I was blind

Today's gospel is packed with insights that should illumine our own path daily. Oddly, however, we are strangely resistant to some of them. 

The first is that we all need to recognise our own blindness or blind spots. Happily, the man in today's gospel is brought to Jesus by others who beg Jesus to cure him. But presumably he was not dragged to Jesus kicking and screaming! 

Physical blindness is something which has to be recognised, but for some people who gradually lose their sight, there can be a period of denial. This denial is very much like our denial of moral blindness; we prefer always to trust our own insights and judgements; admitting our blind spots is too uncomfortable. 

The second insight is that in order to see, we need perhaps a kind of reflexive sight. By a reflexive sight, I mean the ability to be aware of what could lie just beyond our insights; the blind man in this gospel has to guess that the trees he sees walking about are in fact people. By reflexive sight, I mean caution about the facts that we don't know and can only guess at. Too often we arrive at judgements that rest on a stack of guesses and hypotheses. By reflexive sight, we expand our reserve of insights about what is around us, and make space for God's inspirations which make up for our weaknesses. 

Reflexive sight could be prayed for with the prayer of the father who wishes Jesus to deliver his son from a demon. 'Do you believe?' Jesus asks him. 'I do believe; help my unbelief,' the man replies. The conversation might have gone otherwise. 'Do you see?' Jesus could have said. 'Lord, I see; help my blindness.'

Admitting that there are things that lie beyond our sight requires some humility from us - humility about our limitations - but also objectivity. This is a lesson not only for the optimists among us but also the pessimists. For the optimists, things are not always as we would want to see them; for the pessimists, things are not always as bad as they look to us.