Understanding

In his discussion of The Idiot , Rowan Williams makes this profound psychological and pastoral observation: “To see the truth in someone is not only to penetrate behind appearances to some hidden static reality.  It also has to be, if it is not to be destructive, a grasp of the processes and motors of concealment, a listening to the specific language of a person hiding himself.  It is perhaps the difference between ‘seeing through’ someone and understanding him.”