Looking, But Not Seeing

Looking, But Not Seeing
Tuesday, January 30, 2024 by Phyllis Kester

Two orchid blooms Shortly after moving into Westminster Canterbury, a lady gave me a purple-colored orchid for our apartment. Having never grown an orchid, this would be a new experience.

Once the blooms faded, I placed the plant near the window in our study and put ice cubes in the pot weekly as she directed. I somewhat forgot about it until about a year later when I abruptly realized it had three new buds swelling as if it were about to bloom. I began watching it more closely. After the first lilac-colored orchid fully spread out with the second bud beginning to open, I moved the pot to our dining table where my husband and I could more fully enjoy the blooms.

A few days later, I intently scrutinized the two blooms as we ate breakfast. They are such a soft lilac color that it causes the bloom to appear velvet-soft. The pale purple-colored sepals and petals fade to almost white at the center, where they all join. I notice the delicate veins in the sepals and petals with tiny purple “freckles” in the center. Then I caught my breath. I slowly turned the plant to examine it. Was I really seeing what I thought I saw? The surface of the petals was glistening with a sheen as if someone had sprayed very finely ground gold powder on the bloom, and now it was sparkling. I was transfixed. Was this unique to this variety of orchid? Why had I never noticed this before?

It’s not that I’ve never seen many orchids because I’m attracted to them like bees to flowers. We’ve hiked where they grow naturally in the wild. I’ve hung out in shops in Hawaii and Florida that grow many varieties. While in college, I helped cover a parade float with hundreds of hand-placed fresh Vanda orchids. Still, I’d never noticed this almost iridescent layer on the bloom before. Have I really had all these years of “looking” at orchids without really “seeing” them?

I remember Jesus talking about eyes that do not see. It brought to my mind a situation in the early 70s when some families moved to our small Arkansas college town to escape the drugs and violence sweeping some of the larger cities. However, some sons had already been infected. They brought the bad attitudes and behavior with them—only to find others to whom they spread it like a “virus.” God saw fit to place me into that situation—even against my original desire.

After the first month of school, the public school superintendent and the high school principal pled with me to be the third math teacher. Why? Because two classrooms of these “virus-infected” ex-football players had driven off the first two math teachers, leaving one with a nervous breakdown. I prayed that God would help me truly “see the needs” of these boys instead of looking at them as everyone else saw them. This prayer was earnestly renewed daily after I came to school a few days into taking the job to find the police everywhere rounding up my students for physically roughing up some boys, stripping others and hanging them by their feet in the boys’ restroom or tied up outside on the grass between the classroom buildings.

My prayers were answered for all the students, and I had a successful year of teaching them mathematics. At the end of the school year, the principal expressed sorrow when I went to explain that I would not be returning the following year since we were moving to Texas. He told me these particular boys had continued to cause problems the entire year in all their other classes but never in mine. So the administration was not going to touch what I was doing because I was doing something no one else had tried, and—he acknowledged—obviously it worked. The Lord had shown me this was spiritual warfare, not the physical war and violence everyone else saw.

As I recall all the students for whom the Lord helped me “see their real needs” instead of merely “looking” on the superficial surface, I look back at the lovely orchid on the table with the tiny glistening gold flecks. And I wondered, “How often do I ‘look’ at people (or a situation) without truly ‘seeing’ what the Lord wants me to see?” Close up of orchid bloom showing golden flecks on it.

Jesus speaking of the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod said, “…Do you not yet perceive or understand?… Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?” Mark 8:17-18 (ESV)

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Comments

Helen Ann Spessard From C312 WCL At 1/30/2024 8:28:02 AM

What a beautiful lesson to each of us who read this Blog. There are many levels of knowledge, understanding and personal growth for each of us in everything we see and encounter. I currently have an Orchid that is in Bud. I will watch it daily with new expectation , joy and delight as each bud

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