Saturday, October 1, 2016

Blind Spots, Peripheral Vision, and Faith



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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