Eyes, The First Garden

The eyes are not windows.

They are soil.

Everything we look at is a seed…

Some seeds fall lightly.

Some burrow deep.

But none of them disappear.

Before the mind can spell a word, the eyes have already painted it.

Say “love”, but let your face harden and your voice sharpen, and a child’s spirit will sketch love in jagged lines. Love will look like thunderclouds gathering in the kitchen doorway. Love will feel like bracing for impact.

But…. Say “love” with open hands, with warmth in your eyes, with softness that steadies instead of shames and love becomes sunlight spilling across a wooden floor. It becomes safety. It becomes a home.

The eyes draw definitions long before the brain writes them.

We do not first learn through explanation.

We learn through observation.

Slammed doors or warm embrace..

Both are lessons, but then so was a hill.

Dust and mites clung to the ankles of spectators. The air tasted like iron and sweat. The sky itself seemed to hesitate on weather to let the sun shine or be darkened with gloom as the tears of heaven poured down.. On that splintered beam of wood hung Jesus… His back torn open, brow pierced, lungs straining against gravity.

Blood traced lines down His skin like crimson rivers carving new paths into history.

The crowd saw a spectacle.

But the Father and all of Heaven witnessed a seed being planted.

They watched Him refuse to spit hatred back into hatred.

They watched Him hold dignity like a crown no one could rip away.

They watched forgiveness form on broken, dry, cracked lips.

“Father, forgive them.”

Not spoken in comfort, but breathed through agony.

What did their eyes learn in that moment?

Strength was not the fearless clenched fist of Rome. 

Strength was the open nail scarred hand of surrender.

Power was not the shout of authority.

Power was mercy that would not collapse under cruelty.

As He hung there, suspended between earth

and eternity, He was not only seeing soldiers gambling at His feet. He was seeing faces not yet born. He was seeing daughters who would one day weep at altars. He was seeing sons who would break cycles of violence. 

He was seeing you.

Through swollen eyes, He saw redemption blooming.

Beauty growing in brutality.

Harvest inside horror.

The cross was not only an altar.

It was a mirror.

Those who watched had their definitions shattered.

Some turned away.

Some may have scoffed.

But some felt something split open inside their chest, as if a window had been thrown wide and light had rushed in.

Because what we behold rearranges us.

Trauma enters through sight… A raised hand, a mocking smile, betrayal caught in a glance. Images lodge themselves in the nervous system like splinters beneath the skin.

But healing enters the same way.

One steady gaze.

One consistent kindness.

One visible act of sacrificial love.

And suddenly the soil shifts.

The eyes that once learned fear and chaos can learn peace and safety.

The eyes that once associated love with pain can watch love bleed and not retaliate.

The enemy fights for your vision because he knows that whatever can capture your gaze will cultivate your future.

So guard your eyes.. Not because they are fragile, but because they are fertile.

They are gardens.