When I was in college, I saw an ad in a Toronto city bus with a woman mountain climber endorsing a sneaker or a sports drink or something. I wish I could remember what it was for or the exact wording. It was something like, “Every time I find the highest mountain I can climb, I get to the top and think, ‘This is what God sees.’” I used to have a copy of that ad in my dorm room, but it’s gone now, gone the way of much of my other college stuff like the milk crates used as bookshelves and the footlocker full of notebooks.

Still, I can’t forget how that quote struck me. On a basic level, the quote implies an image of God being somewhere up in the heavens looking down on us, like the mountain climber who can look down on the earth from the vantage point of the highest mountain. But to me, the quote always seemed deeper than that, as if somehow, through my eyes I can actually see what God sees. I’m not talking about physical eyesight, though that might be part of it; no, I’m talking about seeing or sensing the deeper meaning or nature of something,  someone. It’s kinda like seeing/sensing something on its own terms, for what/who it is, and being open to being changed by it. I’m grasping for words here because I’m just not sure how to articulate this, but I know it when I see it. Maybe it’s seeing the sadness in the bartender’s eye when she pours you a drink at a dingy bar on the edge of town; or maybe it’s the one thin piece of grass that breaks through the paved surface of a massive mall parking lot. It could be any situation — literally.

Over the years I’ve discovered that everyone has this gift of seeing what God sees, though we don’t always make a choice to do something about it. I will always regret not having asked that bartender if she was okay, if I could help her in any way. Her sadness has hung on to me, a living reminder to not close my eyes to what God sees and what I could see.