You know how it is when a paragraph leaps off a page?
Oh, wow! Look at this one. Behold this one, about beholding.
Warm, intimate, profound.
This is what we’re short of in our screen-bound, connection-scarce, modernity.
Warm, intimate, profound.
She was at the door, the light blazing in behind her, and I was beholding her. They say there is no such thing as an ordinary person …
Warm, intimate, profound.
This is poetry. This is the poetry of life. This is the something, the creation, that leaps into being when we have learned to gaze, to hold eye-contact, to truly, deeply, behold.
Warm, intimate, profound.
At a time when world politics seems to have lost the plot, when refugees are left utterly bereft and helpless, in which ‘wars and tales of war’ are ubiquitous, wherein extreme forms of ignorance and wickedness are laughed about, and even considered praiseworthy – in and among all of this we may yet learn to behold, may yet discover how to celebrate, how to be profoundly touched and grateful, how, beholding another, we may encounter ‘the richness of this particular human consciousness, the full symphony, how they perceive and create their life.’
Warm, intimate, profound.
When we behold, and are beheld, some words from Ram Dass come to resound in us …
We are all walking each other home
This is shaping up to be the most important book I’ve read in years.
.