To Really See Someone

To 'really see' someone, especially someone who looks up to you, is to give that person an important blessing.  In a gaze of recognition, of understanding, in an appreciative look, there is deep blessing.  Often it is not so important that we say much to those for whom we are significant, but it is very important that we see them.  

Good parent see their kids; good teachers see their students; good coaches see their players; good administrators see their faculty and staff.  We are all blessed by being seen.

Today, the young are not being seen enough in this way.  Our youth are acting out in all kinds of ways as a means of getting our attention.  They want to and need to be seen by us -- parents, adults, teachers, coaches, administrators.  They need our blessing.  They need to see right in our eyes, the radical unconditional acceptance of their reality.  Young people need our appreciative gaze; most simply they need our gaze - period.

One of the deepest hungers inside young people is the hunger for adult connection, the desire to be recognized, seen, by a significant adult.  They desperately need, and badly want, the blessing that comes from our gaze and presence.  They need for us to see them.  In the end, more than they want our words, they want our gaze ...

-- Ron Rohlheiser, OMI