Once I Was Blind
By Audrey Stallsmith
You don’t expect to turn a corner and suddenly turn blind. At least, I didn’t, despite the fact that I’ve been having sight issues lately. Those included a sudden increase in floaters in one eye plus flashes of light in the peripheral vision of that eye when I was outdoors after dark.
My calls to ophthalmologists didn’t help since they were booked up months in advance, though their assistants all agreed I should see a specialist since my symptoms could indicate a detaching retina. I also knew that my mother had always worried about a freckle I had in the white of one eye, and that freckle might possibly have moved, since I couldn’t see it anymore.
Fortunately, the retinal specialist wasn’t booked up as far in advance as the other eye doctors were. I found out why when I spent an entire morning in his packed waiting room. His solution to the surplus-of-patients problem apparently was to see everybody all at once, while my poor brother waited for me in the car since I wasn’t supposed to drive home myself after all the eye drops and dye injections that preceded my exam.
I was, of course, vastly relieved when the specialist informed me that there was nothing wrong with my retina and that my freckle was in the other eye. He told me that in the somewhat harassed tone of a doctor who has plenty of patients with actual problems and who can’t afford to have his time taken up by those with overactive imaginations.
So, not having health insurance, I had shelled out much moola for peace of mind but thought it worth the price. However, when I was driving home from church one evening, I turned a corner onto a hilly and somewhat tricky stretch of road and had only made it to the top of the first hill when I suddenly couldn’t see at all.
Theoretically, my mind should have gone back to that retina. The fact that it didn’t wasn’t because I put too much faith in dismissive doctors. It was because I knew what was causing this blindness—the setting sun shining directly into my eyes.
In previous instances when that had happened I always was able to proceed well enough by squinting. But this time, something about the way the light bounced off the windshield turned it into a solid glare through which I could see nothing at all.
I continued to creep forward even though I couldn’t tell where I was positioned in the road and there were deep ditches on either side of this particular stretch. I knew I had to keep going because, due to the hills, other drivers there can’t see you until they are virtually on top of you.
If I’d had a passenger, I could have had that person roll down their window to check how close I was to the ditch. This was one of those times that I especially missed my father who would have been riding shotgun up until a few months ago.
I finally had to stop and get out of the car briefly to check that I hadn’t strayed too far into the center of the road. Then, knowing that it would be dangerous to both me and other drivers for me to stay there, I just had to keep inching forward, praying all the while.
By rolling the window on my side all the way down and contorting my neck until my head almost was lying on the window ledge, I managed to change the position of my eyes enough that I could see faintly until I came down the final hill and managed to duck below the sun’s blinding rays.
I was profoundly thankful that only one other driver, going in the opposite direction, passed me during that ordeal. As I thought back on it afterward, it reminded me of how I have been managing in the months since my father’s death—driving blind, as I don’t really know what I am supposed to be doing now. In that situation too, we often just have to keep moving forward and trusting God to get us where we need to go.
But another thought also struck me. It really is possible to be blinded by light, the same light that at most times makes it possible for us to see.
That seemed a little ominous, as my MSN feed has recently been bringing up links to articles on why people supposedly are deserting the church in droves. (Since it also brings up lots of articles on Alzheimer’s disease, I assume it knows that I am both old and also religious and thinks I need more things to worry about!)
I usually avoid reading any of those pieces since I know they are just going to depress me. Especially so since I see, not so much an outright rejection of Christianity but an ignoring of its principles in many of my own young relatives. And I have to wonder why the previously most Christian countries in the world seem to be reverting to paganism at the same time many of the previously pagan countries are becoming Christian.
That subject came up in a book of Philip Yancey’s that I read recently called Vanishing Grace. He posited that some people think that science has disproved Christianity and pointed out that “there are at least three important questions for which it [science] has no answers. . .Why is there something rather than nothing? Why is that something so beautiful and orderly?” And “how ought we to conduct ourselves in such a world?”
Although I liked his points I wasn’t entirely convinced that people are abandoning faith because of science. After all, as Covid proved, people are quite willing to ignore science when it doesn’t tell them what they want to hear.
Timothy Keller suggested another possible reason for the falling away in Jesus the King when he noted that “When Christianity is in a place of power and wealth for a long period, the radical message of sin and grace and the cross can become muted or even lost.” Is that a case of people being blinded by too much light? Or perhaps all that power and wealth just makes them erroneously conclude that they no longer need God?
I suspect, rather, it may be a case of their taking the light in which they walk for granted. Because it is what enables us to see everything else we often don’t notice illumination until it disappears. And, since we Americans and Europeans see everything in the light of thousands of years of Judeo-Christian tradition, it is tempting to assume that the rest of the world sees the same way and holds the same values. That, of course, simply isn’t true. And, if we abandon that tradition, our values will go with it, and we will be left groping in the dark.
Of course, some people who are long accustomed to light may find the darkness much more exciting. Paul warns in Hebrews 6:12 that the Jewish Christians should be careful not to “become bored with being a Christian, nor become spiritually dull and indifferent.”
Perhaps he thought that more likely to happen to those who had studied the scriptures all their lives than to his pagan converts. Nowadays it’s probably more likely to happen to people who were raised in Christian homes and are convinced that the people out there “in the world” are having much more fun than they are.
I saw a lot of that in my own generation when I was young—which was many, many moons ago, so I’m not convinced that the whole rejecting Christian principles thing is anything new. In fact, for most people, I think, the reason for turning away from Christianity is the same old one as it was in the days of the Pharisees who so vehemently rejected Christ. “The Light from heaven came into the world, but they loved the darkness more than the Light, for their deeds were evil. They hated the heavenly light because they wanted to sin in the darkness. They stayed away from that Light for fear their sins would be exposed. . .” (John 3:19-20 LB)
In other words, we don’t like being shown that we are sinners. And it often requires a sudden searing flash of revelation, as it did in my own case, to reveal to us how deep that corruption actually goes—especially so if we are church types who have been attempting to follow the rules.
In that case, we tend to believe we can fix ourselves if we just try a little harder. But, once we realize how impossible that is, we either have to admit that we need help or pretend that we didn’t see what we saw.
Therefore, I’ve concluded that this whole rejection of God thing has very little to do with scientific advancements or too much light but is, rather, a closing of eyes against that light. Modern people actually ignore Christ and turn to other gods for the same ancient reason that the Old Testament Israelites did. Because the real God shows them things about themselves that they don’t want to see.