I Spy with My Little Eye

And having been warned in a dream about Herod,

they departed, departed for their country by another way.

Behavior scientists tell us that

between 50 and 60 percent of our actions

each day operate from routines.

This is just what we operate on.

Our physical system, our body,

operates a whole system called our autonomic system.

Our breathing, for example, our blinking,

they are all automatically and naturally done.

We do not think about it and there are up to 50 percent

of this each and every day.

So if we want to change behaviors,

the scientists will tell us

that we need to understand what we are working with

or otherwise we are just fighting this system that is operating.

And the easiest way to change something is

to recognize what falls into this autonomic system

and what are we doing automatically.

Then to examine that and to see what we do.

If we want to change something,

then we add it or change it within that system,

to have, if you would, the ancient part of our brain

working for us rather than against us.

Because we operate like 50 to 60 percent of our body is doing that.

This comes out in literature all about habits,

development, or changes,

and there is a dizzying amount of literature about this subject.

They all talk about how to change your habits or how to develop habits.

Of course, in the beginning of the new year,

those books surge and sell, as you know, right?

We make New Year's resolutions, right?

I have read many of these books,

you have heard me talk about tiny habits,

you have heard me talk about atomic habits,

there is another one called minor habits, mini habits,

and the list goes on and on and on.

So the point is that all of these talk about how important it is

to start small, at atomic level, small level, or tiny,

just start with very, very small things.

But sometimes it is important to understand what else we need to do.

Yes, we need to do start with small things,

but we need to have a vision of what we want.

One of the things that human behavior scientists would tell us,

the idea of setting goals is great,

but it is actually useless when it comes to actually accomplishing anything.

We all can give value to how many of our New Year's resolutions

never get really even started, right?

Because we have outsized our goals.

That is called forecasting.

We want to, let us say,

lose 20 pounds this year, 2026.

What they suggest it might be better to do is back-casting.

You imagine yourself a year from now, 20 pounds lighter, right?

And then you back-cast on that,

so if I am going to lose 20 pounds by January 1, 2027,

then I need to lose 10 pounds by July,

and then you start to realize, whoa, whoa, whoa,

hang a sec, that is nearly two pounds a month.

Whoa, whoa, hold on a sec, that is unrealistic.

So once you back-cast, you realize that does not work.

So you might say, well, I am going to lose 12 pounds for the year,

because now you say I am going to lose a pound a month,

and you back-cast and say, okay,

so now in the month of July, I am going to just lose one pound,

and what do I do?

That means I have to do something each and every day.

So you break it down into smaller and smaller and smaller,

so you can do something really easy.

And that all makes sense to a certain degree,

but it does not use that autonomic system very well.

That is all will, that is all decision,

and that is what the scientists will tell you,

that is the most difficult way to bring about change.

Whereas if you kind of use the autonomic system that we have,

it is to identify something that you are already doing,

and then to add it to it.

They call it the law of easy or the law of obvious.

Do the most easy, obvious thing first,

to change one small little thing in your life.

And then we build momentum by doing this.

For example, if you want to develop a habit,

if you want to lose weight, the first thing you need to do

is develop a habit of exercise.

And that might start with buying a pair of shoes.

You might buy a pair of walking shoes.

If you do not have a pair of walking shoes,

you are, I mean, I know that sounds funny,

but then you might actually put them on one day.

You start small, very small,

You put them, take them out of the box,

and put them because you bought them

and never took them out of the box.

We build up the small plans of each and everything.

But one of the things that I found the most enlightening

in the book on atomic habits was

about trying to look at things differently,

to identify to being a certain person.

If you want to lose weight, for example,

I hate to use that because that is sort of trite,

but let me just go with it.

Instead we say, we identify to being a healthy person

and that is better than saying I want to lose weight.

Now losing weight might be a consequence of that,

but you identify as a healthy person.

Then you look at every meal by saying,

well, does a healthy person eat this meal?

Or is that what my old self used to do?

And you say, well, I know a healthy person

would not eat two burgers and two fries.

No, no, that is not what a healthy person does.

But you say, well, a healthy person might have a salad.

You might say, I do not want to be that healthy person today,

but you identify what a healthy person

does and then you move to it.

Why do I bring this up?

Because you have to see things a certain way.

You have to change your way of viewing things.

And then once you see certain things,

then you start to see things differently.

I bring this up because today is the Epiphany

and the magi saw things a certain way, right?

They followed the light.

The light is, of course, the light of God.

It is just all symbolism showing us

to where Christ is and he is the light.

But here is the important part,

they went back a different way,

meaning they were changed by what they saw, right?

So that is the coded language of Matthew's gospel.

They went back different ways that they became different

for what they saw, what they witnessed in the baby Jesus.

They came back a different way.

You and I are called every time

we come to the Eucharist

in a sense to go back a different way.

We are called to see things differently and go back changed.

I get that it may be hard to change every single week,

but if we can see it as an identity issue

to look at things differently.

I am sure you are going to make lots of goals for yourself,

but I am wondering if I could just suggest

one thing for us as a new habit.

Could we see as God sees

or to hear as God hears?

Now what does that mean, what is the long-term goal?

We are called to see with the light of God, light of Christ.

That is what we are called to see as Christ sees,

to see the light goes on.

Because once we see a certain way,

then we operate from that

because once we see as God sees,

it is very hard not to unsee it.

It is very hard to unsee it again.

We say, okay, oh, well I did not like,

if you see somebody as hurt and wounded

when we hear their story,

then we never treat them the same again

because now we know their story, right?

We cannot go back to the other way of ignorance.

The light of Christ is incredibly important

and wanting to see things differently.

Where we are trying to go?

What is that going to require of us?

So going to back-casting, then what that might require of us

is to actually spend some time listening to God in our own life,

to seeing how God might operate,

that we might need to carve out two or three minutes

and give something up.

But again, the goal is here.

So back-casting, what do I need to do to,

I need to see things a different way.

I need to look differently.

Therefore, I need to have some time to do that.

So the question is, how do we do that?

So let me give you a little simple way to remember it

because we do need to make it simple.

Like it has to be easy and simple, right?

To do it. So here is one simple way that I learned.

Do you remember as kids, we played a game as kids called

“I spy with my little eye.”

For those of you who do not know it,

I am sorry you had a deprived childhood.

That is okay.

It is like I spy with my little eye

and then you say something,

whether it is a color or the beginning letter of something.

We engage the kids, keep them occupied

as a typically while you are traveling or something.

That is what we did. Right?

So look, here is a simple way if I say to you,

I spy my little eye, something that is the color red.

Now all of you, I started to look at the poinsettias.

You never saw the poinsettias until I just said that.

And all of a sudden the poinsettias are jumping out.

Why is that? Because they are red.

Here is what is strange you will all see red things for hours now!

My point is that once we see how Christ sees we cannot unlearn it.

It is that simple, but we have to ask the question,

how does Christ see this?

I spy with my little eye red,

and all of a sudden we start seeing differently.

It is that simple, my friends.

So let us not overcomplicate our New Year's resolutions.

Let us come back a different way from liturgy every single Sunday,

but let us do it every day in our life

by looking and asking the Lord to help us to see as Christ sees,

to help us to hear as Christ hears,

so that we can come back different each day.

I spy with my little eye the way Christ sees.

And having been warned in a dream about Herod,

they departed, departed for their country by another way.