guiding eyes

''I want to guide you with my eye''

Eyes tell so much. Talking without looking into the other persons eyes is quite unusual and impolite. You wouldn't say you've met someone, even if you had seen him and he had seen you, until you hadn't met his eyes. The eye-contact is more essential than having exchanged words. Avoiding it while talking means, that the other one has to hide something his eyes would give away. They shape the whole expression of a face and they're unique. Scanning the Iris is used in one line with taking fingerprints. Eyes identify a person – and if that's to be avoided, they're covered with a black beam. Of course, when you know a person, you'd still recognise her – or is this because you know her eyes and can imagine them?

When you've got a very good relationship with someone you sometimes can communicate without words, only with your eyes. The intimate relationship is necessary for wordlessly understanding how the other one thinks and what he means by the small gestures. People who are in love are known for these conversations where everything is understood on a level deeper than language.

Still, this mainly applies for couples who are crazy in love and anyway don't see anything else than their dearest or for some of the rare couples who have been together for a time so extraordinary long that they know each other by heart. The one status usually is not ever-lasting, the other is a very rare one.

But there is another more day-to-day relationship where one can observe this eye-contact-dialogue: on the playground. A small child, about three or four years old and old enough to know that there are some things not to do, will play, walk around and try out things. But ever so often it'll turn around his head and watch out for his mother: Is she still there? Is she watching me? (otherwise, unobserved, I might do something she wouldn't like...) Is that ok what I'm doing?

When they know each other well, the mother only has to nod encouraging or look stern and shake her head and the child will obey. Of course this does only work, when it knows, that the confirmating nod is trustworthy and that ignoring the shaking of the head will have it's consequences.

I think it's amazing, even such a small child, which isn't able to understand any complex matters, will follow the guidance of it's mothers eyes. At the same time when it's testing it's borders, it's always looking back for confirmation and being lead.

Why are relationships that close that make guiding with the eyes possible, so rare when we have outgrown toddler age and gained our first little bit of independence? Everyone longs for close, intimate relationships of love. Maybe they're rare because it costs a lot of energy and will to get to know someone by heart – and to defeat your self-protecting reluctance to open yourself so the other one can really get to know you. It makes one vulnerable to love like this. And, what I think is at least as big a factor: it'll make you dependent. We defeat our independence nearly as much as the darkest secrets of our soul and our ego. All three are definite hindrances for a ultimately close relationship and for the ability to look the other one in the eyes openly, honestly and with understanding. Maybe thats too much a high request.

Being guided with someones eyes surely can work with less of what is lined up here. Talking can also work without really speaking the other one's language. It will only liken the misunderstandings and resulting frustration.

Who even tries that hard to build a relationship, where an eye-to-eye conversation is possible, when we all have language to make ourselves understandable in a way far more easy? The quote above this text is from the bible*. God says this. He is the one who is willing to invest that much into a relationship with you, and although he is very well able to talk through powerful storms and make man follow him, he prefers the more gentle and subtle way, although this can cause many misunderstandings and other disturbances – it's the way of love: Guiding with his eyes, like the mother on the playground. Do we watch out for his look or do we run in the opposite direction, doing what we very well know is not good and hope he isn't watching? Do I know him well enough to understand what he wants to tell me? Whatever you're doing, he's always there, watching out for you and waiting that you'll once meet his eyes and trust their promise. He longs for a close relationship with you. ''I want to guide you with my eyes“ - will you let me?

*Psalm 32:8, King James Version 2000