4th WEEK OF LENT
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John: 9:1-41
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The Healing of the Man Born Blind
And they cast him out
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Soon after I joined the monastery I became aware of a slight distortion in the vision of one eye, a blurred area I could not blink away. My optician said I should see a specialist and an appointment was made in six weeks’ time. When Fr John heard this he called a man in the monastery parish who, so it turned out, was the best eye surgeon in the country. He thought it was probably nothing but agreed to examine me in his lunch break the next day. He detected an imminent detaching retina in both eyes and did successful laser surgery the same afternoon. Ever since then, today’s gospel reminds me of my fear of blindness and the joyful relief of having had my sight healed.
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Last week, in the story of the woman at the well, we needed to see the dual meanings of the symbol of water – the real stuff we drink that constitutes 60% of the human being and the symbol of the ‘interior’ ever-present, ever-flowing spring of pure consciousness that makes us fully human. Today we have to combine the literal meaning of blindness with that dark force that obstinately refuses to see the light, perversely preferring the blindness of denial and insisting that it is the light. This battle between the powers of light and darkness is being waged in our world today at the highest levels of geopolitics.
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Paul says, ‘anything that becomes visible is light’. In order to see with the eye of the heart we have to accept what is really there and visible to a pure heart and unclouded mind. In this story I resonate with the gratitude of the man whose sight was restored at the Pool of Siloam near the Temple and, surely to God, so should have everyone. Instead, the goodness we have seen manifested is overshadowed by the jealousy, bitterness and deliberate hebetude of the regulatory-minded authorities. Regulations are a necessary evil in life but quickly swamp and stifle the good, as they easily can in every human organisation, because they are a means of control and nurture the illusion that we are God.
Hebetude means dullness, sluggishness, of mind. Especially if it is deliberate, watch out. When we choose to be blind the battle between the powers of truth and illusion begins. George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, was imprisoned and beaten many times for proclaiming the Christ-light within us in contrast to the regulations of the steeple-houses (his term for churches). Like Christ he did not fear to tell the truth to power and believed that ‘he that shows a man his sins has taken them away’.
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Meditation reverses deliberate hebetude. It sharpens the mind and cleanses the eye of the heart with the laser-light of truth. In our global conflict today it is the hidden code that disarms all the destructive weapons of denial and oppression.
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