Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind, but now I see! John 9:25 (NIV)
In My Eyes – Sight Series – Part 1
Go to PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3
Questions.
Questions in my ears.
The same one. Over and over again.
I was frustrated.
So loud were their questions, they couldn’t hear the answer, wouldn’t hear it, in spite of themselves.
Spits and spurts of words reached my lips but were halted, damned and walled up by…
more questions. A variance of the same one… how many different words could they use to ask the same thing?
So many voices.
So few listeners.
I made my way through life the only way I could: by feeling, touching, hearing. Listening for bends in the road and walls in my path.
Every day, I woke before dawn, careful not to disturb my slumbering parents, and made my way through the house, out the front door – feeling and listening as I went – to take up my post by the road. Even though I often changed spots, the people were the same no matter where I sat.
No matter how much they pretended not to notice me, all bundled up in the dirt at their feet, I know they did. They could see me, I imagined their down-turned eyes peeking at me from under their lashes. I knew they could hear the words I rehearsed day after day… A beggars liturgy. I felt their disdain, sometimes their pity, and always their disgust. And every now and then I felt and heard the rattle and clink and thump of their leftovers falling into the pot nestled in my lap.
I could feel it all.
“Beggar!
Get out of my way!
I have nothing to give you!
Can you smell him?
How long has it been since he bathed?
What sins his parents must have?!
Scorned of God!”
I felt these words. Every. Single. Day.
A blight on the street. A sour taste in the mouth. A stone in a sandal.
Me.
I didn’t choose this life. I was born this way. I couldn’t work, so I begged. I tried to ease my parent's burden; reduce my mother’s cries and help my father sleep.
My condition is the result of sin? My parents hadn’t committed sins greater than anyone else… they went to temple, they sacrificed, they observed the Sabbath…
There is no one to blame. It is what it is. I am what I am.
Or was.
Until today, when something unexpected happened.
Something miraculous.
“What happened? Tell us again?”
And I tell them, but instead of listening, they are arguing about the details.
First at my parent’s house, then with my neighbors, and now here at the temple.
My imagination – the images I traced in my mind through touch and listening – hadn’t done the temple justice…
“Who did this to you?”
“Tell us exactly what he did!”
Questions. Babble. Incoherent.
“He put something on my eyes,” I said.
“Wet and grimy.” The words caught in my throat.
“He sent me to the baths.” I tried to tell them.
“How can this be from God?”
“Who does he think he is!”
“Sinner! And on the Sabbath!”
“Quiet…” I begged.
“QUIET!!” Enough.
The voices stopped. Attention granted. For the first time, my questioners didn’t just hear, they listened. They heard every word. They SAW every word. They began to see me and hear me.
My eyes, once clouded and grey, were now vibrant and alive. Deafening and beautiful. A marvel to behold.
“I don’t know who this man is. I don’t know how he did it. After I had washed at the baths, he was gone. I don’t know who he claims to be, what he looks like, where he went, or what else he is capable of doing. I don’t even know his name. But he did this. Look at my eyes. SEE? SEE! HE did this.”
Breathe.
“All I know is that this morning when I woke, I was as blind as I have always been, and now? Now I can see!”
Go to Part 2 – The Blind Man »
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