“Eyes are the window to the soul” . . . or so they say.
These days that may be all you have when you talk to people, besides voice inflection and body language. The truth is people can hide what they’re feeling and thinking with their voice, hands, body posture and even mouth; but the eyes? It’s nearly impossible with the eyes. They connect to the truth of who we are in ways we don’t even realize.
During the day windows bring natural light into our homes. In the evening they display the warmth of human activity turning our windows into glowing embers of light.
When I lived in Bolton, Mass I would take long walks on winter evenings. There was something magically warm and comforting about the light emitted from the windows of the homes in my neighborhood. So striking in contrast to the frigid and forbidding outside. It made me wonder what was going on inside and the familial love that might be there.
I have known people with “bright lights” and “dead lights”. I’m sure you have too. These days of masks and socially distant conversation it’s hard to read a person sometimes. We’ll just have to pay a bit more attention to each other’s eyes, I guess, to really see what’s going on.
Maybe once we’ve developed better sensitivity to reading those kind of cues we’ll be less likely to let the brisk “I’m fine” pass when a person’s eyes say otherwise.
Spirituality for the Rest of Us 