One of the things classical education teaches us, ideally, is to look at a thing long enough to be able to see it. It takes longer to see things than we realize, and we can’t see as many things as we think we can. If in the course of our lives we truly see a few things, we will be fortunate, and we will have begun to know what we ought.
It takes attention, and it takes time, sometimes much more time than we would expect. There he is, standing in the kitchen, strong and a little bit stout. There is a place on the front of his shoulder that is home for the side of my face. His hair is gray. I didn’t think it was, but it had turned gray while I was looking at it, like on Easter Sunday when we sat on the back deck all afternoon looking at the leaves coming out in the spring woods and he said, “It’s gotten greener since we came out here!”
It’s amazing the value of looking at something for a good long time. I’ve looked at him for twenty-five years, and have I begun to see him? People shouldn’t be so ambitious, running around wanting to take in so many things. If I have twenty-five years more, I will have begun to know something.
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