Blind Spots, Peripheral Vision, and
Faith
Fr. Tony’s Letter to the
Trinitarians -- October 2016
This time of year, I often go out on
our deck in the early morning just before dawn just to admire and sit in wonder
looking up at the sky. The Ashland night
sky is generally without artificial light pollution, and the glories of the
solar system and the galaxy are brilliant and sharp if the moon is not
full. This morning, what had been a
full moon just two and a half weeks ago now is a sliver, and the stars are
clear. But a bank of clouds rolled in
and the stars disappeared, the moon went dark and then disappeared. As I looked, it peeked out a little now and
again as the clouds blew past. I knew
the moon was there even when I could not see it at all. And occasionally really bright familiar stars
and groupings peaked out as well, all the clearer when the moon was
covered.
Those of you who have done any
star-gazing know that often a star is invisible when you look straight at where
it is supposed to be. But if you avert
your eyes slightly, there, in your peripheral vision, the star shines out
clearly. Apparently Galileo Galilei was
a master at using his peripheral vision to see all sorts of things up there
that others had missed, things like the four largest moons of Jupiter and
Saturn’s rings. He helped this out by
grinding glass lenses and putting them into a “far-sight” or telescope to help
gather more light than his own natural eye could, even in periphery. This is
why the Indigo Girls, in their great celebration of seeing hints of
reincarnation sing, “I call on the resting soul of Galileo, king of night
vision, king of insight.”
Night vision. Peripheral vision. That is, I think, how faith is for all of
us. We get a little glimpse of glory and
then, encouraged by others or driven by God speaking to our heart, we dedicate
time, wealth, and effort to it. More
often than not, we do not come to faith by looking directly at such a thing as
“Religion,” or “God.” Rather, we get
little glimpses in our peripheral vision.
Things that once were puzzles start making sense.
And then there is the curious
phenomenon of the blind spot. Located
exactly where the surface of the retina is punctuated by the entrance of the
optic nerve, we normally are unaware of it.
Our brains fill in the blank spot for us. It is only when you use a specially created
design using a dot that seems to disappear when its image goes into our blind
spot and the brain fills in its place with the ambient background that we notice
we have blind spots at all. By their very nature, blind spots are not apparent
to us because we do not see them.
People who say that they somehow do
not believe in God usually mean they do not believe in a guy (always a
male, usually with a white beard) “out there” somewhere who interferes on
occasion with matters and demands our love and worship. (“He is, after
all, a ‘jealous’ one, he!”) This is, however, a petty caricature of the
living, creating Ground of Being and Love Itself. God is not “out there”
somewhere. God is beneath and behind all. Luke describes St. Paul
speaking to the Athenians and saying of God “In him we live and move and have
our being” (Acts 17:28).
If we try to look at God head-on,
and think of God as “out there somewhere,” we diminish the idea of God. We reduce the object of our worship to a kind
of supernatural wacky great uncle or an imaginary friend with super
powers. Such a god is not really God, but a sort of demiurge or
daemon. When we feel hurt or encounter hardship, it is easy to feel
betrayed by such a Deity. God thus diminished is far removed from the
good we see all about us, all of which comes from God directly.
But again, using peripheral vision,
our night vision, we get little glimpses of the Love beneath all things. If we let ourselves follow, we find brighter
and brighter clarity in our vision. And
when we just can’t seem to see God at work in the world about us, it is either
because of intermittent clouds rolling by or because he is in one of our own
blind spots.
The key thing is following the
glimpse of peripheral vision, pursuing the glory, keeping with the sweet scent
on the air, however faint. The crucial
thing is to remember where we last saw God, and realize that he’s till there, hidden. Gratitude
is the emotion that best connects us with God. Trust is a
close second. Both of these are in fact expressions of love. And
God is, in fact, Love Itself. Love, trust, service, and gratitude give us eyes
to see God, first in peripheral short glimpses, later in deeper and deeper
glory. And perseverance in looking in
wonder and gratitude even when things get obscure, or when our own failings cause
blind spots, keeps us steady until things become clear.
Grace
and peace,
Fr. Tony+
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