Posing the question:
The eyes are the windows of the soul. The popular cliché bears an intriguing philosophical problematic. There is an underlying double import: the eyes that reveal are the same apparatus that survey, capture, and comprehend an object. The eyes that open portals are the same swords that thrust open the heart of a stranger. The eyes that can unveil are the same cunning spies that trespass, transgress, and pin the target. The eyes are the windows of the soul; the eyes are the keys in unlocking the truth.xxx
The banality of eye contact is much pronounced in the Piraeus of everyday living— public transport, university walls, edifices of commerce, and herds of people going to and fro. How is it possible that these silent, (at times) sly, and sleek incidents of eye contact ferry the truth? Why does an instance, a moment that does not even last for minutes, a flash of eyes meeting from two anonymous individuals can become a cherished memory? How is love possible at first sight?
On The Gaze:
In the spectacles of receiving, it is actually the Beloved that transgresses, transpierces, and trespasses the lover’s consciousness. Objects ordinarily pass by; the veil of anonymity is cast upon in everyday living—crowds walking to and fro, objects on display, nature on its usual rhythm of rising and resting. Yet, there are those moments that forever mark like tattoos, trespass the confines of consciousness, and awaken the lover from the dormancy of its loneliness. In a sudden flash of an instance, an object stands out (either a dress, meal, or gadget), the soft crisp air is noticed, or an anonymous person captivates. The richness or better yet, the soul of the object allows itself to be seen; it imposes itself in weight. The Beloved’s unique and infinite beauty creates a certain dis-stance—seismic quakes that awakens the lover out of its ordinary life. The distance is received in difference and weight. To receive is to open oneself to the beloved’s intimate exposition—a bursting and intruding revelation—her soul. The beauty in every object flames out, shining from shook foil (as Hopkins put it), even to the surprise of the object itself.xxx
In the crossing of gazes, the gaze does not call attention to itself and remains invisible since the lover gazes, guided by the aim to see, at the beloved, receiving all her glory. The opened eyes, the infrastructure that makes possible the crossing of each other’s richness leaving an indelible impression), hide in the shadows by simply allowing two souls to cross each other. The richness of the experience renders one mute since there is nothing objective nor even visible about it. All that remains to be told is that “our eyes crossed” and the rest is passed over to silence and happy memory. The crossing of gazes is everything there is for it remains a shared dreamed encounter which binds strangers into lovers. Jean-Luc Marion pens, “However, they see
their encounter, for they experience the weight of each impetus one against the other, a unique and common weight, balanced and shared. They see, with their always invisible gazes, the lived experience of their tensions…The crossed encounter is made to stand as lived experience of the invisible; however the experienced vision of the lived experience never results in the visibility of an object…Neither the lover nor the beloved encounter each other in passing, dreamily, each in the other. They experience one another in the commonality of the lived experience of their unique tension—the weight of one gaze on the other, crushed by experiencing itself seen, crushing by seeing itself experienced.”
On The Wager at Love's Sight
Faith becomes an unceasing act of openness to another. The trace of the beloved that impresses upon the lover’s consciousness invites him to find ways to continuously engage the beloved that gazes back: get the name and phone number, invite her for dinner, scout her friends, dream of the first date, and the like. The relation is strengthened and incarnated through constant engagement, to a string of daily Yeses to that strange beloved that has become his Promise Land. Faith as constant openness binds the two parties and places them firmly into furnished identities of lover and beloved. The trace moves the lover to take another gaze—to see more clearly, in order to love more dearly, and follow the Beloved more nearly. Faith is a decision to come closer, to be taken in by the Beloved through one’s decision of openness.On The Presence and The Overcoming of Idolatry:
When the lover does not choose to gaze, his eyes are neutralized by the brilliance of the visible. He prowls instead of waits, ready to capture and consume whatever he sees. He chooses what to be seen, instead of letting himself be a vulnerable prey of the beloved’s beauty. In the same manner, the beloved can neutralize a lover’s gaze by avaoidance. She uses any available flesh in trying to hide her invisible soul, making her invulnerable against the lover. Idolatry strikes in its sensuous and sleek approach, releasing the dazzling beauty of objects’ flesh. The glitter of an idol captures one’s sight and imprisons it in the horizon of visibility. The idol provides a ready content for one to analyze, control, and consume. Whatever is visibly seen is available for possession. Possessions provide an aim that can easily be manipulated and assimilated by consciousness in its objectification. Objectification leaves out the authentic infinite richness to be content with what is captured in the surface. Transcendence does not occur since possession deceives one to be content with flesh.xxx
When the lover chooses to see, he becomes a conduit in reflecting the richness of his and the beloved’s own beauty. The lover’s beauty is exchanged with the beauty of the beloved that he receives. In crossing of the gazes, the beloved who chooses to return the gaze receives the transformed self of the lover. Thus, the compounded excess from the crossing of gazes is more than enough ground for a rational choice through an affirmative answer of further engagement. The infinite striving, as Kierkegaard proclaims, is realized in the decision to continuously engage, sustaining the first moment of the crossing of gazes. The crossing of gazes exposes the two parties to each other in their magnificent vulnerability, beginning from their very selves. Jean-Luc Marion writes, “Two gazes, definitely invisible, cross, and in this crossing, renounce their invisibility... To love would thus be defined as seeing the definitively invisible aim of my gaze nonetheless exposed by the aim of another invisible gaze…Loving no longer consists trivially in seeing or in being seen, nor in desiring or inciting desire, but in experiencing the crossing of the gazes within, first, the crossing of aims.”
xxx
Engagement is the word utilized to refer to a couple waiting to be married. It is a reality that is the terra firma of the promise of marriage. Engagement pertains to the lover’s willingness to remain faithful in struggling with a chosen beloved. Engagement is the first instance of fidelity. It is the Beloved that rules and the Lover remains authentically as a subject—a sub-ject of the other. Ironically, it is only in being sub-ject to the Beloved (both the aim and the act) that the lover gains his true self. The lover becomes not only Beloved but also (and all the more), the act that he repeatedly does. That act is Love none other. Out of constant act, habit is weaved. Out of habit, character is forged. Out of character, destiny is realized. Fate finds its fulfillment in faith. Faith begins in the opening of one’s eyes.
To read the whole essay, I guess we have to wait for the book to be released. We wish Brother Pat well, that he might find the time and resources to publish his work.
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