On Seeing

A number of years ago I bought a pair of those drug-store reading glasses. It had become harder and harder to do the reading I so loved to do. The small print on food labels was becoming more and more impossible to read. So I lived with reading glasses always in reach - pushed up on top of my head. They became a regular part of my hair-do, holding my curls out of my face while awaiting being called upon to open up the print of this world to my eyesight.

But then, I also began to notice that things far away were beginning to get less and less clear. I could no longer tell one bird from another out on the bird feeder. The fall leaves became more impressionistic - swathes of color rather than individual leaves. I ignored it. I hoped it would just 'go away'. I continued to use the reading glasses, and let the rest of the world slowly blur before me.

Finally, for my 50th birthday, I broke down and got glasses. The kind I wear all the time. The kind that let me read the license plate number on the car right in front of me. The kind that allow me to once again enjoy the stars twinkling in the night sky. I can see the faces of people in the pews (yep - I can now tell if you've fallen asleep during my sermon - - although I'll never tell who I actually caught doing that two weeks ago!)

I got progressive lenses - trying to get the far distance, the mid-range (computer as well as Altar Book), and the reading distances all into one lens. When I got the glasses, I was warned that I should be careful on stairs . . . the floor is really at the 'far distance' range, but you see it through the bottom reading section of the glasses so it's distorted. I heard the warning - - and fell down my stairs not 5 minutes after getting home. Sometimes I guess I'm a slow learner.

It's been over 6 months, and I still think I'm getting used to the glasses. After one month, I found myself thinking they should be like a cast for a broken foot - - you wear it for a while, and then . . . you're better! But the reality that these will be part of my life forever slowly dawned on me. So today, I picked up a second pair - - a pair for my backpacking section of the sabbatical (the August Long Trail trip), with single vision distance lenses. I don't need to be falling down mountains, like I fell down those stairs, because I can't see where my feet are supposed to land. I'll be able to see the trees, and the birds, and the world opening out below me from the top of a mountain. But I'll need to carry those reading glasses again so that I can also read the map!

So . . . picking up my hiking glasses today got me thinking about the importance of seeing. I did so want to always just see, all on my own. Unaided. And for so long I tried to . . . even in the face of the facts right before my eyes (I guess they were just too blurred for me to read them??) And I got to thinking about the other way we use the idea of "seeing". We think of our understanding as "seeing." Something finally gets across our thick brains, and we exclaim, "Oh! Now I see!" And I thought about know how deeply I want to see God clearly. I want to see God in this world clearly. I want to see my own faith clearly. I want to see Jesus. In all things.

And sometimes I find myself thinking that I can do it all on my own. But the reality is that I need help. Sometimes to see the world, I need my glasses. Or a telescope. Or microscope. Or binoculars. And sometimes one pair of glasses will work better than another. And to see God, or my faith, or Truth . . . I need - the community of Faith (all those others who are on this journey too - both in the past and in the present, those known to me personally and those journeying in places I don't know about). The Scriptures. Prayer. Liturgy. I need to look through or with these things, in order to help clear my vision. To see the details clearly. So, I need vision help. And I realize it's not just something to take on for a little time, and then leave behind. It's part of my lifelong journey. Sometimes I am a slow learner. But I keep working on it. And pray that when I fall down the stairs, God will have someone waiting to help pick me up and get my faith glasses back on.