Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Isaiah 35:5-6
Scripture documents Jesus’ healing miracles for those of us who were not there to witness them – a touch of saliva to eyes and tongue, fingers placed in ears, words that give new life to paralyzed limbs.
As a physician who has worked with many tools in healing over forty years, I do know the power of spoken words, or the comforting touch, but never used saliva and mud.
There is nothing I can do with those simple means to reverse the irreversible. Of course many medical “miracles” happen every day in the 21st century, but the spit and words of the 1st century are far more miraculous because of from Whom they came.
These ancient miracles took place when a willing heart met Mercy head on. No surgery required, no expensive medications, no magnetic imaging, no robotic procedures. In comparison to the skills of the ultimate Physician, I’m humbled in my obvious limitations. I myself was a blind, deaf, dumb and lame healer, immobilized until I underwent a modern heart-opening procedure myself. Not just a cardiac intervention to dilate my coronary arteries, but the knowledge that my spiritual heart has been opened wide.
Grateful, I become unstoppable, as I too now leap and shout for joy.
Holding the arms of his helper, the blind Piano tuner comes to our piano. He hesitates at first, but once he finds The keyboard, his hands glide over the slow Keys, ringing changes finer than the eye Can see. The dusty wires he touches, row On row, quiver like bowstrings as he Twists them one notch tighter. He runs his Finger along a wire, touches the dry Rust to his tongue, breaks into a pure bliss And tells us, “One year more of damp weather Would have done you in, but I’ve saved it this Time. Would one of you play now, please? I hear It better at a distance.” My wife plays Stardust. The blind man stands and smiles in her Direction, then disappears into the blaze Of new October. Now the afternoon, The long afternoon that blurs in a haze Of music…Chopin nocturnes, Clair de lune, All the old familiar, unfamiliar Music-lesson pieces, Papa’s Haydn’s Dead and gone, gently down the stream…Hours later, After the last car has doused its beams, Has cooled down and stopped its ticking, I hear Our cat, with the grace of animals free To move in darkness, strike one key only, And a single lucid drop of water stars my dream. ~Gibbons Ruark “The Visitor”
When I was a child I once sat sobbing on the floor Beside my mother’s piano As she played and sang For there was in her singing A shy yet solemn glory My smallness could not hold
And when I was asked Why I was crying I had no words for it I only shook my head And went on crying
Why is it that music At its most beautiful Opens a wound in us An ache a desolation Deep as a homesickness For some far-off And half-forgotten country
I’ve never understood Why this is so
But there’s an ancient legend From the other side of the world That gives away the secret Of this mysterious sorrow
For centuries on centuries We have been wandering But we were made for Paradise As deer for the forest
And when music comes to us With its heavenly beauty It brings us desolation For when we hear it We half remember That lost native country
We dimly remember the fields Their fragrant windswept clover The birdsongs in the orchards The wild white violets in the moss By the transparent streams
And shining at the heart of it Is the longed-for beauty Of the One who waits for us Who will always wait for us In those radiant meadows
Yet also came to live with us And wanders where we wander. ~Anne Porter “Music” from Living Things
I learned today that John Grace recently died at age 92; John was the blind piano tuner who tended and tuned our family’s old Kranich & Bach baby grand through the 60’s and 70’s until it moved with me to Seattle. When I saw his photo online in The Olympian newspaper, it took me back sixty years to his annual visits to our home, accompanied by a friend who drove him to his jobs, who guided him up the sidewalk to our front door and then waited for him to finish his work.
I was the 8 year old reason my great Aunt Marian had given us her beloved piano when she downsized from her huge Bellingham house into an apartment. I was fascinated watching John make the old strings sing harmonically again. He seemed right at home working on the innards of our piano, but appeared to truly enjoy ours, always ending his tuning session by sitting down on the bench and playing a familiar old hymn, smiling a broad smile.
There was no doubt his unseeing eyes made him a great piano tuner. He was fixed on the unseen, undistracted by what was unimportant to his job. He could “feel” the right pitch, not just hear it. He could sense the wire tension without seeing it. He touched the keys and wood with reverence, not distracted by the blemishes and bleaching in the mahogany, or the chips in the ivory.
I learned something about music from John, without him saying much of anything. He built a successful business in our town during a time you could count the black citizens on one hand. He spoke very little while he worked so I never asked him questions although I wish I had. It was as if he somehow transcended our troubled world through his art and skill. Though blind, when he was with a piano, he could move freely in the darkness, hearing and feeling what I could not. Perhaps it was because he was visited by a beauty and peacefulness we all long for, seen and unseen.
It occurs to me now, sixty years after observing him work, John Grace was just a step ahead in recognizing the voice of Jesus in our midst through the music he made possible.
Though he was blind, there is no doubt in my mind – he could see.
Yea when this flesh and heart shall fail And mortal life shall cease. I shall possess within the veil, A life of joy and peace.
This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is taken from 2 Corinthians 4: 18: So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
We grow accustomed to the Dark — When Light is put away — As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp To witness her Good bye —
A Moment — We Uncertain step For newness of the night — Then — fit our Vision to the Dark — And meet the Road — erect —
And so of larger — Darknesses — Those Evenings of the Brain — When not a Moon disclose a sign — Or Star — come out — within —
The Bravest — grope a little — And sometimes hit a Tree Directly in the Forehead — But as they learn to see —
Either the Darkness alters — Or something in the sight Adjusts itself to Midnight — And Life steps almost straight. ~Emily Dickinson
photo by Bob Tjoelker
So few grains of happiness measured against all the dark and still the scales balance.
The world asks of us only the strength we have and we give it. Then it asks more, and we give it. ~Jane Hirschfield from “The Weighing”
I admit that I’m stumbling about in the dark right now, bearing the bruises and scrapes of random collisions with objects hidden in the night.
My eyes must slowly adjust to such bare illumination, as the Lamp has been carried away. I must feel my way through this time of life.
I suspect there are fellow darkness travelers who also have lost their way and their Light, giving what they can and sometimes more.
And so, blinded as we each are, we run forehead-first into the Tree which has always been there and always will be.
Because of who we are and Who loves us, we, now free and forgiven, follow a darkened road nearly straight, all the way Home.
May you see God’s light on the path ahead when the road you walk is dark. May you always hear even in your hour of sorrow the gentle singing of the lark. When times are hard may hardness never turn your heart to stone. May you always remember when the shadows fall– You do not walk alone.
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In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t. ~Blaise Pascal
Be comforted; the world is very old, And generations pass, as they have passed, A troop of shadows moving with the sun; Thousands of times has the old tale been told; The world belongs to those who come the last, They will find hope and strength as we have done. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “A Shadow”
The shadow’s the thing. If I no longer see shadows as “dark marks,” as do the newly sighted, then I see them as making some sort of sense of the light. They give the light distance; they put it in its place. They inform my eyes of my location here, here O Israel, here in the world’s flawed sculpture, here in the flickering shade of the nothingness between me and the light. ~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
I find myself seeking the safety of hiding in the shadows under a rock where lukewarm moderates tend to congregate, especially on Sundays.
Extremist views predominate simply for the sake of staking out one’s claim to one’s political turf. There is no spirit of compromise, negotiation or collaboration – that would be perceived as a sign of weakness. Instead it is “my way or the wrong way.”
I’m ready to say “no way,” as both sides are intolerably intolerant of the other as I watch them volley back and forth over my cowering head. As someone who is currently volunteering oodles of hours to help manage a community’s response to end COVID controlling our lives, I find myself smack dab in the middle of extremes.
The chasm is most gaping when we bring up any discussion of faith and how it influences our response to the pandemic. Religion and politics are already angry neighbors constantly arguing over how high to build the fence between them, what it should be made out of, what color it should be, should there be peek holes, should it be electrified with barbed wire to prevent moving back and forth, should there be a gate with or without a lock and who pays for the labor. Add in a pandemic to argue about and we become stymied and paralyzed.
In a country founded on the principle of freedom of religion, there are more and more who believe our forefathers’ blood was shed for freedom from religion and others feel there can be only one religion here.
Yet others feel we are founded on freedom from science and epidemiological data, because what possibly can those researchers know when the random person on YouTube says something far more palatable?
Good grief.
Give us the right to believe in nothing whatsoever or give us death. Perhaps both actually go together.
And so it goes. We the people bring out the worst in our leadership as facts are distorted, the truth is stretched or completely abandoned, unseemly pandering abounds and curried favors are served for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Enough already. Time for the shadows to abate and the Light to shine.
In the midst of this morass, we who want to believe still choose to believe but won’t force belief on anyone else. It’s called freedom of religion for a reason.
There is just enough Light shining for those who seek it. No need to remain blinded in the shadowlands of unbelief or “my way or the highway.”
I’ll come out from under my rock if you do.
In fact…I think I just did.
A book of beauty in words and photography, available to order here:
I dwell in Possibility – A fairer House than Prose – More numerous of Windows – Superior – for Doors –
Of Chambers as the Cedars – Impregnable of eye – And for an everlasting Roof The Gambrels of the Sky –
Of Visitors – the fairest – For Occupation – This – The spreading wide my narrow Hands To gather Paradise – ~Emily Dickinson
The possibilities contained within a Dickinson poem are doors and windows standing wide open for interpretation and comprehension. When I visit Emily’s dwelling full of mysterious capitalizations, inscrutable dashes and sideways rhymes, I am blind, get easily lost, stumbling over this and that, and end up wondering where she is leading me and how far I’m willing to go.
Yet she tells me – This – to get my attention, hold it fast, to look up and out, beyond, and into forever.
-This- is what I must do when I read her carefully chosen words and dashes -This- is what I ask of a reader who opens my email or comes to my daily post -This- is us dwelling in possibility for a moment or an eternity, all eyes and windows and doors wide open to grasp a glimpse of Paradise.
-This- is our hands spread, ready to gather, to hold, to embrace, to pray, to fold to prepare us for Whatever Comes Next…
photo by Sara Larsen
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What is the crying at Jordan? Who hears, O God, the prophecy? Dark is the season, dark our hearts and shut to mystery.
Who then shall stir in this darkness prepare for joy in the winter night? Mortal in darkness we lie down, blind-hearted, seeing no light.
Lord, give us grace to awake us, to see the branch that begins to bloom; in great humility is hid all heaven in a little room.
Now comes the day of salvation, in joy and terror the Word is born! God gives himself into our lives; Oh, let salvation dawn! ~Carol Christopher Drake
We, His people, move from joy at the wooden manger to despair at the wooden cross; God sees us as we stumble along, blind-hearted.
We are bound up tight as a bud reluctant to bloom.
He gives Himself to us; He brings joy to our miserable and dark existence; He dies for us; He rises to give us eternal hope of salvation; He calls us by name so we’ll open up and recognize Him.
This mystery is too much for those unwilling to accept that such sacrifice is possible. We are blind to the possibility that His Spirit cannot be measured, touched, weighed or tracked, yet has the power to stir and overwhelm darkness. We prefer the safety of remaining tight as an unopened bud, hid in the little room of our hearts rather than risk the transition to full blossom and fruitfulness.
Yet God sees us as we are: budding potential.
Lord, give us grace in our blindness, having given us Yourself. Prepare us for embracing your mystery. Prepare us for joy. Prepare us to bloom.
This year’s Lenten theme on Barnstorming:
God sees us as we are, loves us as we are, and accepts us as we are. But by His grace, He does not leave us where we are. ~Tim Keller
Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. John 21:12
It’s so easy to look and see what we pass through in this world, but we don’t. If you’re like me, you see so little. You see what you expect to see rather than what’s there. ~Frederick Buechner from The Remarkable Ordinary
It is too easy by the next day to let go of Easter — to slide back into the Monday routine, managing our best to survive each day, teeth gritted, as we have before.
We were blind, thinking Him the Gardener as He passed by; we just don’t pay attention to Who is right before us, tending us.
God knows this about us. So He meets us for breakfast on Monday and every day thereafter and feeds us, a tangible and meaningful act of nourishing us in our most basic human needs though we’ve done nothing to deserve the gift. He cooks up fish on a beach at dawn and invites us to join Him though we have done nothing to deserve it.
The night before he shared a meal and broke bread in Emmaus to open the eyes and hearts of the blinded.
It is time to open our eyes, our minds, our hearts to Who this really is. This is no mere Gardener.
When He offers me a meal of His Word, I will accept it with open eyes of gratitude, knowing the gift He hands me is nothing less than Himself.
How late I came to love you, O Beauty so ancient and so fresh, how late I came to love you.
You were within me, yet I had gone outside to seek you.
Unlovely myself, I rushed toward all those lovely things you had made. And always you were with me. I was not with you.
All those beauties kept me far from you – although they would not have existed at all unless they had their being in you.
You called, you cried, you shattered my deafness.
You sparkled, you blazed, you drove away my blindness.
You shed your Fragrance, and I drew in my breath and I pant for you, I tasted and now I hunger and thirst. You touched me, and now I burn with longing. ~St. Augustine
God spoke
but I didn’t listen.
God fed me
but I chose junk food.
God showed me beauty
but I couldn’t see Him.
God smelled like the finest rose
but I turned away.
God touched me
but I was numb.
So He sent His Son
as Word and food,
beauty and fragrance,
reaching out broken hands
so I would know
my hunger and thirst
is only and always
for Him alone.
I wonder if I know enough to know what it’s really like
to have been here: have I seen sights enough to give
seeing over: the clouds, I’ve waited with white
October clouds like these this afternoon often before and
taken them in, but white clouds shade other white
ones gray, had I noticed that: and though I’ve
followed the leaves of many falls, have I spent time with
the wire vines left when frost’s red dyes strip the leaves
away: is more missing than was never enough: I’m sure
many of love’s kinds absolve and heal, but were they passing
rapids or welling stirs: I suppose I haven’t done and seen
enough yet to go, and, anyway, it may be way on on the way
before one picks up the track of the sufficient, the
world-round reach, spirit deep, easing and all, not just mind
answering itself but mind and things apprehended at once
as one, all giving all way, not a scrap of question holding back. ~A.R. Ammons “Finishing Up”
I find I’m blind too often: staring at leaves without seeing the tree, admiring clouds without acknowledging the backdrop of sky, appreciating the fruit but not the vine.
I need to look at the world in the same way God looks at me; but for His love, I would not be here to miss the point of being here.
I suppose I haven’t done and seen
enough yet to go…
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There was an entire aspect to my life that I had been blind to — the small, good things that came in abundance. ~Mary Karr from The Art of Memoir
Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it — every, every minute?
We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
~Thornton Wilder, quotes from “Our Town”
I once was lost but now am found Was blind but now I see… ~John Newton from “Amazing Grace”
~~And so I continue to work in the soil of this life, this work, this farm, this faith
to find what yearns to grow, to bloom, to fruit and be harvested to share with others.
With deep gratitude to those of you who visit here and let me know it makes a difference in your day — here is the small and the good from my harvest of words and pictures for you.
