Tell me what you see

Yul Brenner:  “I see PRIDE!”
Junior Bevill:  “PRIDE!”
Yul Brenner:  “I see POWER!”
Junior Bevill:  “POWER!”
Yul Brenner:  “I see a bad-ass mother who won't take no CRAP off of no-body!”

This is a quote from one of my favourite movies of all times – Cool Runnings. If you haven’t seen it, you should but I’ll summarise here for you.

It’s the story of 4 Jamaican men who form a bobsled team to race in the Calgary Winter Olympic Games. They have no money, no real bobsled and they come from Jamaica where there is no snow.

The quote above comes from a part of the movie where Yul and Junior (two of the main characters) are in the bathroom. Junior has just been ordered home by his rich father who considers bobsledding to be beneath his son and an embarrassment to the family. Yul and Junior have never gotten on since Yul blames Junior for tripping him in a race that would have seen Yul represent Jamaica in the Summer Olympics.

Yul is asking Junior what he sees when he looks in the mirror. Junior replies that he just sees Junior. Yul tells him he sees pride, power, someone strong who is not to be messed with.

What do you see when you look in the mirror? What do you see in your friends, your family? Your class mates or your workmates?

Do you see people of value, of worth? In a world that bombards us with the “perfect” woman, man, child, life, job, house, school, it’s easy to forget that we more than just what we see. We wish for longer legs, a slimmer body, different sense of humour, something or anything different from what is staring back at us.

We forget that we are created, we are loved, we are gifted with awesome individual talents and personalities. We forget to see ourselves through His eyes, we allow the world to tell us everything we’re not.  We focus on what we perceive to be ‘wrong’ with us instead of seeing the good and beautiful in us.



Sometimes we just need to be reminded of what makes us special. Sometimes we need to be told what others see in us - they can often see us more clearly than we see ourselves. Sometimes we need to be the ones doing the reminding, telling those in our lives what we see in them.



Junior Bevill: “You really see all that?”
Yul Brenner” Yah mon. But it’s not about what I see. It’s about what you see. Now look in this mirror and tell me what you see”