Expand Your Vision
From Amelie, with Love
Dear Friends,
As many of you know, we have been thinking about the value of questions during this season of Lent, and our readings from the gospel of John each Sunday have raised a lot of them. This week, I came across an article that invited us to be mindful of the kinds of questions we ask: some questions help us to learn, to grow, and to find the new place where we belong. Others can do the opposite: they keep us (and others) in their place, building barriers to growth and change.
In our gospel reading for this morning, we are drawn into the story of a man, blind from birth, who has an encounter with Jesus that results in his being able to see. For those who had known the man as a blind beggar, the change in his condition is deeply unsettling. They begin to ask questions, first of one another, then of the man. They take him to the Pharisees, who ask questions of their own. Then they bring in the man’s parents and ask questions of them; they, in turn, direct the questioning back to the man, for instance,
The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask,
“Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?
Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.”
He kept saying, “I am the man.” (John 9:8-9)
There is a sense of mounting tension in John’s story, a steady escalation of frustration and fury on the part of the questioners each time the man responds. He is telling them nothing they want to hear, nothing that fits into the beliefs and experiences that they carry. All he can do is answer from his own experience: “One thing I do know,” he says, “that though I was blind, now I see.”
Their questions induce a sense of claustrophobia in me. They are not doorways into conversation, but fences, or walls designed to reinforce the boundaries of what these people already know, and to keep their landscape of belief, experience, and knowledge safely contained. And yet, I wonder, how often do I do the same thing? How many times have I have retrenched the boundaries of my own beliefs, overly defensive of what I think I know, asking questions–of someone else or of myself—that built a wall rather than opening a door?
One of the best practices we can engage in, during Lent or any season, is to ask the questions, of others and ourselves, that expand our vision rather than confining it. Good questions open our eyes. They help us practice seeing. They widen and deepen our vision, clarifying our perception of what is present in our lives and of what is possible. They remind us, as a friend recently reminded me, that we may not always get answers, but asking a good question makes way for a response.
So, the question I leave you with this week is this: how well are your eyes seeing this week? What questions are coming your way in this season? What questions are you offering? Are they doorways or walls? How do they take you deeper into the mystery of God? Are there deeper questions beneath your questions?
Let the questions be our friends.
In Christ,
Amelie+
