You are Seen – Raised Catholic 159

“You are the God who sees.” – Hagar

The following is a transcript of a Raised Catholic podcast episode.

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Today is episode 159: You Are Seen

Hi friends. For those who don’t know, I am a preschool music teacher and this week in music class, we used egg shakers. In each classroom I visit, I start this particular lesson with an introductory open-ended question about what might be on the inside of the egg shaker. Typical answers for this question include beans, beads, some kids will say rice or sand or little toys. Then I’ll shift to some more specific questions around what mightbe inside the egg shaker.

“Could it be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?” I will ask. “Noooo,” they will yell.

“Could it be an ice cream cone? “Noooo,” they will reply.

“How about a marshmallow?” Once again, “Noooo.”

And for each ‘no’ I will ask the follow-up question, “Why not? Why couldn’t it be the sandwich or the ice cream or the marshmallow” “It’s too big!” is their common reply.

Now, I have been teaching this lesson for many years. I’ll vary it depending on the setting and the group, but my aim here is to get my students to think less about the size of what is on the inside of the egg than about the sound that that thing produces. Sometimes to shake up the paradigm I’ll say, “Could it be teeny tiny sandwiches or teeny tiny marshallows?” Well, this is a hard leap for them, I know, because they can’t really visualize those things, and so at that point I will often shift to binary questions, questions that are a little bit easier for them to answer, like: are the things inside the egg hard or are they soft? Are they big or are they little? Are there a lot of them or just a few? And then we’ll move on to play and make music together.

But in one class this week, I saw a light turn on inside one of my students as I was asking the open-ended questions. As his classmates were decrying the unlikely possibility that the marshmallow of their understanding would fit inside a small egg shaker, this little boy raised his hand up straight as a shot and when I called on him, he said, “Marshmallows wouldn’t make that sound.”

Well, I turned my teacher’s pointed finger toward him and said, “Yes!” The boy was positively beaming with delight. I then repeated his words to the whole class, and he sat up even straighter in his seat on the rug, so proud to have unlocked the answer not only that his teacher was looking for, but one that represented a whole new way of thinking about the problem that we were aiming to solve as a class. And it was though a bolt of lightning had shot through him, truly, and as I locked eyes with him, I smiled and I thought, “This is what it looks like to feel seen.”

We humans all want to feel seen. We all want our ideas to be heard and acknowledged. We want our thoughts and our work and our lives to have mattered, for the ‘capital T’- Teacher to turn pointing toward us with an exclamation of “Yes!”, but we don’t always feel the reality of that, do we?

God knows our struggle. In Luke chapter 12, Jesus says, “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” As the old song goes, “Why should I feel discouraged? His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches over me.”

As I get older and with a good amount of work in both prayer and therapy, more and more I find I am able to turn away from the judgment and voices of other people which are so very loud sometimes, and instead turn inward to hear God who lives within me tell me the truth about just who and Whose I am. In the crowd of people, He is always choosing me. Always meeting my gaze. Always proclaiming His ‘yes’ over me. That’s what it feels like to be seen by God in a relationship with Him and I thank God for it.

This week we attended funeral services for my father’s oldest friend. Both my Dad and his friend are both named Tommy, they grew up in South Boston and attended Gate of Heaven school and church together. Born a week apart in March of 1946, with social security numbers a digit apart, they shared first communion, confirmation, wedding days as well as many thousands of untold, so-called ‘ordinary’ moments, living the ups and downs of life together in a friendship that lasted over seventy years.

As my sisters and I settled into the pew of beautiful Gate of Heaven church for the funeral, I imagined all of the moments that those two boys shared together in that space. I tapped the pew in front of me and thought how likely it was that an 8-year old boy who would one day become my Dad would have sat in that very pew, maybe fidgeted during mass, maybe tapped the same wood that I tapped then. I thought of the prayers and the hopes of those two little boys, of the nuns who taught and maybe corralled them at times, of all the meals and snacks they shared together, of the lives that they would one day live that they could not have imagined then. My Dad’s friend Tommy was baptized in that space, had first communion, confirmation, wedding all there in that space and my father was a part of those hallmark occasions too, but what of the unseen things that happened there – the worries, the prayers, the sacraments, the jokes, the shenanigans. What about the times when those little boys, and then teenagers, and then young men heard the very voice of God?

Both my Dad and his friend were and are faith-filled men, prioritizing mass and family. It’s easy to see from the outside as you look at their lives today, but in the wake of these services, I am struck by how they were and are seen by God over the course of their lives. My Dad’s friend Tommy lived a good life, like a wheel that turned around the hub that was his faith in God. My father does the same. And as that wheel of life turns, as we get older, we can see the coarse red thread that weaves all the way through, the connections that God makes in and through us, the people we meet and the experiences that teach and form and lead us, the mistakes we make, and the grace that God extends. All of this turns the wheel of our lives, day by day, and year by year. That sacred thread weaves us in and out of days and lives and circumstances, sending mentors and wisdom and laughter and memories that we will hold on to. As we get older, we can more readily recognize just what is at the center of our wheel, what is our hub that keeps our wheel spinning, and how God who lives within us is always ready to remind us about just who and Whose we are. And about how we are chosen and how we are seen.

Because there is no such thing as a small life.

As C.S. Lewis said, “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”

As Tommy’s family recessed with his casket at the end of his funeral mass and I saw my Dad reach out to hold the hand of his friend’s widow, I was overwhelmed at the weight and beauty of a life. Because one day not very long ago, they were two little boys there growing up in that church. They played and prayed, learned and grew, raised families, buried parents and friends together, walked each other to and through the very Gate of Heaven, and God has seen it all. And all of it matters. As our wheel spins round and round through the days and the years, God sees us. We matter and we are seen.

That last moment between the two Tommys sticks with me because you could say it was the last of a host of moments that those two men will share together after a lifetime of friendship. Some will think of it that way, I know. But in my heart, I know that God sees and God knows. He sees us in the crowd, He points at us with a smile and a ‘Yes!’ And that wheel that turns and the red thread that binds us as we live out these extraordinary lives together – these are the things that never end. And one day we will know all it for sure, thanks be to God.

Thanks so much for being with me today, friend. If you need me, you can find me on Instagram @kerrycampbellwrites, at Substack at kerrycampbellwrites.substack.com, or on my website at kerrycampbell.org. Thanks so much for rating, reviewing, subscribing and most importantly, sharing this podcast with a friend. That makes a real difference in growing our community, so thanks. If you would like to support this podcast financially, there are a couple of ways for you to do that in the show notes, along with some resources related to today’s episode, so do check all of that out, but before we go, let’s pray together.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

Oh God, you see us and you know us. Help us to feel how we are seen and known as we live out our lives with you at the center, day by day and year by year. Thank you for how you weave and connect our lives together in wisdom and grace, mercy and laughter, time and place. We pray in the name of Jesus and wrapped in the mantle of our Mother Mary, amen.

Thanks so much for being with me today, friend. I’ll see you next time.

Show Notes

This week I’ll tell two stories from my life that remind me of the profound reality that we are seen by God and that our lives matter. I pray it’s a blessing to you.

Thanks as always to my friend, Peter Vaughan-Vail, for providing the beautiful harp music you hear in this and every episode.

Here are some resources I hope will help you to engage with this week’s topic in a deeper way for yourself:

1. Song: ⁠His Eye is on the Sparrow⁠, by Preservation Hall Jazz Band

2. Book: ⁠The Weight of Glory⁠, by C.S. Lewis

3. Song: ⁠Why We Sing⁠, by Kirk Franklin and the Family

4. Podcast: ⁠Living a Life of Whimsy with Annie F. Downs and Michelle McKinney Hammond⁠ on That Sounds Fun