spiritual
travelers on this adventure, we often want to rush in and fix things. But all any of us truly need, is to be
seen. Yes, Nate got out of jail today
and I didn’t let Alicia starve.
But in
seeing people, deeply seeing people, we are also deeply seen. What we give away is what we gain.
We should
all freshen our minds, by re-minding ourselves that fixing is helpful, but
truly seeing another is where agape love starts.
Let’s put
away our distractions and our judgments.
Let’s look into each other’s eyes and acknowledge the sadness and the
glory of the embodied spirit across from us.
Deep seeing
is deep loving.
Namaste: May
the Divine in me, honor the Divine in you.
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