A priest visited a wise old monk to be enlightened. “Father, I have come to you seeking wisdom. What must I do?”
“Well,” the sage replied. “For the first exercise of your retreat, go into the courtyard, tilt back your head, stretch out your arms and wait until I come for you.”
The priest did as he was told. As soon as he stretched out his arms and tilted back his head, it began to rain and rain, and rain, and rain. Finally the monk came for him. “Well, father, have you been enlightened today?” “Are you kidding?” the drenched priest said in dismay. “I’ve been standing here in the rain for more than an hour and I feel like a fool!” The monk replied, “Well, father, for the first day of your retreat, that sounds like a great enlightenment to me!”
You never know what you are going to get when you ask for something. Consider Bartimaeus, the blind man we find by the side of the road. Hearing that Jesus was walking by, he cried out, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me!” In all likelihood, he was begging for a handout, but Jesus put an interesting question to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the rest is history. Able to see at last, we are told, Bartimaeus followed Jesus on the way.
Few of us know what it is like to be blind. Even if you wear glasses as thick as coke bottles, at least you can see. We may even have perfect eyesight, but that doesn’t mean we always see what really matters in life. There is more to sight than merely seeing the light of day.
Like Bartimaeus, we need to cry out, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me!” Why? Even if we are not physically blind, we could suffer from spiritual blindness whenever we choose not to follow the example of Bartimaeus.
There is ample evidence that we lack spiritual vision to follow Jesus at times. Hatred, pride, and jealousy flourish in our homes among siblings and between spouses as do bigotry and prejudice in our communities. Never being satisfied with what we have and always wanting more than we need reveals that we can be blinded by greed and selfishness. Rare is the family in which someone doesn’t get into trouble sooner or later.
In numerous ways lately, we have addressed the need to respect the sanctity of life from the womb to the tomb. There is more to that than the fate of the unwanted baby or the terminally ill patient. Are we respecting the lives of those close to us? We don’t when we allow lust, for example, to blind us from respecting them. I will never forget the young child whose father abused her and I pray that he is no longer blind to the harm he has done. I will never forget the hurt I saw on a friend’s face when she discovered her husband’s addictions on the internet which led to the breakup of their marriage. How embarrassed I still am to think back on the ways I treated my siblings when we were growing up. When we misbehave, for whatever reason, we are often blind to the hurt we cause others even to those closest to us.
Throughout the Bible, God speaks plainly of his blueprint for living wisely yet our human reason goes against the grain of such truth. So long as we are content with a minimal prayer life, we risk remaining spiritually blind, discounting God’s wisdom as we go about doing our own thing. Then we wonder why our lives or our world is in such chaos.
We all live by a certain set of values that we define for ourselves to meet our personal wants. When we ignore the wisdom Jesus offers us as values to live by through the scriptures or teachings of the Church, our spiritual vision at best remains blurry.
Our attitude toward what Jesus has to offer reminds me of the child who protests at dinner about eating carrots and peas. As children we are told to eat our veggies for good reason so that we will grow strong and big. Of course back then we had our doubts that this would really make a difference. Likewise, we were often told how to behave but some of us didn’t buy our parents’ wisdom until long after we left home. In other words, we can be slow learners at times, can’t we?
When making any choice, especially one regarding the sanctity of life, how readily do we consider all the possible options before us and their consequences? If our spiritual vision is blurred to any degree, we need to make the same plea that Bartimaeus did, “Master, I want to see.”
I want to see the wisdom of your ways. I want to see how the prejudices of my ways can blind me to the goodness of others. I want to see the shortcomings and consequences of my selfish choices. I want to see how my indifference allows evil to flourish because I don’t care enough to protest. I want to see how my obsession for accumulating wealth and enjoying a life of ease distracts me from reaching out and helping the less fortunate. If my eyes could be open, then possibly I would see how my choices could leave someone hurt, devastated, crushed, or even dead.
Open my eyes, Lord, so that I can see how the choices I make at times show a lack of respect not only for my life but also for the lives of others. Then I shall see what an enlightened fool I have been.