Seeing, not seeing, and seeing differently: Blindness, physical and spiritual

Do you see what I see? Do I see what you see?

Sherlock Holmes wondered the same thing on a camping trip with his faithful sidekick Watson. After a long hike over the moors and mountains, setting up the tent, a good meal and a bottle of red, they lay down for the night and soon went to sleep. Some hours later Holmes woke up, nudged his faithful friend and said, "Watson, I want you to look up at the sky and tell me what you see."

Watson pondered a minute or so and then replied. "Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of of galaxies and potentially billions of planets, and I also observe that Saturn is in the constellation of Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three in the morning. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day today. What does it tell you?"

Holmes  was silent for about 30 seconds and said, "Watson, you idiot! Someone has stolen our tent!"

The necessity of ‘eyes to see’ looms large in Christianity. While Jesus healed the physically blind, he simultaneously heaped criticism on pharisaic types suffering spiritual blindness. The problem was not they couldn’t see, but that as spiritual teachers, they were sure they could.

How can one possibly perceive the 'Light of the world' without spiritual eyes—without an ability to see beyond the physical? John 9 succinctly reveals these truths, and in likely the most memorable way in scripture.

“While I am in the world, I am the light of the world", Jesus announces to those around him, including a fellow he’d just met who had been blind from birth. What follows may be the strangest of Jesus’ recorded miracles. He “spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the [blind] man's eyes. 'Go,' he told him, 'wash in the Pool of Siloam' (this word means 'Sent'). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing" (vv. 6-7).

How on earth could a man born blind—and now with his eyes full of mud—make his way to the pool of Siloam to wash away the mess? We know he did of course, and perhaps some supernaturally endowed spiritual sight helped him to. After cleansing, he gained physical sight as well, sending the hyper-critical Pharisees into religious overload.

Jesus had worked a miracle on the Sabbath, and so violated the Sabbath ‘no work’ laws. But he really tangled up their taut tidiness with his next statement, "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind" (John 9: 39). A better summation of Jesus’ ‘doing away with the Law’ may be hard to find.

"What? Are we blind too?" the incredulous Pharisees replied. To which Jesus answered, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains” (John 9: 40-41).

Prayer for the day: 'Dear Lord, preserve us from the spirit of stupid!'

Holy Chutzpah! Viewing Israel from the inside with the movie 'Israel Inside: How a Small Nation Makes a Big Difference'

A poll spanning 22 countries done recently for BBC’s World Service suggests people view North Korea and Israel equally negatively. The utterly cool movie Israel Inside: How a Small Nation Makes a Big Difference (link below) may change some naysayers’ minds … then again, maybe not. Closed minds are just that.

Narrated by New York Times bestselling author and former Harvard lecturer, Dr. Tal Ben Shahar, the film uncovers how despite incredible challenges, Israeli creativity, innovation and chutzpah have triumphed over adversities ranging from geographic to unspeakable.

Hundreds of TV networks and programs have profiled the brilliant, personable PhD and family man, including 60 Minutes and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He now consults and lectures around the world to executives in multinational corporations, Fortune 500 companies, educational institutions, and for the general public. His topics include leadership, education, ethics, happiness, self-esteem, resilience, goal-setting, and mindfulness.

Israeli-born and American-raised, Dr. Tal taught Harvard’s most popular course ever, 'Positive Psychology', and his international best sellers Being Happy and Happier have been translated into 25 languages.

You can view a ten-minute version of the movie here: Israel Inside: How a Small Nation Makes a Big Difference. 

Why are kids so happy?

When you are changing and learning, 

it's the happiest time of life.

Something to learn there, no?

Miracle at the Temple Gate

While our tour group enters and learns all about the temple in Edfu, Egypt, I sit at the temple gate drinking water, watching people come and go, and quietly praying and singing.

In comes a lovely young couple, she wearing the most beautiful combination of colours and patterns I’ve seen a Muslim woman wear. I watch as he takes pictures of her, then he asks if I could take one of the two of them. I comment on her beautiful outfit; we all agree the whole black get-out many married Muslim wear is sad, hot and ugly. I ask if I can also take a picture of her, and we then get into a long conversation.

Turns out the young man lives a few streets away from our Toronto house! Traveled from Egypt to get his PhD in electrical engineering at University of Toronto (which I also briefly sorta studied at nearby Waterloo University)! He now works for a consulting company my brother has also consulted for, and which my husband's former employer had hired consultants from.

They got married January 6 that year in Egypt, and were awaiting the paperwork for her to join him in Toronto—where she had never been. He took his cellphone/camera back out and in the flash of an eye we were Facebook friends.

Touring the huge Valley of the Kings at various stops on our Nile Cruise, we King’s kids ran into each other FOUR more times. Increasingly astonished, I had my husband snap the photo below for evidence of this encounter number three, taken a day or two after our first.

By our sixth or seventh meeting I simply exclaimed: "Maybe we're all supposed to live together!" And that, my friends, is the gospel truth.

Dancing over Deep Mysteries

Our guide and shepherd in Israel was encyclopedic-brained Mordecai. Skilled tourist-bus driver Mohammed steered us—40 mostly Christians from many different countries—safely along and through scores of treacherous curves, alleyways, passageways and mountain roads. Guide Morty and driver Mohammed, obvious good friends, both live with their families in the Tel Aviv area.

As we drove north from Jerusalem through the Jordan Valley, Morty explained our plan to drive along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, then on to Capernaum. But Mohammed, phoning local friends and yanking a few strings, arranged a special side-trip for us to cruise the Sea of Galilee. An optional ‘extra’ which none of us turned down … and complete with that haunting Hebrew music that has you either weeping, dancing or both.

I’d already fallen in love with fellow tourist Sandra, a messianic Jewish woman visiting Israel for the first time with her husband and two young sons. Originally from Columbia, South America, they now live near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (Canada) in the tiny town of Elbow. Incredibly, six people in all had all travelled from Elbow (pop. 294)!

As we sailed over these special waters, I noticed Sandra bouncing on her bench as the music tempo livened. I couldn’t sit still any longer either, so hopped up and invited her to join me on the deck between us and the sea. Sandra and I skipped and twirled around awhile, and then she coaxed her seemingly-on-the-way-to-becoming-ultra-Orthodox hubby up.

Here he tries (as he tried throughout) to get me to do it, ah, properly. Apparently I wasn’t even saying, or singing, 'Hallelujah right. It’s 'CCHHH..cchhAAlleluia' (beginning with the funny chokey sound Czechs, Dutch and Germans do so well), he corrected me.

Mohammed gave me a couple of gifts on separate occasions, making like it was a great secret to offer them. First he passed along a little wooden dove pin (not sure what the dove is carrying: looks like it could be a fish, or maybe a carrot, but likely supposed to be an olive branch); then a few days later a Jerusalem cross made of local wood..

While my husband and I ate breakfast with him one morning, I asked Mohammed if he is Christian.

 “A little bit,” he replied, with a twinkle in his eye.

As Mohammed dropped us off at our last hotel, I thanked he and Morty for being so fantastic at their jobs, and remarked how I loved that their names were practically archetypical Muslim and Jewish. And how it was too bad Ishmael and Isaac hadn’t gotten along so well!

Morty seemed puzzled. “Was it Ishmael?” He looked at Mohammed and they shared a few words in Hebrew. Then he peered back at me. “They probably did!” he replied.

“Yeah, I bet you’re right,” I agreed in wonder. “They were brothers after all.” We left it at that, but had definitely reached another level of the deep mysteries of Israel.

Story behind THIS Somebody Else’s Story

Tired of the ‘me’ culture most of western society has become, I’ve always, for one, been enchanted by the seeming selflessness of Japanese society. Even their language reflects this. As an example, the word a Japanese person would use for his/her own house would be different from that for your house. Something like ‘my little shack’ and ‘your wonderful mansion’ (I exaggerate but only slightly).

The title for this blog has been borrowed from a song that still grips me: Somebody Else’s Story, by John Waller.  Stay tuned!