Third Eye

God is... 

I recently read Fr. Greg Boyle’s book “Tattoos on the Heart.”  He amazed me with stories of his work with rival Los Angeles gang members and his ability to sometimes let them see the original blessing they are through his suspension of all judgment.  He talked about closing both eyes and seeing with a third eye as God sees.  Looking at another as God does can affect the other profoundly, leaving tattoos on the heart of both the beholder and the one beheld.  It’s that original blessing versus original sin thing.

Matthew Fox’s book “Original Blessing” was an important resource for me as I struggled with my aging parents’ care needs.  What I most needed to learn from Fox was to befriend both light and darkness—to let pain be pain and mystery be mystery, and trust good would come from it.  And I recalled one very ordinary experience that brought home to me how I see God affects me and wrote of it in “God Never Hurries.”

…Fox’s shift in perspective made me aware of the huge difference it makes in how I view things.  It reminded me of an experience from my downtown workdays.  When life felt hard and I needed a treat, I would go to the food court for lunch in the mall across the street.  Things must not have been going well at all that day for I decided I even needed to walk the stairwell to the third floor instead of taking the escalator or elevator.  I remember coming out the stairwell door and feeling momentarily stunned asking myself, “Is this the right place?”  From the angle of the doorway it seemed the food court appeared to be an entirely different place.  God will forgive my analogy to a food court, but after reading Fox’s confirmation of original blessing versus original sin, I understood that how I view God shapes my reactions.

What if we each looked more with our third eye at others, or were frequently beheld by others as God beholds us?