A Behold! Walk
We become what we behold.
-Marshal Muhan
On my daily hikes this week, I’ve been experimenting with different kinds of walks. In particular, I’ve been comparing and contrasting the energy of what I’ve named “Pay Attention Hike” and “Behold Hike.”
The word behold asked for my attention when I picked the book, Writing the Icon of the Heart: In Silence Beholding, by Maggie Ross, off my bookshelf. I found the book several years ago on an overstuffed shelf in my favorite used bookstore, a small shop tucked on the main street in downtown Pullman, Washington.
“Beholding entrails all the moral and ethical outward behavior that Jesus teaches. To put this another way, ordinary seeing is analytical: it makes hierarchies, discriminates, grasps, and controls. Beholding is inclusive, organic, grasping, and self-emptying.”
Writing the Icon of the Heart: In Silence Beholding, by Maggie Ross
I don’t hear behold used often. It’s sort of an old-fashioned, religious word that can’t keep up with modern words like skibidi, delulu, and rizz1.
I noticed that as I started using the word "behold," I began to see more detail. I feel more joy. I experience more mystery and connection with the world around me. The animating energy of beholding is fundamentally different from “pay attention” or notice.
I’ve written before about how I try not to use the phrase, “pay attention.” In a world desperately trying to make us only consumers, it feels like handing over our gaze and attention to the machinery of capitalism. The result is turning something sacred and part of our divine humaneness into a commodity. I haven’t known what phrase to use. I’ve tried “give my attention,” “notice,” and “pause,” and it wasn’t until I started walking with the word “behold” that I finally found the right word.
Pay Attention?
It's quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes. —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
Behold is like pay attention, but instead of creating an exchange of value, there is just an invitation to “be” and to “hold.”
The Old English word for ‘behold’ is bihaldan. The roots of behold are just what they appear: “Be” and “Hold.” Be has many meanings, depending on the word, including “To make.” In Old English, the prefix “be” means “on all sides, all about.” Hold in old English means “to keep fast or close.” It can also mean “observe.”2
Behold is inviting us to first be.
Be present.
Be aware.
Be careful.
Be human.
Be observant, and then it’s encouraging us to hold-observe, notice, keep close, keep fast (firmly fixed).
Behold invites us to a different kind of seeing (and being).
“beholding”: holding ourselves open for reality to impinge on us. In a world of distraction and striving, it is the special kind of passivity in the face of reality that we most need.”
-John Barton, Oriel & Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture, University of Oxford,
from the Foreword of Writing the Icon of the Heart: In Silence Beholding, by Maggie Ross
What I’ve noticed as I’ve experimented with beholding this week is that beholding opens wonder, curiosity, joy in a different way.
Beholding is transformational. What I see, experience, and feel has a pathway into my soul. I become a part of the whole, not merely a consumer of beauty on the land on which I live.
When I’m paying attention, the animating energy is transactional.
When I pay, I give something, usually money, in exchange for a product or experience. There is an implied reciprocity when I pay attention.
I like the energy of beholding more.
Behold is expansive.
Behold is an invitation.
Behold is soulful.
Behold is a grace.
A Blessing for Beholding.
Behold! the common startling, chickadee and robin.
Behold! The gentle breeze wafts through the grass.
Behold! the sounds of insects, neighbors, cars, and wind.
Behold! Be and hold your unique part in the weaving of the world.
Take a “Pay Attention Walk.”
Take a “Behold Walk.”
Notice the animating energy of each way. Does the way you experience your surroundings, your place, and space differ when you change the way you think about your experience?
These are some of the things I saw when I was reminding myself to “Behold!”
I’m sharing a few quotes from Writing the Icon of the Heart: In Silence Beholding, by Maggie Ross. Read each quote slowly, notice if a word or phrase sparkles, shines, or seems to hold an invitation for you.
“Our seeking to the beholding is not a matter of rejecting the particularities of creation but rather plunging into their deepest heart, allowing them wholly to draw our attention. Amor meus, pondus meum, wrote St. Augustine. Love draws everything to itself, and this radiant love is the source of all fruitfulness.”
-Writing the Icon of the Heart: In Silence Beholding, Maggie Ross
“I often wonder if all the fretful, frenetic activity in our lives isn’t a human way of barking at angels, of driving away the signs everywhere around us: signs calling us to stop, to wake up, to receive a new and larger perspective, to pay attention to what is most important in life, to behold the face of God in every ordinary moment.”
-Writing the Icon of the Heart: In Silence Beholding, Maggie Ross
Words added to the dictionary in 2025. (I do like skibid, delulu, and rizz-I don’t use them, but they are fun to say!)
Thank you for the reminder about the word “Behold” - it is truly a divine word, as Jesus used it and it appears throughout the Bible 😊. Richard Rohr calls contemplation “gazing” and he defines it as a “loving look” at whatever the eyes fall upon. I think that’s kind of like beholding.
Love this. It does carry a different energy. I’ll experiment with it … but I did begin a counter list to my list of grievances (wrote about last week) with a list of delights. Different energy than gratitude. And I think when I go out in the world seeking out the delights, I do find them. Maybe it’s a beholding!