Last weekend my husband and I went to Costco. When I walk into Costco, neurons shift inside my head, and I become aware of all that is lacking in my life. Sometimes I discover my need and the very existence of the answer to my need at the same time, as with the ergonomic, immersible, electric soup emulsifier/sauce whisk I both discovered and purchased in the Costcoverse on the same day.
Neurons shift similarly in other stores. “Stainless steel cake pans in seasonal shapes,” I muse as I stroll through Williams-Sonoma, “Maybe I should buy some.” Though we always seem to limp through Thanksgiving without a cornucopia-shaped layer cake — or even a cornucopia! — perhaps it hasn’t been as festive as I remember.
I lose custody of my eyes in stores. That is, I give over custody. This Lent, I mean to regain custody.
I come home from shopping and turn on the television. If you had asked me to watch a snuff film back in the last century, I would have given a swift and sure answer, "Never." Yet I've lost count of the news segments in which a human being's death is shown. Not announced, shown. On film. Death in the comfort of your living room. Watch as the bomb explodes, the truck careens, the assailant attacks. A reporter asks the man whose family lies dead if he has any comment. That's the news. Entertainment invites me to watch produced and directed versions of the news as death after death fills the screen. I push a button on the remote control and lose custody of my eyes. I give over custody. I mean to take it back.
I know, I know. The term “custody of the eyes” has you rolling yours. You’re just waiting for the chorus of “Bring in the burqas.” And that’s because “custody of the eyes” has too often been (mis)translated, “Who gets men all hot and bothered about sex? Women, that’s who. So, zip it up, and shut it down, missy.”
Sex is in the mix of what appeals, certainly, and there are others who can speak with more authority to the way sex is being reconfigured in hateful and hurtful ways on our omni-screens. I have other lusts in mind, lusts closer to home. I may have gone to the Apple store only to have the smashed glass replaced on my phone, but I find myself wandering over to the iPhone 14 Pro Max display wondering if it isn't just what I need, especially since the ergonomic, immersible, electric soup emulsifier/sauce whisk hasn't delivered on its life enhancing promises. I may walk into Costco, coupon in hand, in search only of the 8 pound box of salted butter and the 12 pound block of sharp cheddar, but I find myself staring, transfixed, as a climber summits Everest on an Everest-sized television. Maybe I need one of those. (Remember Mildred and her three TV walls in Fahrenheit 451? She wanted a fourth.) Is Mildred's vision — to be surrounded on all four sides by one's television family — the beatific vision of our age?
Thinking of custody, custody of all that is our both our right and our responsibility, I recall some students I met when I worked in college ministry. I listened as they spoke of leaving campus parties with new acquaintances and going back to their dorms. They spoke of morning after regret only when the freshly minted bed partner asked, say, to borrow the car. "My Tesla? I don't think I know you well enough for that."
When we find that we have leased our bodies and imaginations — and cheaply — to the screen gods, perhaps it's time to reconsider custody of the eyes.
Custody of the eyes does not mean I cannot look. It does not mean I cannot desire. It does not mean I can no longer, in that wonderful phrase, feast my eyes — on a good-looking stranger or the eight-burner Viking range with an oven large enough to roast a moose, neither of whom or which I intend to bring home. It simply means I make the decision when and where and why and at what, or at whom, I will feast. It means my eyes are not for sale.
"Custody of my eyes? I don't think I know you well enough for that."
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