SEEING THE
IN BETWEEN
Celtic Worship -
March 6, 2005
TEXT:
Ephesians 5:8-14
John 9:1-41
Ken Medema is a blind musician who has the uncanny ability to compose
an entire song, both music and lyrics, on the spot after listening
to an address or a sermon. We experienced his phenomenal talent last
year at the National Youth Event in Tennessee. Like other blind musicians
such as Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, and Joe McBride, Ken’s
sense of hearing is so acute that he can hear very subtle changes
in pitch and tempo that most of us would not detect.
While persons
without sight have this remarkable ability of compensation, I have often wondered
how a person who is born without sight conceptualizes the world. For example,
if you already know what a tree is, if you go blind you can touch a leaf or
the trunk and the concept of “tree” comes to mind. But what if
you have no frame of reference? How then do you “imagine” what
a tree is? If you have never seen anything before, what does your mind see?
When Jesus
healed the blind man in today’s gospel lesson, the writer John used the
incident as a metaphor for spiritual blindness, of gaining the ability to see
life from a different and entirely new perspective. When John Newton wrote
his famous hymn, “Amazing Grace,” he had been a slave trader and
saw nothing wrong in the buying and selling of human beings. Only after a shipwreck
and an encounter with God, was he able to write the words which come in part
from John’s gospel: “I once was lost, but now am found, was blind
but now I see.”
One can
imagine the now-sighted blind man going through life re-envisioning his world,
as though he were born again and had to relearn his experiences from a new
perspective.
The apprehension
of the spiritual world is the same. We have become so accustomed to the ways
of earth and of this life that we think we can just import those concepts into
a future existence. So we imagine heaven with its ivory palaces and streets
of gold and a continuation of our earthy lives in a different place. It doesn’t
quite happen that way. We will need to learn how to see again—and to
see what really is important.
I think
you realize that in the course of a day, you see with your eyes a lot more
than you see with your mind. Your eye is like a camera that photographs everything,
but what you see, what registers in your brain, is based upon what you have
been programmed to see and not see. Several years ago we took a group of young
people to New York City. Some were there for the first time. Some were from
families who believe you need a passport to leave Berks County. They were amazed
at many things and were awed by the buildings, the subway, the traffic. But
what stood out in their minds were the street people. We were there in March
and it was cold. As we went down into the subway, a homeless man was lying
on the landing near a steam vent. He could have been sick or even dying, but
New Yorkers who have seen it all simply walked by without even a look to see
if he was all right. The urban environment and the many street people had produced
a blindness to human suffering. We do not see what we do not want to see.
We cannot
see the invisible because we have not conditioned ourselves to see what we
perceive as not present. John O’Donohue, who writes from a Celtic visionary
perspective, points out in his book, Eternal Echoes, that our eyes
are drawn to things. Because we live in a physical world, our eyes are conditioned
to focus on objects. Very seldom, perhaps infants or adults lost in thought
gaze into the middle distance, moments when we literally look at nothing. O’Donohue
says that this is precious space because it provides the medium and connection
between all the separate things and persons. One needs those pauses when you
see in between and try to make sense of what you have seen. This in-between
state is the space between possibility and creation, between what you can do
and what you will do. It is a moment of enlightenment when the will of God
becomes clear to you.
When I was
a boy, my grandmother, who emigrated from Russia while it was still ruled by
the czar, would tell me of the “staretzim.” These were holy men,
Russian orthodox monks, who would live alone in a simple cabin in the wilderness.
Their role in life was simply to pray. For us westerners who think that a person
is useless unless he or she contributes to society in a material or tangible
way, one who spends all of his time in prayer serves no purpose. Why should
he be supported by the church for doing nothing but pray? And yet the people
of the nearby village would often go to the staretz for spiritual advice, assurance,
and to ask him to pray for them.
Perhaps
that is where we have lost our perspective. Throughout the world there are
thousands of men and women in monasteries and convents, in isolated cabins
and in teeming cities who spend their days establishing and maintaining a connection
with the spiritual world that benefits all of us. Prayer is a way of seeing
the in between, the relationship of all things to the Creator, and of maintaining
harmony in the midst of chaos. We all need to offer our prayers, to establish
and maintain that link to God that Jesus came to reveal.
I like the
Celtic concept of the “thin places,” those places in time and space
where the veil between the physical and the spiritual, between humans and God,
are so transparent that we realize that we are not dealing with dualities,
but a wholeness that embraces all of existence. There is no such thing as a “supernatural” world,
only an entirety which God has created. We differentiate because we have conditioned
ourselves to see only what is physical. We need to learn to see the in-between
and become committed to regular conversation with our God. Once we are able
to see that all things reside in God, we can develop a sense of community that
embraces all people regardless of who they are.
We are part
of a church that seeks to emphasize this community. You will see on our web
site and often in the literature of this church, the phrase “No matter
who you are and where you are on life’s journey, you’re welcome
here.” If we sincerely believe in the community of God and the harmony
of Creation we cannot exclude anyone, but must make a deliberate and conscious
effort at radical inclusivity.
In Connemara,
when a child is asked who he is, the child is not simply asked for his name.
The expression is “ce leis thu?” —“to whom do you belong?” Personal
identity is not a matter of what you do, but how you are connected. The Celtic
way of seeing is in relationship. I hope that you notice that in many of the
songs that the Shanachians sing, there is a sense of belonging and connection,
whether it is to a loved one, to family and friends, or to a place where one
has roots. Like the Celtic knot itself, the emphasis is how we are all tied
together in this bundle of life, that we do not exist in isolation from one
another. “Other people” may be hell to the existentialist philosopher
Sartre, but to Christians they are the community of God.
When Jesus
healed the blind man, he put mud on his eyes. To see, you must not see, and
then you will see clearly. Let us not look always at the things before us or
to the things that we desire, but rather in between to that which God opens
our eyes. When we incorporate that spiritual dimension into our world view,
then we will fully realize the realm of God that is within us.
Dr. Harry L. Serio
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