The Poverty of Being Seen

On Simplicity, Hiddenness, and the Freedom of Not Mattering

“Simplicity of character and not considering oneself important sanctify one’s heart and render it immune to the Evil One.”

— Abba Isaiah

There are virtues that our age barely recognizes, and simplicity is one of them.

The fathers speak of simplicity not as naivete or lack of intelligence, but as singleness of heart. The simple person is free from calculation. He does not manage impressions, curate an image, or maneuver to secure admiration. He says what he means and means what he says. He is not one person in public and another in secret.

Abba Isaiah tells us that simplicity of character and not considering oneself important sanctify the heart and render it immune to the Evil One. That is a striking statement. We usually imagine spiritual warfare in dramatic terms: temptations, dark thoughts, extraordinary struggles. Yet the fathers often bring us back to something more ordinary and more uncomfortable. The demons find little entrance into a heart that has ceased trying to be important.

Our age, however, is built upon precisely the opposite desire.

We live in an economy of attention. People seek followers, subscribers, influence, and visibility. They speak as authorities before they have learned to become disciples. They hunger to be known by thousands while remaining strangers to themselves. There are even those who seek to monetize every thought, every experience, every act of virtue. Nothing remains hidden. Nothing remains sacred. Even suffering can become a kind of performance.

One can spend an entire life constructing an image and never become a person.

The fathers would ask us a painful question: If no one noticed your prayer, your fasting, your thoughts, your work, your sacrifices, would you still desire them?

Many of us would find the answer unsettling.

There is a subtle intoxication that comes from being seen. We enjoy being considered wise, holy, insightful, or indispensable. We may outwardly deny it while secretly feeding upon it. We begin to measure our worth by the responses of others. We become dependent upon recognition. Then our peace rises and falls with praise or criticism.

The simple man is free of this slavery.

He does not need to appear important because he no longer believes that importance is the measure of a human life. He is content to disappear. He can be overlooked. He can labor without acknowledgment. He can pray without anyone knowing. He can suffer without announcing it. He can do good and forget that he has done it.

This hiddenness is not self-hatred. It is freedom.

Likewise, Abba Isaiah warns us about guile. “As for the man who says one thing with his lips, but guilefully harbors other feelings in his heart, his every prayer is futile.”

These words are severe.

We can learn spiritual language and still remain divided within ourselves. We can speak about humility while craving recognition. We can profess love while harboring resentment. We can speak of simplicity while carefully cultivating an image of ourselves as simple people.

The fathers do not allow such contradictions to remain hidden.

The guileful heart is exhausted because it is always managing appearances. It cannot rest because it must constantly preserve an illusion. It fears exposure because it has built itself upon pretense.

The simple heart, however, can rest before God because it has nothing to protect.

Perhaps one of the greatest ascetical struggles in our age is learning once again to become unimportant.

To be content with obscurity.

To cease curating ourselves.

To relinquish the need to comment on everything, display everything, and make ourselves visible.

To become ordinary in the eyes of the world and hidden in Christ.

The desert fathers fled to the wilderness not because they hated humanity but because they feared the subtle poison of vainglory. They knew that the desire to be seen can slowly consume the soul. They sought instead the poverty of hiddenness.

This poverty is a great treasure.

For in the end, we do not become holy by attracting attention to ourselves. We become holy by becoming transparent to Christ. The saints are not those who succeeded in making themselves known. They are those who became so simple, so free of self-importance, that only Christ remained visible.

And perhaps that is why simplicity sanctifies the heart.

A simple heart finally stops saying, “See me.”

It begins, quietly and joyfully, to say, “See only Him.”