Finding Inner Sight
We just heard another gospel reading in the Great
Questions of Lent series. Before we think about the questions in this story of
the man who was blind from birth, let’s think about blindness for a moment. Was
the man-born-blind the only one who couldn’t see?
No. It seems
that his neighbors were blind too – they couldn’t identify him because they had
always seen him as the blind man, and now he wasn’t blind, so it couldn’t be
him, could it?
The Pharisees
were blind too. They couldn’t see the unconditional love of God expressed in
Jesus. They just saw a man whom they already hated doing an act of healing
which had the effect of making him even more popular with the people. And not
only that, but instead of healing in his usual way by declaring the person
healed, Jesus had taken earth mixed with saliva and applied it to the blind man’s
eyes. Not an unusual act for a healer, but this was on the Sabbath and to knead
bread or make mortar, or indeed to mix anything on the Sabbath was against the
law. Jesus was deliberately breaking the Pharisees’ Sabbath rules. That was all
they could see – a man who was a troublemaker who flaunted the rules and a man
whom everyone loved, except them.
Just as the blind man’s neighbors couldn’t see him as
anything more than a blind man, the Pharisees couldn’t see Jesus as anything
more than a sinner.
So, to the questions; What questions are asked in this
reading? And what questions does it raise for you?
…
I think the big question that this gospel raises for
me is what don’t I see? Where am I blind? Who don’t I recognize because I’ve
put them in a box and I don’t see the things about them that don’t fit in that
box? I suspect that just like the neighbors and the Pharisees there are times
when I am so sure I know what’s going on that I miss the reality completely. Or
I only see on the surface when the Holy Spirit is busy doing her thing on a
totally different level.
Jacques
Lusseyran, a blind French resistance fighter wrote about his experience in a
memoir called And There Was Light. After he was blinded in a playground scuffle when he
was seven, he had an unexpected experience[1]
“The
only way I can describe that experience is in clear and direct words,” he
wrote. “I had completely lost the sight of my eyes; I could not see the light
of the world anymore. Yet the light was still there.”
Its source was not obliterated. I felt it gushing forth
every moment and brimming over; I felt how it wanted to spread out over the
world. I had only to receive it. It was unavoidably there. It was all there,
and I found again its movements and shades, that is, its colors, which I had
loved so passionately a few weeks before.
This was something entirely new, you understand, all the
more so since it contradicted everything that those who have eyes believe. The
source of light is not in the outer world. We believe that it is only because
of a common delusion. The light dwells where life also dwells: within
ourselves.
“Since becoming blind,
I have paid more attention to a thousand things,” Lusseyran wrote. One of his
greatest discoveries was how the light he saw changed with his inner condition.
When he was sad or afraid the light decreased at once. Sometimes it went out
altogether, leaving him deeply and truly blind. When he was joyful and attentive
it returned as strong as ever. He learned very quickly that the best way to see
the inner light and remain in its presence was to love.
I think this is vitally
important. Our inner light, our ability to see clearly, depends on our inner
condition. When we are anxious, depressed, bitter, judgmental, our inner light
dims until it is difficult for us to see and we become blind. The cultivation
of serenity is also the cultivation of our ability to see clearly.
When I’m feeling
depressed about something, having a friend say “Cheer up! Be positive” is
extremely annoying. And that’s not what I’m saying here. I’m talking about
cultivating a long-term, underlying serenity, a deep trust in God’s all-encompassing
love, so that when the sadness and depression hits you know that it isn’t all
there is, you know that it is a feeling which will pass but that God’s love and
the force of love in the world are solid, and dependable.
When I am expecting to
have a difficult conversation, I tend to rehearse it in my mind in advance and
think of all the things I want to say and all the defenses against the angry things
I think the other person is going to say. But if I go into the conversation like
that I find that I can completely miss a true connection. I become blind to the
person I am meeting with and what they are really feeling because I’ve got it
all worked out before they even open their mouth. In order to truly see, I have
to let all my preplanning go and ask for God’s presence to guide me. The more I
can let go of my pre-conceptions and be open to the other and to the Holy
Spirit in the moment the more I can truly see the beloved child of God with
whom I’m talking, and the more I can see places we can connect rather than the
things that divide us.
Neuroscientists are
discovering more about the brain all the time. One of the things that’s becoming
evident is that learning to cultivate positive feelings rather than negative ones
actually changes us at a cellular level and increases our body’s immune
response.[2]
As the blind Frenchman Lusseyran discovered, the best way to see the inner
light and remain in its presence is to love, and that includes loving not just
God, not just one’s neighbor, but oneself.
Love is expressed not
just in the big things; the times of deep sharing or of extreme need but in the
everyday courtesies and the gentleness of allowing each other to grow and to blossom
without criticism or blaming. The more we can approach ourselves and others
with serenity, respect and gentleness, the more clearly we will see.
Yet Jesus said to the
Pharisees, "If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you
say, `We see,' your sin remains." So is Jesus saying we should seek
to be blind? No, I think he is commenting on their self-importance. The
Pharisees were not known for their humility.
When we are full of ourselves
and our own right-ness then we do not truly have space for others or for God.
Part of cultivating serenity is developing a humility which knows that I am not
the be-all and end-all, which knows that I am not always right or always in
charge: the world does not rotate around me. In many ways I am blind, and so I must
depend upon the Holy Spirit for guidance and for sight.
So like the
man-born-blind, we are dependent upon God for our sight, but also like the
man-born-blind we get to participate in our healing. We don’t have to wash in
the pool of Siloam; we get to cultivate serenity, gentleness and love.
posted by Caroline Hall at
6:51 AM
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