Being Seen

We haven’t been all over the world, but we’ve been in places I’d only heard about — places as beautiful and inviting as we hoped. What has struck me most is how similar we all are. A group of teenage boys pushing and joking; two girls laughing over something on a phone; an elderly couple walking hand‑in‑hand; a businessman striding with purpose; a young woman running for the train. I could see these people in any city of my life. Whatever the language, skin shade, or country of origin, the choreography of ordinary life is the same.

And underneath that sameness, I found something deeper: we want to be seen.

That realization changed the way I noticed graffiti. It’s everywhere — on train stations, ancient walls, plywood barriers, in every place. My first reaction was “ugly damage,” but as I kept walking with this awareness of our shared humanity, I began to reconsider it. Cities like Philadelphia and Waterford have embraced murals, but even there, the tagging persists. Why? Because graffiti is also a human gesture. It’s another way of saying, I was here. I want to be recognized. I want to belong. I want to be seen.

I was here

I recently read Elizabeth Bruenig’s article, “The Evidence God Exists,” where she describes a sudden, unbidden sense of being seen — not by another person, but by Someone. She explores studies, authors, and arguments, but she keeps returning to that moment of awareness: there is Someone here. That sense of being noticed resonates with something ancient.

In Scripture, a young, enslaved woman named Hagar runs into the wilderness, unseen and unwanted by anyone around her. But there, by a spring of water, she realizes she has been noticed. She becomes the first person in the Bible to give God a name: El Roi — “the God who sees me.” It is striking that this revelation comes not to a patriarch or prophet, but to a vulnerable woman on the margins. She is seen — and she knows it.

Christ‑followers lean hard into this. One of the central assurances we carry is that every person — every teenager laughing, every commuter rushing, every hand reaching for another — is seen. Deeply. Personally. Lovingly.

And, beyond that, so is the heart of every person tagging some space.

What wanders through my heart is this: How do we make sure they know that? How do we help them feel seen by the Someone who we know saw us?

Our most recent travel led us into the catacombs outside Rome. There, scratched into the stone that covered graves, are the words of ancient Christ‑followers. Mostly names, but also images — fish, crosses, Chi‑Rhos. In the walls, away from the graves, are short phrases, marks of presence. Not graffiti in the modern sense, but born of the same impulse. There are some 500,000 graves in the catacombs. Each one marks someone who felt seen, known.

In my travels, I’m praying to slow down enough to see others the way God sees us.

Blessings,

Geoff