The old idiom states that ‘seeing is believing’. Indeed, it is difficult to deny what is in clear sight; we cannot ‘un-see’ an image though we may forget. Sight is one of our six senses and one that I have always had a great fear of losing; my respect for the way visually impaired people manage their lives is lifelong. Indeed, some talented people achieve remarkable things without seeing them while sighted people do not achieve because they cannot see how – how does that work?
In the bible, we have accounts of the reality of life for those who could not see. Jesus restored sight to the blind and he used the metaphor of blindness to refer to those chose not to ‘see’ spiritual truths. Another of our old idioms says ‘there are none so blind as those who will not see’.
Like all of you I go to shops, church and other places wearing a face covering. Any of you who experience the combination of face covering, glasses and cold weather know that ‘steaming up’ is a real frustration. Experimentation has led me to deduce that If I take off my glasses in the co-op, my stigmatism induced mistiness is preferable to the steam induced fog, and as long as my list is in big writing middle age induced cloud is manageable; but I have a headache by the time I get to the bread aisle.
I frequently have to give myself a talking to because I know I am inclined to be dismissive. Pottering home a week or two ago I realised I needed a stern lecture about this whole problem – how dare I grumble about the transient difficulty of steamy glasses when I have the blessing of glasses in the first place, and my problem is tiny compared to that of a person born blind. In this, as in all things, perspective is important.
For Christians, Lent is important but not everyone around us will understand why it is valuable to reflect on the way Jesus prepared himself for suffering and death. Why not? Simply, there is no point in it unless Resurrection is in clear sight at the end of the journey. Small wonder then that at times the Disciples, ‘travelling’ with Jesus, had their moments when they were irritated with him for his apparently reckless lack of fear of the danger ahead. But, credit where it is due, they could not see ‘Resurrection’ ahead anymore than those around us who do not understand can see it.
That leads me to another thought; how good are we at making sure that we don’t expect those we talk with to understand parts of the picture if they have never seen the whole image. Indeed, perhaps many of us have a fair degree of ‘spiritual visual impairment’ too and that is why we have our foggy moments. As the hymn writer, Ray Palmer put it, describing our relationship with Jesus: ‘the veil of sense hangs dark between thy blessed face and mine.’
A prayer
Lord Jesus, as we journey through life we are not always easily able to see as much of the picture as we need to in order to keep faith. May your Spirit work within us to help re-establish perspective and to see as much as we need to see in order to believe. Father, forgive our moments when we bring cloud into our own lives through deliberate blindness and make us resilient to the blindness caused by people and circumstances over which we have no control.
Amen.