Julie* said she felt “unseen”. Being the only woman in a leadership team of eleven men was difficult, as she was frequently talked over, and sometimes had her ideas credited to other people. Feeling unseen was demoralising, a bit humiliating and gnawed away at her sense of wellbeing, and led to her doubting her ability to do the job. Unsurprisingly she left the organisation and found somewhere more fulfilling in which to invest her efforts. She had been physically visible but felt psychologically see-though as she wasn’t valued, appreciated, or affirmed in her talents, abilities or contributions.
Cinderella, of course, was the invisible daughter. She wasn’t merely overlooked and undervalued, her step-mother deliberately hid her away and humiliated her. In so doing she made the ‘evil step-mother’ a literary cliché for ever after. Julie’s colleagues on the other hand expressed surprise when she left, saying how much they had enjoyed working with her. Their ‘unseeing’ had been entirely unconscious.[1] Her story is far from unique.
In James Cameron’s 2009 film Avatar (which gained nine Academy Award nominations and grossed over $1.1bn despite being panned as a White Saviour movie and mocked as ‘Dances with Smurfs’[2]), the Na’avi people have an interesting saying. When introduced to someone they say, “I see you”. This greeting meant more than physical sight, it meant profound acceptance and affirmation of the other person at a deep level. Conversely, withholding those words was to reject, dishonour and exclude someone. Something the central character Jake was to discover.
Most of us have been in social, educational or business settings in which we have felt unseen. We have felt the initial disappointment or anger and the self-doubt which follows. But have you ever wondered what it is about us humans that makes us want to be ‘seen’, in that sense of being instinctively valued, respected and affirmed by others?
“They say it’s lonely at the top, I say it’s harder if you drop” sang one former rock star as he looked back on his glamour days from semi-retirement.[3] It’s hard not to be seen anymore. Some people enjoy crowds and love being seen by the many. Others are content just to be fully seen by one or two. Almost no one likes to feel completely invisible.
It seems we are hard-wired with a need to be seen, and yet most people face times in their lives when they feel undervalued, overlooked, or taken for granted.[4] Relate (formerly the Marriage Guidance Council) have a whole section on their website for people who feel taken for granted in their relationships and long to feel truly ‘seen’ again. Sections include, “How to know if you are being taken for granted”, “What leads to feelings of being taken for granted?” and “How to stop being taken for granted”.[5] All of them are imbued with a howl of anguish from the human heart – a great cry of longing from the absence of a sense of connection, worth and validation that everyone seems to need in order to feel OK about this world and their place in it.
Many people see this element of the human condition as a sign that something has gone wrong with the world. That the deep connectedness and mutual affirmation that we are somehow structured to need isn’t available. If we are supremely confident (or egotistical) characters we blame others for not seeing us we deserve; if we are more psychologically or emotionally fragile, we might blame ourselves and decide that we are unworthy of the affirmation which we actually need. Our complicated mixture of sorrow and anger perhaps reveals how much there is of both of those things in most of us.
If you allow your imagination to fly for a moment and picture a world in which perfect people offer one another sincere affirmation in deeply connected relationships in which their whole self is on offer to others – and is given and received with honour – you are imagining a prelapsarian paradise. Add into your picture a God who is also present and perfect, who deeply sees and appreciates His creatures, and you have painted yourself a picture of the first chapter of the Bible. Christians believe that the soul-ache we all feel to be truly ‘seen’ isn’t merely a longing unique to us or our circumstances, but is the whole story of humanity being outworked in us. That story of ‘the fall’ isn’t a myth unconnected to the realities of everyday life, but a story that explains our most profound needs – and why we simply fail to see others as they need to be seen and feel unseen ourselves. Eden has fallen.
Perhaps surprisingly then the biblical storyline (while first exploring the fallout from the fall) looks at the way in which we can be once again truly ‘seen’. When Christ entered the world, he did so to reconcile people to God. Vast amounts of the New Testament are given to exploring what that means in great theologically rich letters to the first churches. Relationally though, we are given a clue as to what it looks like in Mark 10:21, which simply says of one troubled young man, “Jesus looked at him and loved him.” In other words he said, “I see you”.
Jesus came to show us a God who truly ‘sees’ us.
During the last Superbowl (the premier American Football game of the year) some Christians spent a small fortune on an advertising campaign with the slogan “He gets us”, which focussed on Jesus’s humanity and his ability to understand our situations. It led to a lot of reactions, positive and negative from both in and outside the church. The critics outside resented the presence of a religious message in public space, while in-house reaction within the church was more in terms of suggesting that it diluted the core claims of the Christian faith into a mere emotional sludge.
The claim that Jesus truly ‘sees’ us is far more compelling than the idea that he just ‘gets us’. ‘Getting us’ might sound nice if not rather bland, but ‘seeing us’ with all that that entails can be life-giving.
It’s also rather disconcerting.
If God really sees me, and he knows everything about, well… everything, then suddenly I am not in control of the situation anymore. With ordinary people I can, at least to an extent, control the story. I can reveal what I want them to know about me, and hide the rest. I might not deliberately tell lies, but I can be highly selective with the truths I disclose. Most people tell the truth and nothing but the truth, but the ‘whole truth’ is more demanding, especially as it concerns ourselves.
When Jesus sees us, he sees everything. The astonishing claim of the Christian faith is that he loves anyway. It’s not merely that God is love, and has infinite resources of it to give away, including to the unworthy; it is also that he sees not merely our current condition (both good and bad), but also sees the purpose we were intended for when he created us. He also knows what he can make us into, if we will submit to him. The phrase often used is God loves us as we are today, and loves us far too much to leave us in that state! Christ truly sees us, and wonderfully welcomes us, and will one day restore us to what we were meant to be.
To be seen by God is as glorious as it is disconcerting.
One of Jesus’ most famous stories is of an errant son, who shames his father and leaves with his share of the estate. His initially glamorous life spirals downwards and he ends up in poverty and has to return home, humiliated. As he approaches the home, the son has a speech prepared for his father, “I am unworthy to be called your son, let me work the fields and be a servant”. But the Father runs to him, welcomes him back and throws a banquet in his honour, after throwing his arms around him. In today’s terms the son might have said, “just put me to work out of sight in the in the back office” but the Father says “I see you”.
Jesus wants us to know that, when we come home to God, we won’t be discarded, dishonoured, humiliated or shamed (even if like the guy in the story we deserve all four). Instead, we’ll be embraced. We’ll be really ‘seen’.
Have you ever wondered why we long to be truly seen? Have you ever stopped to think about where that soul-ache comes from and what can satisfy it? Have you ever wondered why we humans so often fail to fully ‘see’ others and so often feel ‘unseen’? C.S. Lewis is most famous today for his works of literature, especially the Narnia series. But in one of his non—fiction books he answered that question like this:
Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists.
A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food.
A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water.
Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex.
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud.
Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing…. I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others do the same.[6]
In other words these desires are not to be dismissed, nor to lead us to despair when they are not fully met. Instead, they should be seen as signposts pointing us towards our true home in God.
Have You Ever Wondered? is also the title of our popular book and a series of articles and videos on this website. With intriguing answers to questions as diverse as ‘Have You Ever Wondered’ why we are drawn to beauty, respect altruism, value the environment, preserve the past, chase money, love music and defend human rights?; the book has a wide range of authors who’s wonderings have drawn them to spiritual and Christian answers to their investigations. With free copies available for people who sign-up to support Solas for as little as £4/month, and big discounts for bulk orders – Have You Ever Wondered? is an effective and affordable way to engage in helpful spiritual discussions.
[1] https://www.humanresourcesonline.net/do-your-employees-feel-like-they-are-being-taken-for-granted
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(2009_film)#Commercial_analysis
[3] woollywolstenholme.co.uk
[4] https://sea.peoplemattersglobal.com/article/employee-relations/79-of-surveyed-us-employees-feel-taken-for-granted-at-work-survey-report-38800
[5] https://www.relate.org.uk/get-help/being-taken-granted
[6] Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity. New York: HarperOne, 2001 (revised edition). See Book III, Chapter 10, p. 136
*Not her actual name
