A friend gave me a copy of Allen Levi’s Theo of Golden for Christmas, the story of an 86-year-old man who moves from New York City to a small town in Georgia. He is captivated by the portraits on the walls of the coffee shop painted by a local artist. Theo notices the eyes of each person, and how the artist has captured something of the person’s history—their joys and sorrows—in their eyes.

It made me wonder what someone would see in my eyes if an artist painted my portrait.

Three weeks ago, I attended a gathering of about forty women hosted by a local nonprofit for a half-day retreat, themed “Beyond Resolutions: Cultivating Real Change.” I knew a few of the women, but most were complete strangers.

One of the exercises we did was to meditatively walk around the room until the facilitator told us to stop and connect with one person. In silence, we were to look into that person’s eyes while the facilitator led us through a series of questions. With one person, we were to look into her eyes and offer love and acceptance. With another, we received love and acceptance. With a third, we noticed our similarities, etc.

We repeated this process five or six times, each time looking into the eyes of a different person and considering a different question.

With each new set of eyes, I learned something about that person and something about myself. I felt seen and honored.

Holding someone’s gaze can be uncomfortable, but on this day, with the facilitator leading us, I felt comfortable staring into the eyes of complete strangers, really looking into them, and trying to see the story being shared with me.

This exercise was especially fascinating for me because I had just read Theo of Golden and had been wondering what my eyes reveal.

Three weeks later, I am still pondering what I noticed about each woman as I walked around that room and stopped to stare into another’s eyes.

My morning spiritual reading recently has been Looking for God in Messy Places by Jake Owensby. In the chapter called “Being Us and Being Me,” Jake writes about a restaurant server who has taken his orders “dozens of times.” One time, though, he “noticed her brown eyes…as if for the first time. I saw the tiny laugh lines that framed them on either side and felt the earthy warmth and worldly sincerity they conveyed” (page 81).

Noticing what I notice is an important part of my spiritual practice, and the fact that I have been thinking about what our eyes reveal feels like an invitation to grow spiritually. I feel invited to pay closer attention to the people I meet, to really look into their eyes.

What would change if we really looked into the eyes of each person we encountered every day? How would it feel to know we are revealing something of ourselves because someone is intentionally looking into our eyes?