Iceberg Eyes

I have come to depend upon my eyes way too much.

No kidding. Every day I wake up, yawn, stretch, start looking around and constantly believe that what I see is ….well,…..true,…. just because it’s what I see.

Somewhere along the way I fell in with a bad crowd, that mob of humanity that cries out silly phrases like “seeing is believing” and “what you see is what you get”. It was so easy to get sucked in, to become sold on the lazy and presumptuous idea that just because I observe a person, place or thing, I understand its meaning.

Yep, no doubt about it, I have Iceberg Eyes.

I’m like a conceited captain who, drifting the ocean of my life, peers through the spyglass of my perception at glacial islands that dot the seascape and observing the icy tips, I become convinced I see the whole iceberg. I simply disdain the fact and ignore the reality, that the vast majority of each ice-water mountain is covered, hidden by deep waters, un-attainable to my perception and comprehension.

And I tend to see my fellow man with those same eyes. Iceberg Eyes.

Supposed Captain of my life, (another delusion to talk about, another time), I meander through each day and take a look at the people around me, casually meting out judgments like Zeus tossing lightning bolts from my own personal Olympus.

A lady dressed in sweats screams at her kids in the store, pushing a stroller with one hand a shopping cart with another, is a “lowlife”.
A tatted-up kid blaring noise he calls music while filling the gas tank of his 72 Chevy truck is a “punk”.
Two women and a young man, all well dressed, approach my door on a Saturday afternoon in 103 degree heat and I think, “Uh oh, religious fanatics don’t answer the bell”.

But Iceberg Eyes are not exclusive in their power to judge just the negative. Oh no, not by a long shot.

I see an acquaintance in his brand new car, shuffling off to Aspen for vacation time with his pretty wife and 2 beautiful children and I know… I just know, that he has it made and is happier than I.
I watch a church leader and know he is always spiritual, a successful businessman and know he is very smart at everything, or a Brady Bunch family and know they just never have any problems.

Yep, I am a Know It-All. Lord Grand High Poobah of what is right and wrong. I have a master’s degree in “How Things Are Supposed To Be”. Give me a nickel’s worth of information and I will give you a dollar’s worth of advice. Ask me the time, and I’ll tell you how to build a watch.

Disneyland is good, the Boardwalk is bad. Baseball is great, Golf is stupid. The perfect weather is 78 degrees with a slight breeze from the Northwest. Baseball hats are made to be worn with bill forward, NOT sideways or backward! You are supposed to drive 64 miles per hour on highway 99, eat some meat with every meal and landscape with mulch.

I will tell you what your problems are, then give you advice on how to solve them, all without you even asking. Heck, I’ll even give you solutions to problems you don’t have. I’m that good.

I’m a mind reader, a director, a judge and a jury. I see all, so I know all.

I have Iceberg Eyes.

In my arrogance, I believe I can understand someone by how they look or what they do, or what they say. But hasn’t science proven that visual proof is the weakest proof of all? One glance and I’ve got the situation labeled, defined and shelved. Iceberg Eyes are the epitome of sloth.

Thomas Carlyle said, ”Before we censure a man for seeming what he is not, we should be sure we know what he is.”

But admit it…… it is hard work, very hard work, to try and truly understand another human being. For me to understand another person takes aggressive listening, constant deflation of my own ego (ouch!) and time, time, time! Forget that! So much easier to shoot out a drive by judgment and close the case on another human being.

When I think I know another person based solely upon what I see, I tend to filter out a few small considerations…. Like, say….I don’t know….genetics, culture, personal history, parents, family, friends, health, religion, finances, prejudice, obstacles overcome, etc. You know,…… those events and things that truly create who we are, the hidden foundations upon which the edifice of our personality is formed. Things the eye cannot see.

Minor details.

In scripture we read, “Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature …( or on his dress, or on his church activity or on his tattoos or on his hairstyle or on the car he drives..)….”for the Lord seeth not as a man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart”

Let someone, however, try to label or judge me in the slightest and oh how I shake my fist and demand that they take a look at the “whole situation”! That they empathize and understand and are patient with me and give me a break and back-off and let me explain and cut me some slack and walk a mile in my shoes!

Having Iceberg Eyes is akin to looking through the telescope of grace backwards. All mercy for me – all justice for you.

So, what is the cure? How do I rid myself of this spiritual malady?

I can’t.

At least not by myself, for alone I just don’t have sufficient power. I’m helpless to make the intrinsic emotional and spiritual re-arrangements necessary to change the way I see life. Just as a physician cannot perform self surgery for his own heart problem, I cannot self- perform the operation essential to healing the eyes of my heart. I must have help from outside, from something with power greater than me. I need an inner eye operation from the Master Surgeon.

My willingness, the humility to see things and people and places differently, is the key to change. I must let God first prescribe and then be willing to wear the new glasses He makes for me. I must daily ask Him to direct the way I see others.

And change I must, for to see a world through the tunnel vision of Iceberg Eyes is to live in a microcosm of continual mis-understanding and to be in constant hazard of collision with other people. Iceberg Eyes can be dangerous.

Just ask The Titanic.