I recently finished reading Fredrick Buechner’s Eyes of the Heart. His basic premise: we see our lives, our family, and our friends with eyes of our head. Every thread that connects every tie that binds, our histories, or circumstances can been seen and tracked with these eyes. But it is the eyes of our heart that really see “to look through those eyes (the eyes of our heart) is to see every kingdom as magic.” We can know the facts, but to understand them, to understand what makes us, to grasp that thread and follow it uninhibited though the fabric of our lives and see clearly a pattern woven intricate and beautiful is to see with the eyes of the heart. Certainly this is an exercise in determination, a choice to enter a world where one can communicate heart to heart with those I love regardless of time or distance. Regardless of separation even by death. Regardless of language or circumstance. I’ve been trying on the eyes of the heart lately, entering my magic kingdom as if looking through the dark glass and seeing the physical world as if it were mere shadows, but through time seeing clearly colors and distinct images of another world more real and true in form and in function than this gray planet I find myself residing on.
Eyes of the heart, cries of the heart. Augustine says that God is as close to us that we are to ourselves. Jean-Nicholar Grou, an 18th century French Jesuit affirms that in knowing this, we understand the essence of prayer. He says “the posture of our body and the words we use have no significance in themselves and are only pleasing to God as they express the feelings of the heart. For it is the heart that prays, is is to the voice of the heart that G listens, and it is the heart that he answers. … It is the heart that God teaches and it is through the heart that he enlightens the mind.”
I walked in the market today. A brisk walk though like any other November night, frost on the air and buzz of activity all around. I went to the market with a mission- to get my knives sharpened, to get a handle for a pot that has been handle-less for over a year and to pick up film I shot yesterday and jeans I had shortened. For some reason this crowded city has become home, I’ve been here for over 2 years now, rapidly moving on two and a half. I don’t know quite how to describe what it is like living in a place for this long not knowing the language, not knowing how to communicate simply that I want to buy a sharpening stone for my kitchen knives. I’ve come to understand what it is like to go on day after day in constant awareness that I am and always will be an outsider, a foreigner, an alien. As far as communication, I go in waves. Sometimes I feel like I’m doing well, communicating exactly what it is I need to, and finding solutions for various problems. Tonight however, I felt simultaneously among and removed from the bustle of the evening market.
I presented my dull knife to the first butcher I found. My conversation going something like this “I have this bad knife, this part (touching the blade) very bad. I want it good. Can you make good?”
“Not have” was the reply and on further charades asking if he knew where I could find someone to sharpen my knives I was shrugged off. If I stood for another few minutes I probably could have made some sort of scene or found some kind of solution to the dull knife problem. I didn’t feel like waiting around and the butcher wasn’t interested in my charades. I tried another shop nearby and found the same response. Understandable, they were busy, it was cold, I was not comprehendible. I decided to move on to the next mission, my jeans. Stepping over plastic tubs of frozen shrimp, dodging men on bicycles side stepping around frequent traffic I passed the vegetable lady, the glasses shop and the funny lady who sells pickled spotted eggs and holds a small yappy dog in her lap which is wearing a blue and red striped sweater. A broken mannequin sporting a rather 70’s looking tweed coat marks the hole in the wall where I brought my pants. I pictured another encounter of charades and miscommunication as I waved at the men through a glass sliding door in the back of the shop where people could sew and have heat. There is about a two meter spread between the walls of this rectangle, all space lined and stacked with bolts of wool and silk. Plastic bags with finished clothes hang up high protected from the dust of the air and dirt from the cement slab called the floor.
The shopkeeper slid the door open, greeted me and recognized me as the foreigner with the long jeans I had brought the previous day. His wife joined him from the back room, appearing from behind a wall of hung coats and an old foot operated sewing machine. A kind smile, recognition. I could not understand what they said to each other even with perfect Chinese as they spoke a dialect different from mandarin. Their soft words and lack of tones made me think they were from western
The next sentence caught me off guard, I really wasn’t expecting it. “where country you live?” Not that I don’t get a similar question in various forms from every corner, but it was not asked in the usual way. Not a demand, not a forced English opportunity, not a chance to show off the one world or phase known by my local compadres. I answered that I was an American and lingered still.
“Where are you from?” I asked my one perfected Chinese phrase gladly. I could not understand the reply, it didn’t matter. I did understand however that we were both foreigners in this land, both on our journey, both doing what we could to live well and do what needs to be done. For a moment the bustle of the crowd faded in the background and I felt as if I saw something more through the dark mirror. A brightness in this woman’s eyes perhaps? A warmth of heart, a peaceful spirit? Something more. Something deeper was understood. A voice of the heart perhaps?
Jean-Nicholas Grou continues
“You ask me what this voice of the heart is. It is love which is the voice of the heart. Love Him and you will always be speaking to him. The seed of love is growth in asking…If it is the heart that asks, it is evident that sometimes, and even continuously, it can ask by itself without any help from words, spoken or conceived….we need words to make ourselves intelligible to other people but not to the Spirit… For He reads the secrets of the heart. He reads its most intimate feelings, even those we are not aware of…..”
I did end up buying a sharpening stone this evening. I found a shop that resembled what could have been the warehouse of the traveling medicine man/ salesman of our last century. I spotted this rather large junk collected and pulled out my butcher knife to show the salesman. He immediately pulled out a 20 cent sharpening stone. Somehow in all the bumbling, mumbling and stuttering this evening my mission was accomplished, maybe more than I can even see.
1 comments:
love it love it! (: love your writings katie! they show a perspective of china i won't ever get to experience despite living there for 4 years=S i look forward to more of ur adventures during the summer!!!
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