Overcoming Familirritability
The Three Ps: A Poem, a Pondering, and a Practice
A Poem
Aurora Leigh
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“There's nothing great
Nor small,” has said a poet of our day,
(Whose voice will ring beyond the curfew of eve
And not be thrown out by the matin's bell)
And truly, I reiterate, . . nothing's small!
No lily-muffled hum of a summer-bee,
But finds some coupling with the spinning stars;
No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere;
No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim:
And,–glancing on my own thin, veined wrist,–
In such a little tremour of the blood
The whole strong clamour of a vehement soul
Doth utter itself distinct. Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware
More and more, from the first similitude.
Excerpt from Aurora Leigh, 1864
Mariah recently painted this piece, inspired by the closing lines of this excerpt from Aurora Leigh about the blackberry bush. To see more of her art, or to purchase this (or another) piece, visit Mariah’s website by clicking the image.
A Pondering: Overcoming Familirritability
This excerpt from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s book-length poem Aurora Leigh is one of my favorites. It articulates something I aspire to. Namely, a sacramental imagination. To see the commonplace as a trailhead to spiritual adventure. “To feel the hidden love and wisdom in all things,” as Abraham Heschel put it.
But my goodness. That way of seeing the world is hard to sustain.
For example, have you ever seen something so exquisitely beautiful—or heard something so profound—that it sat you back on your heels and filled you with wonder for the sheer fact of its existence? And did you ever see that sight—or hear the same insight—again later and think, “Meh. It was better the first time”?
It is almost universal that spectacular things lose their power through familiarity. Like the second time I went to the Grand Canyon and thought, “Huh, I remembered it being bigger.” Familiarity often breeds, if not contempt, a kind of irritation—either with the familiar thing, or with the wonder and awe of others who are beholding it for the first time. We might call this irritation by way of familiarity a case of familirritability.
While it is less likely and more difficult to become familirritated with something as spectacular as the Grand Canyon simply because its spectacle is overwhelming to the senses, how many mundane miracles go unnoticed under our distracted gaze every single day? How many of us have become so familirritated with our lives that we’ve stopped experiencing a sense of wonder, joy, awe, or delight at anything other than what is brand new, unexpected, or surprising?
We often speak of being desensitized to violence, but what about being desensitized to beauty and wonder, to the sheer miracle of life itself? When was the last time your heart stopped at the sight of your beloved? When was the last time your jaw dropped at the sight of a robin plucking a worm from the soil? When was the last time your brain exploded when the pastor said “This is my body, broken for you”?
In a glorious essay celebrating the wonder and beauty of raptors, the inimitable Brian Doyle writes these rapturous sentences:
Maybe the reason that so many human beings are as hawk-addled and owl-absorbed and falcon-haunted and eagle-maniacal as me is because we wish to live like them, to use them like stars to steer by, to remember to be as alert and unafraid as they are. Maybe being raptorous is in some way rapturous. Maybe what the word rapture really means is an attention so ferocious that you see the miracle of the world as the miracle it is (“Raptorous” in One Long River of Song).
With these lines, Doyle helped me understand my obsession with large birds, like the photo of the eagle (below) I took at a park in Anacortes, WA, near where we are living during my sabbatical. And while it’s impractical to expect ourselves to live on the raw edge of existence every moment of every day, and it would be an exercise in missing the point to try and manufacture shock about everyday things, the invitation I hear is to cultivate a deep and steady attention to the present moment, and to not take so much of our lives for granted.
Wonder is an antidote to familirritation and taking our lives for granted. It is curiosity robed in humility, animated by exuberance, and partnered with delight. It is the willingness to see the sacred in the mundane. It is to trust that there is more to reality than meets the eye—that the blackberry bush is not just for eating blackberries.
A Sabbath Practice: Attuning Our Eyes to Wonder
If how we see the world—and the story we make of what we see—lies at the root of familirritation, then a good first step to begin living beyond these challenges is to change the way we see the world. Sabbath gives us the space and opportunity to do so.
The goal is to increase our ability to look at the world in ways that generate feelings of wonder, gratitude, and abundance. To that end, this practice is an invitation to look at the world you inhabit every day with new eyes. It is something the whole family could do every week.
Go to a place that feels super familiar: your living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, closet, garage, car, backyard, a park.
Slow down and really look at what is there—each piece of furniture, utensil, or plant.
Choose one object, and spend about 30 seconds reflecting on the complexity, history, and remarkability of it, feeling gratitude for it, noting its benefits and its many gifts, which you typically take for granted.
For example, you might thank the lamp for providing light and marvel how someone made it into that shape and that electricity magically lights up the bulb.
You could thank the rug for warmth and comfort and marvel at the hands (or machine) that wove it, dyed the fabric, and try to remember the face of the cashier who checked you out when you bought it.
Bless the coffee mug for enabling your morning routine, and the miracle that a bean grown on a tree halfway around the world found its way to your cup.
Notice a sense of being cared for and connected to the world growing in you. Give thanks for that too.
Recall any stories or memories connected to the objects you consider and give thanks for whatever comes to your mind as you remember.
Repeat it all on as many objects in the room as you want, or until your heart is full.
Next week, repeat the practice in a different place—or the same one!
