“Today is a beautiful day but I cannot see it.”
Listen and listen, but never understand!Look and look, but never perceive!
This people’s heart has grown coarse, their ears dulled,
they have shut their eyes tight
to avoid using their eyes to see,
their ears to hear,
their hearts to understand,
changing their ways
and being healed by me
Matthew 13:14-15 (Isaiah 6:9–10.)
A blind boy sat on the steps of a building holding up a sign which said, “I am blind, please help me” with a hat by his feet hoping to make some collection to fend for himself. A man was walking by saw that there were only a few coins in the hat. He stood there staring at him for a while then took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign from the boy, turned it around, and wrote some words on it. He gave the sign back but getting him to hold it with the side he wrote to face the passer-bys so that everyone who walked by would see these new words.
Soon the hat began to fill up. It seemed a lot more people were moved by those words to stop and give money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who changed the sign returned to see how things were. The boy immediately recognized the man by his footsteps and asked “Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write on my sign?” The man said, “I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.” I wrote: “Today is a beautiful day but I cannot see it.”
Both signs told people that the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind but the second sign told people that he was blind, lacking the ability to see and enjoy the world around him. The second sign expressed his deepest need and desire to see the world around him. The second sign opened the eyes of the people around who could look but could not see and perceive the needs of the blind boy. Therefore, they were moved and drawn to help him with some money so that he need not worry about his other needs. They made his life become a bit more comfortable.
Many times we tend to see or in contact with people around us at a very surface level but this man was able to see beyond the blindness of the boy. As such he was touched and was prompted to act, to assist him from the best of his own ability. In doing so not only he was able to assist the boy but he managed to get others to do the same. He brought cheer to that boy and provided the opportunity for others to act out their love in charity. That man by doing what he did not only got the world around the boy to see and perceive his need but also gave them this new knowledge of the need to see things around them with a deeper sense. Those people will never see a blind man the same way again.
Being able to look beyond a person’s ability and disability, we will be able to connect better to the world, recognize our own giftedness and become servants to one another in love and not go around snapping at one another and tearing one another to pieces or become conceited, provocative and envious of one another. Instead we will allow the spirit to use us to share the love, hope, peace and joy of God with one another. Let us become ‘servants to one another in love, since the whole of the Law is summarised in the one commandment: You must love your neighbour as yourself.’ (Galatians 5: 13-14)
Let us be thankful for who we are and what we have. In our quest to build the kingdom of God, we need to be more sensitive of one another’s potentials and weaknesses, ability and disabilities while we try to find ways and means to help one another to grow in love, peace and harmony. As we turn to the Lord each day, let us seek for the grace of God for us to become servants of love for one another. Let us be ears and eyes for each other. Alleluia! The Lord has truly Risen.
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Stay tuned for the next post by Br Anthony Liew on 03rd May 2010.
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