Long Live the Eyes: When Seeing Becomes a Form of Resistance

Wanderings: June 27, 2025

I’ve been walking again.

After two weeks on the road—across states to see grandchildren and family—I finally returned to a trail near Auburn that’s long been a thinking path for me. The sun was low, no one else was on the path, and that was just right. More than anything, I needed the stillness.

Because what I’ve been feeling lately isn’t just fatigue. It’s dissonance. Everyone seems to have a take. Every voice sounds branded. And somewhere in the middle of it all, truth itself feels like it’s under siege.

This series began with a simple but aching question:

What happened to truth?
Where did it go? Who’s protecting it? And does it even matter anymore?

But as I’ve wandered these trails and read these Scriptures and prayed these early-summer prayers, my question has shifted. It’s no longer just about truth out there—what we’re told, what’s shouted, what’s posted. It’s also about what’s happening in here—in the soul.

Because if spiritual formation is real, then it doesn’t just comfort us.
It doesn’t just give us tools or good feelings.
It forms us to see—and follow—the truth that really is.

What the early church called aletheia—truth that is real, regardless of perception, majority, or approval.

And sometimes, simply seeing clearly becomes an act of resistance.

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A Moment Worth Remembering

There’s a historical moment I keep returning to—a letter from George Washington in 1790 to a small Jewish congregation in Newport, Rhode Island. They were a microscopic sliver of the U.S. population—maybe 2,000 people total—and they weren’t sure the First Amendment applied to them.

Washington didn’t flinch.

“For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance…”

He didn’t just tolerate them. He made clear: freedom of conscience isn’t a gift the majority lends to the minority. It’s a God-given, government-protected right that belongs to all.

That letter still rings. But I wonder what Washington would write to Jewish students today—many of whom now say they feel unsafe walking across their own college campuses.

I wonder what he’d say about laws being used to prohibit silent prayer in some Western cities.
I wonder what he’d say about “misinformation task forces” deciding which forms of thought are safe enough to be allowed.

It feels like something foundational is shifting. And most people I talk to feel it too.

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From “What Happened to Truth?” to “What Must Happen in Me?”

And maybe that’s why I’ve needed this series.

I began with a question about what happened to truth—how it’s been politicized, warped, commodified, or quietly discarded. But along the way, another question surfaced, more personal and disruptive:

What must happen in me if I want to live as a person of truth in a disoriented world?

The answer, I think, is not just about being informed.
It’s about being formed.

Formed into someone who sees what’s real.
Formed into someone who resists spin—whether spiritual, cultural, or political.
Formed into someone who speaks not from rage, but from reality.

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A Confession from the Trail

I need to pause here and make a confession.

I admire people like John Woolman—the Quaker who let truth reshape his entire life. Who let the Spirit carve away his comforts until love and justice were all that remained.

I’ve tried, in my own way, to resist the pull to politicize the church or bend the gospel to fit someone’s platform. I’ve paid a price for that over the years. But in other ways, I know I’ve let myself get too insulated—cocooned inside the world of church life, the rhythms and responsibilities that have shaped most of my adult years. And in that space, I’ve missed some chances.

• Chances to name what’s happening.

• Chances to add the way of Christ to conversations unraveling right in front of me.

I don’t want to be swept up in internet outrage. I have no desire to rant.
But silence isn’t an option either.

So I’m learning—slowly, and often imperfectly—that if I want to walk in truth, I need two things:

1. The old-fashioned discipline of discernment. That means doing the research. Checking sources. Refusing the easy answers or tribal cues.

2. And even more, I need to trust the Spirit of Truth. The same Spirit Jesus promised would lead us—not into slogans or comfort, but into all truth.

And once clarity comes—however slowly—it brings with it a responsibility:
to speak, to act, to bear witness.

That’s why I’m writing this post. Not because I have everything sorted. But because I want to be formed by truth—not fear, not comfort, and not someone else’s agenda.

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Long Live the Eyes

One of my mentors in seminary, Dr. Robert Traina, taught me the power of induction—a method of interpretation rooted in learning to see. Not to project. Not to assume. But to actually see what is in front of you.

He’d stop class mid-discussion and ask, “Where did you see that?”
If it wasn’t in the text, he’d say, “Then maybe you brought it with you.”

It was infuriating at times. And holy.

That’s what’s at stake now: the ability to see what is.
To let our eyes—not our group chat, not our bias, not our feed—inform what we believe.

Because there are strong voices today, across the spectrum, that want to tell us:

• “What you’re seeing isn’t real.”

• “Your perception is invalid.”

• “Your thoughts are dangerous.”

• “Your questions are offensive.”

But friends—long live induction.
Long live the power of eyes.

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When Seeing Is Costly

I’ve seen things lately that trouble me deeply:

• A rise in antisemitic incidents so staggering that 83% of young Jewish adults say they’ve encountered it firsthand online.

• “Safe zones” around abortion clinics in the U.K. where even silent prayer is now considered unlawful behavior.

• Intelligence documents in the U.S. suggesting that deeply religious individuals may be flagged as potential threats.

• Cultural institutions—on both the left and right—trying to shout down dissenting speech rather than engage it.

These are not hypothetical concerns. These are things our eyes can see.

But cultural agendas—sometimes religious, sometimes secular—are working overtime to reinterpret what we see. To tell us that what feels wrong isn’t. That what we’re witnessing isn’t real. That truth is whatever fits the mood of the moment.

That’s why I keep returning to the trail.

Because the trail doesn’t lie.
Because silence and slowness are the last safe places for unhurried truth to surface.
And because I believe formation into Christlikeness is still possible. But only if we first recover the courage to see.

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A Benediction for the Road

Jesus once said:

“You shall know the truth—and the truth will set you free.”
(John 8:32)

Not the truth you curate.
Not the truth your group approves.
Not the truth that gets applause.

But the truth that is.

To follow Jesus in this age is to follow a path of clarity, conviction, and compassion—in that order.
We do not rant. But we do not retreat.
We see. We follow. And we speak.

So here’s the trail-worn prayer I’m carrying this week:

Lord, form me to see what is real.
Give me courage to speak it,
humility to wrestle with it,
and love enough to live it—
even when it costs me everything.

Long live the eyes.

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