Today’s find: New eyes

We got to spend some quality time with Hannah – our week-old granddaughter – last night, and I can only describe it as an eye-opening experience.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had the chance to hold a baby so young. Of course, it didn’t take much to convince me that our son and daughter-in-law had done well: They’d given the world ‘the-new-year’s-most-beautiful-baby-girl-ever.’

Hannah says hello.

Yes, we are well-pleased, Grandma and I. Little baby Hannah is a keeper…a definite cutie!

But her wisdom is beyond her beauty, I discovered last evening. She has the wisdom to look at the world through new eyes.

Everything is new to a one-week-old, I suppose. And that’s the beauty of Hannah’s take on the world. She peeks out occasionally – opening those darling-baby-blues for a moment or two. Then she scrunches her face, as if to say, ‘Just what the heck am I seeing here?’ Or perhaps more to the point, ‘What the heck is “seeing”, anyway? What are all these odd shapes and lights and sounds?’ And then she closes her eyes, and tries to sort things out in that brand-new mind and heart of hers.

Which got me thinking: What a gift it is to see the world through new eyes.

Eyes of wonder.

How much do we miss, because we’ve already seen so much…and made so many judgments…and settled into so many familiar routines?

We read about people like that – people like us – in today’s gospel:  The familiar folks whom Jesus encountered in his neighborhood synagogue in Capernaum. They listened to someone they probably had known all their lives…someone who was now saying something new, something powerful. And Mark tells us ‘The people were astonished at his teaching…’

For those of us who get to hold her close, Hannah extends a similar invitation it seems to me:  ‘Go ahead and try it, folks: Look at the world with new eyes. You just might be delighted and astonished by what you see!’