In The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis makes the following observation on ‘seeing:'

"...you cannot go on ‘explaining away’ forever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on ‘seeing through’ things forever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to ‘see through’ first principles. If you see through everything then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.

The wisdom here is manifold. While I won’t presume to know Lewis’ heart here I do know two things: this wisdom is intentional from a man who worked hard to see and the wisdom is tremendously applicable today.

Lewis saw deeply because he looked intently. He saw Narnia before he entered the Wardrobe because he looked for wonder and beauty in World War II. He saw the lizard in The Great Divorce because he looked at the heart of man. His ability to see what others could not grew because he was unafraid to look. He was unafraid to look at the pain of war or the cynicism of the critic. This is what experts do. Doctors can see beyond the symptoms to the underlying cause precisely because they’ve looked intently at many, many scars. Counselors can see root issues because they’ve looked into the crying eyes of many people before you. Accountants can predict business success because they have stared at the spreadsheets for countless hours. Our ability to see what others cannot comes directly from our seeing into something rather than through it.

I’m struck by the relevance today given the pervading sense of cynicism. A going-in position of distrust lends itself to air of self-righteousness. Whether guns-a-blazin’ or shields-up, entering a discussion seeing the other as anything other than the person s/he is inevitably leads to a hunt. While Janice may indeed represent the other end of the political spectrum, she is still Janice: a mother, daughter, wife that is trying to love her family well. By looking past her into her categories (e.g., political, religious, college football affiliation) and through her arguments, we forfeit Janice: broken little girl wanting her Daddy to tell her she’s pretty even though he died in 1978. As Lewis notes, when we ‘see through’ everything (however self-righteously) we eventually won’t see anything.

The Scriptures provide several accounts where Jesus saw past the categories to the person. Notable stories are illustrated through the story of Nicodemus (John 3), The Woman at the Well (John 4) and Jesus Healing Lepers (Matthew 8). There are many others, no doubt but the point is clear: Jesus saw past their political, social and physical categories to the person standing before him. He loved the person. Yes, he told the woman at the well to ‘sin no more,’ but after he loved her.

I wonder who I’ve seen through. I wonder who I’ve missed because I’ve only interacted with them as a category. It should be noted that more convenient categories include: 'lazy', 'client', ’not top talent’, ‘receptionist’, ‘call center rep’ (I’d go on, but it’s painful enough).