Eyes are windows to the soul, or so they say. It’s a lovely metaphor. Certainly eyes are the most beautiful part of our anatomy, our most luminous, mystical, and expressive features. Eyes speak to us more deeply and with more nuance than tongues or pens or swords. The full range of human emotions can be communicated through the eyes – confidence, vulnerability, joy, sadness, excitement, ennui, urgency, calm, truth, and even lies are expressed through those little orbs that adorn our faces.

Eyes serve to connect us, or at least have the capacity to do so. They are mirrors, literally, for as we look closely into someone else’s eyes, we can see ourselves reflected there. However, I don’t believe, for the most part, we are inclined to do that. Aside from kids who like to play the stare-down game of who can last longest, most people tend to avoid sustained eye contact

But this essay is not really about eyes. It’s about windows. And while those two things may share certain qualities, I’m riffing here on the windows of the buildings in my neighborhood, or in any neighborhood of any old city or town.

During the daytime, I can look out my windows – north, south, east, or west – and count a hundred windows on the walls of the nearby houses. From a distance, they appear in countless variations of rectangles-within-rectangles, stacked irregularly on the sides of old, two and three-story homes. The highest are attic windows, often perfect squares framed in triangular peaks. Overall, it’s a flat and unremarkable scene.

The scene changes after sunset. Aside from the occasional gaggle of giggling middle school girls, or swaggering teenage boys, or adults with backpacks walking to work at the factory, the street is quiet. I confess to my habit of spying out my windows from a darkened room. I should be clear, though, that my vigilance is not some form of neighborhood watch program. I’m not looking for suspicious activity or shady characters. What interests me is the faint orange glow coming from dozens of windows of houses that surround mine.

While some of the windows shimmer with the light from TVs, most maintain a soft, steady ambience. Taken as a whole, the array of windows outside might be seen as a series of motionless Japanese lanterns suspended in the air. And from within those windows I might spy the silhouette of an occupant as he or she walks across a room, perhaps to the refrigerator or the bathroom, as other lights flicker on and off inside the house.

I used to take my curiosity to the streets at night, walking through neighborhoods here and in Colorado Springs, looking up porch steps, trying to imagine what happens on the other side of those big picture windows. (This activity ended for two reasons: My legs don’t like walking on concrete anymore, and I got irritated, and a bit creeped out, by police cars slowing down and shining lights on me.)

My favorite windows are made of stained glass, especially the ones that reside in churches. The most magnificent are in the older Catholic churches (many of which have gone dark in this age of agnosticism, atheism, technology worship). From inside, the windows tell the nativity and resurrection stories over and over again, lest we should ever forget. From the outside, at night, they are like kaleidoscopic eyes that hold memories of countless confessions, annointings, eucharists and baptismal celebrations.

My creative writing has always been imbued with religious images and allusions (a consequence of a Catholic upbringing), to which some readers have expressed disapproval. Most recently, someone quipped that religion is a hoax. I’m not sure how serious he was, but I assume he has some knowledge of a history of corruption within the church, and how it has sometimes abused, manipulated or misled its “flock.” I give him that. Yet I would argue that, as an institution responsible for the world’s greatest art and architecture and dedicated to helping the needy both physically and spiritually, the church has done more good than any form of government in history. It has eyes, ears, and a heart.

I once read a story about fish with no eyes. They lived in a cave-like environment deep under the sea where eyes were not needed. They survived by relying on other keenly developed senses. With the exception of our blind brothers and sisters, we live in a world of light. Where there is light, there is hope, the saying goes. And without hope (or call it faith if you like) we live in a cave, or a house without windows. Without eyes to see the beauty of the world around us. Without ears to hear the music that fills our souls. Without a heart to feel the joy of loving and of being loved.

Musician, writer, house painter Pete Howard lives in Dunkirk. Send comments to odyssmusic20@gmail.com