Satisf[r]action

A long time ago I wrote an article on the pleasure/power of gazing.  Using Laura Mulvey’s seminal essay on “Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema” and Alfred Hitchcock’s landmark film Vertigo, I explored the politics of (1) looking at people and (2) being looked at by people.  These two actions have a hell of a capacity for creating change, for transforming both the Looker and the Looked-At.  Women have known about this power a long time, but it wasn’t until the 1960s that we started to explain it to men.  And I think it’s beautiful to find it rooting around in Scripture.

Here’s how it works.  At a basic level–maybe it would help to picture a “hunter/gatherer” from the pre-modern era—the ability to see something meant that you held the power of life and death over its head.  Bambi just didn’t know what was coming.  At a sophisticated level—maybe it would help to picture the pretty caterpillar that looks like the poisonous caterpillar—the ability to be seen (a certain way) meant that you held the power of perception over the viewer’s eyes.  Bluebird better think twice before snatching me for a snack.  In both scenarios, the act of looking/being looked at transfers power from one party to the other—in deliciously complicated and layered mechanisms.

This is why it’s so damn hard to get dressed in the morning.  You have to project a sense of professionalism that will fool your interviewer into believing you have more experience for the job than you actually do.  You have to pass through airport security without looking like a wildly unpatriotic and murderous teenager.  You have to let this guy know this isn’t a real date, it’s a FriendZone touchdown; no little black cocktail dress.

As frustrating as this back-and-forth gaze thing can be, we humans find it utterly addicting: seeing and being seen.  And the pleasure of this power play exists on multiple levels; the body, soul, mind, and spirit all come out to party.  And contrary to popular religious belief, God Himself sent out the invitations—and plans on being the appetizer, entree, and dessert.

In Chapter 2 of Seven Longings of the Human Heart, Mike Bickle explains that:

As with the other cravings that He places in our hearts, [God Himself] always provides the ultimate and eternal fulfillment.  He designed us with a desire for fascination [seeing/being seen], and He offers Himself as the satisfaction of our desire.

That’s right.  Self-sacrifice.  Because, see, a gaze has the power to destroy and dissect and deconstruct and fracture what it looks at.  Because being gazed-upon grants you the power to create and suture and construct and mould appearance.  To fully see-know something is to under-stand all its pieces.  The pleasure for both parties (Looker and Looked-At) lies in the picking apart.

So.  In His infinite wisdom, boundless self-confidence, and disarming humility, God gave humanity eyes and laid Himself out naked before the world.

And for eternity, we get to feast our eyes on His person.  The movements, the muscles, the moments—how did the Father perfect the strength of His right arm in raising the Son from Death?  How did Jesus dance for joy before the Throne when the saints of the earth were martyred?  How did the Son of Man look while riding an ass into the gem of the Fertile Crescent, the great city of Jerusalem?  How did the blood and water running down His spear-hewn side manage to propitiate a just Judge?—

No wonder the four living creatures are covered with eyes and cry holy, holy, holy day and night.