I have a confession for you: I am blind as a bat! Let me explain. For most of you, the picture I have posted with this blog post has a number on it. For most of you, the background in this picture is green and the number is red. For me, I see a sea of green dots. For most of you, when you take a color-blind test, you will see 100 pictures with numbers on each picture. For me, I will be lucky to see 10 numbers, period! When it comes to colors, I am blind as a bat!
The good news is that for many of us color-blinded folk, there are now glasses that will help remove some of that blindness. A special kind of lens does the trick. (By the way: I did a little research and found that those glasses, while awesome for many, don’t help with my type of color blindness. Bummer!)
But here’s the deal, there are other ways to be blind. Sometimes, as in my case, the problem is biological. But there are people who are “historically” blind. My grandma, Ida Zantow, for instance. One of my dad’s favorite stories to tell was one of the first times he went to see Grandma. Mom and Dad were still dating. Most of my dad’s time these first visits were spent listening to Grandma and Mom talk about him in German! (I bet that was fun!) But on this particular weekend, Dad had bought grandma a whole box of oranges. And, to my dad’s amazement, Grandma Ida put the whole box of oranges under her bed and proceeded to bring one orange out of her room every afternoon, peal it, and then share a slice of orange around the snack table until that one orange was gone! My dad and mom were convinced that most of those oranges ended up being rotten in the end.
Now why would Grandma Ida do that!?! Well, it wasn’t because she was selfish. It was because all of her life she had lived and looked out at the world through one lens: the lens of scarcity. My grandma had lived through the dirty thirties and then some! She not only had pictures of those dust storms, but she also still had some of the dust from those dust storms in her fingernails, and more importantly, imbedded in her heart! She could only see the world through the lens of “there is not going to be enough!” And so, she saved, and scrimped, and hid things away…just in case. Grandma Ida was blind to the gift of abundance.
In the Bible, Jesus does most of his healing around the issue of blindness. If you read the Bible literally, this is an amazing miracle Jesus performs. But if you read the Bible “literarily”…the way I prefer and encourage you to…this metaphor becomes more than a miracle, it becomes a rich image of what is often going on in all of our lives, because religion, or the gospel, then becomes not just a series of miracles performed by a religious “superman”, but an invitation to all of us to see the world and our lives in a new way! In and through the eyes of Christ, we move from scarcity to abundance, law to grace, and so much more!
The church’s job, then, is to help the world see the world through the eyes of a God full of grace! The problem with the church, however, is often that we are still stuck in this world’s way of thinking. We think we are seeing, but we aren’t, or can’t!
One of the reasons I read spiritual writers daily, is because they help me remember how to see the world. These writers teach me how to see differently.
One of my favorite spiritual writers is Henri Nouwen. Yesterday, while reading some of his work, I found this prayer. After reading it, I felt like the scales of blindness were falling from my eyes and I could see the world through the eyes of grace again. It felt so good that I want to share this prayer with you. May this prayer, and the grace of God, continue to teach us all to see!
Dear Lord,
Give me eyes to see and ears to hear. I know there is light in the darkness that makes everything new. I know there is new life in suffering that opens a new earth for me. I know there is a joy beyond sorrow that rejuvenates my heart. Yes, Lord, I know that you are, that you act, that you love, that you indeed are Light, Life, and Truth. People, work, plans, projects, ideas, meetings, buildings, paintings, music, and literature all can only give me real joy and peace when I can see and hear them as reflections of your presence, your glory, your kingdom.
Let me then see and hear. Let me be so taken by what you show me and by what you say to me that your vision and hearing become my guide in life and impart meaning to all my concerns.
Let me see and hear what is really real and let me have the courage to keep unmasking the endless unrealities, which disturb my life every day. Now I see only in a mirror, but one day, O Lord, I hope to see you face to face. Amen.
Your friend and pastor, hoping we all find our way to a new way of seeing, Brook
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