Some folks say “seeing is believing.” Author Nora Gallagher, in her book Things Seen and Unseen, turns that cliché around to bring out a truth: Believing is seeing.
Gallagher shows through her description of a year in the life of her congregation that faith in God’s abiding presence in our world produces a type of seeing that opens up all kinds of possibilities for Christ-like love and service.
The phrase “things seen and unseen” reminds us of the familiar words of the first article of the Nicene Creed: We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. Nora understands it is often difficult to see God at work and present in our world. In fact, she even equates faith with peripheral vision, saying we can only hope to increase that peripheral seeing, even if it is not direct and clear.
But as Nora continues telling the story of that particular church year in her congregation, we discover what she discovers—that we truly have a God who has chosen to be incarnate, “in the flesh.” Because God is incarnate, and not detached and “from a distance,” God is to be seen again and again: In the meal of Holy Communion which nourishes Nora, and which she lovingly distributes to others as a communion assistant. In the faces of the poor and hungry who come to her parish to eat in the soup kitchen. In the people who prepare and serve those meals to the hungry each day. In her fellow sisters and brothers as they strive to live faithfully in spite of frailties and foibles, always seeking God’s strength and direction and grace. In the person of her brother, Kit, who is slowly dying of AIDS.
During Pentecost Season (also called “Ordinary Time”), she meets a poor gentleman at a church meeting. She realizes how easily someone such as this homeless man could be rendered invisible, could be “not seen.” She writes, “In our midst is a man without a blanket and shoes too large for his feet. We have organized our lives so that he is hidden from us. He lives, like God, in invisibility. But when we do see him, I think tonight, we keep a rendezvous. In the seeing is a glimpse, a foretaste of the kingdom: it will be a place where everyone is seen, including us. Here we are together, in Ordinary Time, learning how to see.”
