Occasionally we come across a phrase or image that sticks in the mind. The reason we hold on to it (or maybe it holds on to us) is because there is something evocative in it, something of promise. It sets off resonances that invite us to pay attention. If we are fortunate it waits around until we can bring it to the forefront of the mind and discover the treasure hidden there.
One such phrase that grabbed my attention recently was used by Elizabeth Johnson when she was exploring the way new insights about God are emerging in our world. She suggests they have come not when people were thinking directly about God but when, in the thick of their worldly engagement, they glimpse “out of the corner of their eye”, so to speak, a truth about the living God that surprises and sustains them.
So I have been wondering about these things that are glimpsed “out of the corner of the eye”. The first thing that strikes me is that many of these may be lost to awareness precisely because we can think of them as peripheral and therefore not really important or worthy of attention. We can be so focused on what is at the centre of our awareness that we ignore or devalue what is at the margins. They can appear as distractions which we need to block out in order to get on with what is important. One effect of the phrase was to invite me to start paying greater attention to what is glimpsed at the edge of awareness.
This little phrase also points to the value to be found in indirection. We are used to tackling problems front on, to dealing with issues directly. But we sense too that there is wisdom in the old adage “to sleep on it’. We can focus our attention directly on some problem or question for a long time without seeming to make progress or get any positive result. But when we leave it aside overnight while we sleep the work we had been doing continues in a way that is not consciously directed but is nevertheless fruitful. Perhaps our dreams are a kind of “corner of the eye” experience where things that have been on the edge of awareness all day but have been ignored have an opportunity to be noticed and attended to.
It is said that happiness is like a butterfly that always seems to elude us when we chase after it directly but when we are getting on with life it may come and alight on our shoulder. Perhaps some things can only be glimpsed indirectly and we need to value what is revealed when we are not in control; those things that come as gift or grace rather than as the fruits of the work we have done.
We also know that there are understandings and experiences of life that have been consigned to the margins of history. They are no longer or in some cases have never been part of the main text by which we live our lives. But in the uncertainty and insecurity of recent times we have glimpsed “out of the corner of our eye” that there may be a truth here that we need if we are going to survive. For example we are increasingly looking to those cultures and peoples who have never lost sight of the sacredness of the earth and who have a more holistic and integrated way of relating to nature for hints about what we need to do to save the planet and ourselves. What was first glimpsed at the edge has moved more and more into the mainstream of political and religious life.
In this context it is interesting to note that Jesus did not appear at the centre of the Roman Empire but in a small town in a remote and unimportant province. In recent times we have come to an awareness that our beautiful, fragile earth is but a tiny speck at the edge of one small galaxy. Perhaps it is true in many areas of life that what can bring about the most significant changes at the centre emerges first at the edge. There are indeed many truths that can surprise and sustain us that are glimpsed initially out of the corner of the eye.
Fr Pat O’Shea resides at St Columban's, Lower Hutt, New Zealand
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