The Richard Allinson Show
BBC Radio 2
Sunday, February 19th
There really are two ways of seeing.
We can examine something by looking at it from above and below, by weighing it and measuring it. We would look at it the way a doctor looks at the human body in the surgery or a police officer looks at a Friday night crowd down in the Haymarket - looking for signs of wellness or illness or for the signs of trouble on the horizon.
But that is not everything which can be said about the body. That doesn’t adequately describe a crowd of revellers. You can know so much about the small issues that you miss the whole picture.
In J.D. Salinger's novel Franny and Zooey, one of the characters complains that the English literature she is studying at Uni is being taught by railway "sectionmen" - people adept at lifting railway ties and straightening the rails, sweeping out the switches and maintaining the track but who've never experienced the thrill a child feels at riding on a train for the first time across the American prairie.
Two ways, then, of seeing - from outside as an analyst or from inside as a participant.
In one of the New Testament stories, from Mark's Gospel, Jesus takes two of his disciples to a high mountain. There his robes begin to glisten and he is surrounded by light and a voice from heavens commands the disciples to listen. It is one of the few mystical moments in Mark’s normally quite short and matter-of-fact Gospel as the disciples get a glimpse of who Jesus really is.
It is enough to prompt us to pay more attention and to wonder at the depth of things we may be missing. It should provoke a certain suspicion that the way we look at things and people is inadequate, that we’ve missed the forest for the trees. We’ve raised our children rather than enjoying them. We’ve survived our work, put in our time and fulfilled expectations rather than immersing ourselves in the process and excelling.
If we don’t broaden our gaze, glimpses of beauty and truth get missed in the mad rush.
