August 19, 2009
Blind But Now I See
I heard a story on the news about 90 year-old Martin Alvey who, because of degenerative eye disease, has been blind for two years. A recent dizzy spell sent Mr. Alvey to the hospital and while being examined his sight miraculously returned. Giving credit where credit is due Martin said, “God gave me back my sight.” Wanting more of a personal anecdote the reporter asked what had changed since his sight had returned. “Well,” said Martin, “When I go to shave in the morning I look in the mirror and say, ‘Hello there Buddy…Nice to see you.’” Jesus didn’t opened the eyes of the blind just so they could see the world around them…He opened their eyes so that they might see themselves.
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Gail;
-----Sometimes I practice being blind. I will choose to move through the house in the middle of a moonless night without the lights. Or sometimes I will close my eyes for an extended period just to experience the difference in my thinking and feeling. What I notice when depriving myself of vision is that I rely much more on what is already within me. In a sense, I see what I have become much more clearly because my mind is less cluttered with analyzing a flood of visual input, and I must relate to the sounds and feel of things around me more by imagination, using my perceptions of what I already know. But in the same sense, I see what I am becoming less clearly because without sight, there is much less mental and emotional interaction with my surroundings. It is much this interaction that adds to what I am.
-----We are both of these things, what we have become and what we are becoming. Physical sight greatly effects what we become, because it so mixes what happens within us and what happens around us. But that effect is not outside our control. We are not subjected to a Pavlovian existence - dog see food dog drool. God gave us spiritual sight to overlay physical sight and to make meaning the larger part of our interactions. Since our spirits are strapped to these biological machines, the greater part of the knowledge we learn must come through our senses, and vision is the broadest channel of input. I am thankful I have sight so it is easier and faster to input the Word. But since our bodies and their senses are merely the vessels for our spirit’s contact with the physical world, the understanding and meaning of what we have experienced happens within us regardless of our sensory abilities, and sometimes better without the clutter and noise coming through them. Without sight we tend to become deeper in meaning from what we are. With sight we tend to become broader in experiences more than deeper in meaning.
-----I think Jesus opened the eyes of the blind so they could have greater options in a fuller life. But whether or not that sight helped them see themselves really depends on how much it replaced rather than added to their spiritual sight, and whether they used it to just stare at themselves in the mirror, or to look at everything around them.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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