Having eyes that see (Luke 24:30-31) with some insight to eyesight from Dr. Moreau.

SCRIPTURE: Luke 24:30-31 (NIV)

When (Jesus) was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him.”

STORY:

In his brilliant new book, Catching the Light, quantum physicist Arthur Zojanc writes of what he describes as the "entwined history of light and mind" (correctly described by one admirer as the "two ultimate metaphors of the human spirit"). For our purposes, his initial chapter is most helpful.

From both the animal and human studies, we know there are critical developmental "windows" in the first years of life. Sensory and motor skills are formed, and if this early opportunity is lost, trying to play catch up is hugely frustrating and mostly unsuccessful.

Prof. Zajoc writes of studies which investigated recovery from congenital blindness. Thanks to cornea transplants, people who had been blind from birth would suddenly have functional use of their eyes. Nevertheless, success was rare. Referring to one young boy, "the world does not appear to the patient as filled with the gifts of intelligible light, color, and shape upon awakening from surgery," Zajoc observes. Light and eyes were not enough to grant the patient sight. "The light of day beckoned, but no light of mind replied within the boy's anxious, open eyes."

Zajoc quotes from a study by a Dr. Moreau who observed that while surgery gave the patient the "power to see," "the employment of this power, which as a whole constitutes the act of seeing, still has to be acquired from the beginning." Dr. Moreau concludes, "To give back sight to a congenitally blind person is more the work of an educator than of a surgeon." To which Zajoc adds, "The sober truth remains that vision requires far more than a functioning physical organ. Without an inner light, without a formative visual imagination, we are blind," he explains. That "inner light" -- the light of the mind -- "must flow into and marry with the light of nature to bring forth a world."

OBSERVATION:

We see what we are prepared to see. We see what we want to see. We see what we are expecting to see.

Here is a case for having a time alone with God each day. Some call it devotions. Others call it Bible time. Regardless of the name placed upon it, it is a time where we quiet our overactive minds and slowdown our overscheduled lives allowing God to take center stage. What we are doing is bringing our mind and spirit (nature) into the spiritual world so that when the inner light will shine.

Then we will see what God wants us to see. We will be expecting to see things differently. Our desires will become at one with God’s desires.

Maybe that is what Helen Keller meant when she was asked if it was so bad to be blind responded: “Not half as much as to have two good eyes and see nothing.”

PRAYER:

Open our spiritual eyes as we pull away from our normal daily activities to spend time with you. Open our eyes so that we may see.