One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
This is a charming quote from a favorite book of ours, The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint Exupery. It is a children’s book but has so much depth and meaning for adults. The story tells of a little prince who lives on a very small planet with active volcanoes, an extinct volcano and a single rose that he tends to very carefully and which he thinks is unique in all the world. The prince travels all over the universe and eventually lands on earth where he comes upon a garden filled with roses much like his. He becomes very disappointed because he no longer feels his rose is unique. Then a fox appears.
The prince is lonely and immediately wants to be friends, but the fox says that first the prince must tame him. Over time, they bond. When it's time for the prince to leave, the fox tells him to go look at the roses in the garden again. The prince does and says, “You aren’t at all like my rose. You’re nothing at all yet. Nobody has tamed you, and you haven’t tamed anybody. You’re the way my fox was. He was merely a fox like a hundred thousand others. But I’ve made him my friend, and now he’s the only fox in all the world."
He continues, “An ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, because she’s the one I’ve watered. Since she’s the one I put under the glass. Since she’s the one I sheltered behind a screen. Since she’s the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted or even sometimes when she said nothing at all . . . Since she’s MY rose."
And he went back to the fox. “Good-bye,” said the fox. “Here is my secret. It is quite simple: one sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.” The fox explained that his rose was unique because of the relationship between them. That relationship is the bond of the heart, which is invisible to the eyes. The bond comes from feelings of responsibility and love. These are the greatest bonds in our universe, and yet are completely invisible to the eye.
There are those that see the world with their eyes, while others see it with their hearts. What does that mean? Have you ever felt compassion for something that wasn't pleasing to the eye? How can that be, unless your heart recognizes what it sees, and overrides your eyes. This allows you to see what is essential, despite what you might see with your eyes. What if how we felt or acted was merely based only on what our eyes could see . . . It wouldn’t be a very pleasant place. For this reason, we should always strive to view the world in Rosie Hues despite what enters our vision. We should pay extra attention to those things that can only be seen by the heart.
How do we realign our thoughts to have a Rosie outlook? We have become so accustomed to only see with our eyes that it becomes a struggle to overlook our current situations and feel what is going on inside the heart. Think to a time where you’ve allowed yourself to see past the muck of our world and focus on the love around you. What mood and state of mind were you in? This is where you should begin . . . Try finding that love, peace, and grace, and see it work when you are feeling overwhelmed with the burdens of the world.
This year we encourage you to bloom EnRose (In Pink) . . . To allow yourself grace to grow through rose colored glasses. To view the world with different eyes. The eyes of your heart . . . Filled with more love, joy, and peace than you could ever imagine. The important things we ought to really care about are invisible to the eye . . . and are written on the heart . . .
Theologian and television personality, Fred Rogers, was fond of speaking of every person’s, every adult’s and every child’s, inner essential. He saw that what was essential was indeed, invisible to the eyes: He explained it as “that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind can’t survive: love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.” - Fred Rogers
"Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it" Proverbs 4:23