The Deep Seeing of Frederick Franck
I have come to know and to value the depth perception of Frederick Franck through his books, such as The Zen of Seeing and Fingers Pointing Toward the Sacred. Through his art and writings he invited us who are “addicted to merely looking at things” to reawaken and to cherish “our inborn human gift of seeing.”
Frederick Franck (1909-2006) was a painter, sculptor, and author with a deep interest in spirituality. His sculptures are in the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Fogg Art Museum, and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, as well as at Pacem in Terris, a small sculpture garden adjacent to his home in Warwick, NY.
“Merely looking-at the world around us is immensely different from seeing it. Any cat or crocodile can look-at things and beings, but only we humans have the capacity to see.”
“To see reveals the meaning, to see is to see the Sacred, to look-at is to miss it.
“To see is that specifically human capacity that opens one up to empathy, to compassion with all that lives and dies.”
“When I see – suddenly I am all eyes, I…dive into the reality of what confronts me, become part of it, participate in it.”
“…when seeing starts.…It is an awakening, a new openness for and insight into the livingness of living things, a reborn capacity for empathy, wonder, and reverence, for awe for the simplest things of nature…”
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