by Rose Mary Dougherty

I can't remember when I first heard these words. I think I heard them in my early days of religious life. As I recall, they had something to do with keeping places in order. For instance, if you noticed dirty dishes in the sink or something spilled on the floor, it was your job to "tidy up."

The words seemed to put in perspective how I had been living my life for some time. Anytime I noticed the pain, the ill-temper, the problem of anyone else, I thought I was responsible for taking care of it. I had to "tidy up" the situation.

No one had really told me that in words before. I was probably just projecting expectations. But now people were telling me plainly: "She who sees is responsible." At the same time, however, the very same people were telling me about custody of the eyes. They were telling me to look at only as much as I needed to see to get where I was going so I could avoid unnecessary distractions. This, they told me, would help me keep my focus on God.

Many beginners in religious life, with me, had difficulty with this practice, but I took to it. Subconsciously I put together this corollary: "If I am responsible for what I see, then I am not responsible for what I don't see." So I chose not to see much of anything. I was tired of trying to figure out how to take care of so many situations. Custody of the eyes gave me a "holy" excuse to stop being so responsible.

Then I began to hear about discernment. For me, at least initially, it translated into, "be responsible" all over again. In the language of discernment I heard the imperative to open my eyes to all of life. God was there in every situation with something in mind for me to do. If I listened hard enough and long enough, God would tell me what the doing was.

As I look back now, I think the intent of discernment as it was introduced probably had something to do with hearing God's invitations in all of life, with joining God in caring for the world. But I was almost back to where I was before, being responsible for everything. Now, however, I had some sense that God was involved in that responsibility. Still, while I baptized my figuring out with some earnest prayer, I went on as though it was all mine to do. Not only did I have to figure out my life, I had to figure out everyone else's also. Often I brought to situations and encounters my own myopic view of what needed to be done and imposed that on others.

I'm not sure when this "fix it" attitude began to change. Maybe it began to change as I accumulated sufficient evidence to know that I wasn't doing a very good job of figuring things out, even with the best of intentions. But I suspect it began to change as every once in awhile I found myself meeting people and situations differently. I noticed that, when I wasn't looking for clues but could just allow people and situations to be as they were, I saw them with new eyes. It was as though just a simple openness in me evoked some truth from another which I had not known before. In turn, that truth evoked new truth in me. As the two truths merged, new possibilities were created. I was no less responsible, but response was given me as I participated in the truth of another person or situation. I didn't have to figure anything out; it seems as though the guidance was given in the moment.

The experience of simple openness still does not come easily for me. but when it is given, I notice I am different and it raises questions in me. For instance, I have noticed, especially in spiritual direction and other situations where I have a designated "giving role," that when I am drawn out of that role, when I'm just able to be present, one human being with another, for whatever might be given, I feel so palpably blessed by God through the other. No one of us needs to have any answers. Together we create new possibilities.

This makes me wonder about some of our "helping professions." What would happen if we dropped the helping roles and came from a place of mutuality? What would happen to the responsibility and accountability of the professional? Do the parameters and guidelines of helping professions free people for the dynamic interchange of truth and appreciation of the other's beauty or do they inhibit receptivity to truth and goodness?

I have also had some wonderings about discernment. and responsibility. I begin to understand my part in discernment differently than I had before. Discernment for my part perhaps has only to do with cultivating a disposition of openness, or at least wanting that disposition and praying for it. Responsibility shifts from a heavy, "I've got to respond, to do, to fix," to an easy, "I can respond. I have 'response ability', I share in God's creative response for the world."

Discernment and responsibility come together for me in the words of Thomas Kelly in which he reminds us that when we "center down" and live in that Holy Abyss that is dearer than life, our life projects, our sense of responsibility for the world are again and again revised. We know what to do and what to leave undone. Many of us enter that Abyss from time to time. We go to retreats. We have a daily prayer time. We might try, for a short duration, to be really prayerful when we are with a person or engaged in a project. But then it seems there is too much to be done for us to stay there. So we leave the Abyss to be responsible, to get on with life. Thomas Kelly's invitation is to live in that Holy Abyss.

To live in that Holy Abyss is to see the world with God's eyes and to live in God's prayer for the world. There in that contemplative space we come to know God's caring love. We don't have to create that caring love, or figure out its implications for our caring. As our vision clarifies, the very awareness of what we see contains authentic response. We are given "response ability" for what we see in that moment.