Four lenses
One moment, read four ways
A woman is washing up after a meal while her daughter finishes at the table. That is the whole event. Look at it through each lens below, then ask the four questions of your own day.
Two minutes, morning or evening. Four questions, one per lens.
1
Things
Material
The things you have been given to handle and take care of: what you own, what you use, the work in front of you, the money that pays for it, and how much of it you stopped seeing once you could find it without looking.
What is in my hands today, and have I actually looked at it?
2
Body
Physical
The body you live in and the hour you are in: whether you have slept, whether you have eaten, whether you have been outside today, and what it has been saying all day while you talked over it.
What is my body telling me that I have been overriding?
3
People
Relational
The people you live among, close enough to touch: the ones you chose and the ones you were given, and how easily any of them stops being a person and becomes part of the room.
Who is in front of me that I have been treating as scenery?
4
Heart
Emotional
The voice nobody else hears, running under the other three: the delight as much as the dread, the affection you never explained, the resentment you have been keeping accounts on, and how much of it you have never once put a name to.
What am I carrying that I have not named?
You cannot receive what you cannot see.