Create. Perceive. Repeat.

Looking 'Along' and Looking 'At'

C.S.Lewis

I was standing today in the dark toolshed. The sun was shining outside and through the crack at the top of the door there came a sunbeam. From where I stood that beam of light, with the specks of dust floating in it, was the most striking thing in the place. Everything else was almost pitch black. I was seeing the beam, not seeing things by it.

Then I moved, so that the beam fell on my eyes. Instantly the whole previous picture vanished. I saw no toolshed, and (above all) no beam. Instead I saw, framed in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, ninety-odd million miles away, the sun. Looking along the beam, and looking at the beam are very different experiences.

But this is only a very simple example of the difference between looking at and looking along. A young man meets a girl. The whole world looks different when he sees her. Her voice reminds him of something he has been trying to remember all his life, and ten minutes' casual chat with her is more precious than all the favours that all other women in the world could grant. He is, as they say, 'in love'. Now comes a scientist and describes this young man's experience from the outside. For him it is all an affair of the young man's [hormones] and a recognized biological stimulus. That is the difference between looking along in sexual impulse and looking at it. 

It's uncanny how an objective perception can be so sure of reality... and yet a subjective perception can be just as confident of a contrasting reality. 

Does this imply that there is an objective reality and a subjective reality?
And that both are effectual to some degree?

Does that question scare you?

The above word-picture implies that there are two realities- one of the person looking at and one of the person looking along the beam of light or the romance. We conclude our reality based on our position; in this case, our position relative to the beam of light or the romance. The reality being created developed perceived concluded by the man looking at the beam of light was a dark shed, dust particles, and a very distinct beam. The reality of the man looking along the beam of light was that of leafy branches, the sun, and most notably- no beam of light. 


When I read this excerpt, I thought about the movie Inception. Have you seen it yet? It's rare that I watch a movie thinking I would want to own it. It's been years since I've felt that way and come to think of it, I don't even own the last movie of which I thought this. At any rate, in Inception, the main character conceptualizes the notion that we are creating a perceiving our reality all the time. As soon as he said this, I thought of at least 436, 892 times I'd experienced that in the last few months. Some times in dreams, but most times in the evolution of my thoughts realizations. 


For instance, most of my life I was so confident that- entirely on my own accord- "I had decided to follow Jesus" and so I "asked Him into my heart".... implying that He was my subject and I, depraved as I am, His ruling elder, once upon a time. To identify with the aforementioned word-picture, I would consider this perception as looking at the beam of light. However, the longer I hopscotch through the footsteps of Christ, I begin to look along the beam and see a very different, yet very inarguable, reality. Though this contrasting reality contradicts my former perspective's reality, it does not make either reality any less true. 

You follow?

The paradox of your conversion experience is not meant to rock your faith, but rather inspire it. It would be haughty to think we could wrap our heads around the ultra-dimensional reality of a holy God with a quick flick of the Bible, wouldn't it? I mean it is living and He is infinite. It's to be expected that we would continually find ourselves looking at a facet of His Majesty and creating a framework for our finite minds to grasp it just as soon as we find ourselves looking along this facet and perceiving the eternality of the truth we've just realized.


Then, of course, we catch a glimpse of yet another facet at which to ponder.