Seeing and Writing with “New Eyes” by Sandi Somers

 

It all began in March 2020, when COVID locked us in from many events and contacts with people. That included church attendance. While I watched services online, I needed more for Sunday morning, and so I decided to go bird watching. I first visited Inglewood Bird Sanctuary in Calgary where I had taken my first birding courses in the 1980s. Memories of walking the paths and discovering birds new to me flooded my mind, and I felt as though I were back in those years, breathing its summer air, and feeling its warmth. 

That first morning of birdwatching in 2020, I felt a great nostalgia for those days. But soon I realized I couldn’t live in the past. I needed to build new and meaningful memories.   

I seized every sunny Sunday morning to go birding, frequenting pond and lake sites that I had visited in early expeditions. In the exhilaration of early mornings with the sun peeking over the eastern horizon, my spirit worshipped God and the wonders of His creation: “How majestic is your name in all the earth!” (Psalm 8:1,9 NIV). 

That year, I took time, leisurely focussing my binoculars on the distinguishing visual features and actions of the birds, and then, sitting on park benches, I carefully checked my bird books and chatted with expert birders who guided me in identifying new-to-me birds. Once home, I journalled many of my weekend adventures and drafted articles and devotions, some of which have been published. 

As the weeks went by, new visions of Alberta’s natural history spurred me on. That’s when Proust’s famous quote became a major turning point for me.  His “voyage of discovery” means we shift our sights and "look at the details of our lives with a scintillating freshness"[i], Introduction  Sometimes we don’t realize how God gives us important gifts from our own “back yard” so to speak, even during times of restrictions. 

Eugene Peterson, pastor and author, asked his readers: [D]o we take what is right before us in our own backyard and sink our lives into what is already given to us, enter into the intricacies, the endless organic relationships that make up this world?”[ii] 

To see with new eyes, you need to “(a)bsorb everything you see and hear and feel and touch - or rather as much as you can. Harness all your past experiences and turn them into your writing”[iii] The deeper we pay attention to details of our lives, God will give us newness in what previously seemed ordinary or even restrictive. He will give us a fresh perspective that brings richness to our writing. 

Discovering the same landscapes with “new eyes” that year meant much to me as both a nature lover and as a writer. When I discovered Proust’s quote, I posted it on my fridge to remind me of 2020 when seeing life with new eyes means finding new freedom and expansiveness to write with newfound treasures from what before had seemed ordinary. 

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[i]Lilburn's introduction to Don Domanski, Selected Poems, 1975-2021 (London: Xylem Books, 2022).[ii]Eugene Peterson, Eat this Book: Conversations on the Art of Spiritual Reading), Grand Rapids MI: William B Eerdmans, 2006), 44-45.  

[iii] Source unknown