True Sight - March 23
Today’s Readings: AM Psalm [120], 121, 122, 123; PM Psalm 124, 125, 126, [127]; Jer. 25:8-17; Rom. 10:1-13; John 9:18-41
Today’s Reflection
On Sunday afternoons throughout Lent, a small group of us has been meeting to discuss a collection of poems called The Word in the Wilderness: A Poem a Day for Lent and Easter. Edited by poet Malcolm Guite, who is also a priest in the Church of England, each week’s poems take up a specific theme appropriate for Lent. This past week, the poems chosen were all on the theme of balancing knowledge of the self with knowledge of the world and knowledge of the Divine. To explore this theme, Guite paired excerpts from two long poems, “Nosce Te ipsum (Know Thyself)” by John Davies (a contemporary of Shakespeare) and “In Memoriam” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Poet Laureate of England during the Victorian era).
John Davies wrote his 2,000-line poem (don’t worry, we only read about 125 of them), titled “Know Thyself,” during the reign of Elizabeth I, an era not only of great flourishing in the arts, but also of expanding the boundaries of the known world through both scientific exploration and travel by sea.
We that acquaint our selves with every Zone
And pass both Tropics and behold the Poles,
When we come home, are to our selves unknown,
And unacquainted still with our own souls.
We study Speech but others we persuade;
We leech-craft learn, but others cure with it;
We interpret laws, which other men have made,
But read not those which in our hearts are writ.
Is it because the mind is like the eye,
Through which it gathers knowledge by degrees—
Whose rays reflect not, but spread outwardly:
Not seeing itself when other things it sees?
Through writing these lines of verse, Davies is working through a timeless human struggle: the struggle to know ourselves. In an age of discovery, when gaining knowledge of the physical world was associated with increased power and influence, Davies’ instinct was to push back through his poetry to reflect on how we are “unacquainted still with our own souls.” As Davies continued to reflect in a later section of this lengthy poem,
But as the sharpest eye discerneth nought,
Except the sun-beams in the air doe shine:
So the best soul with her reflecting thought,
Sees not her self without some light divine.
As Guite reflects, “Davies concludes that we cannot account for the world and ourselves unless we look beyond ourselves to a source, a maker both of ourselves and of the world in which we participate. We must begin by acknowledging the mystery of our own minds; we must cast back upon ourselves what Davies called … ‘our understanding light.’ In so doing, Davies believes, we will encounter another light…. A light that is at once the source of our consciousness and the source of the world of which we are conscious.”
Today’s Gospel passage from John 9 is a continuation of the story of Jesus healing a man born blind by applying a mixture of mud and saliva, and then telling him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. The man did what Jesus said and regained his sight. But then some began to question whether he had ever really been blind to begin with and began to question him about his experience of being healed by Jesus: “So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, ‘Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.’ He answered, ‘I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see’” (John 9: 24-25). This man is confident that what he experienced is true, and he holds onto his faith even while facing great pressure to recant his experience. Jesus then re-enters the scene, finds the man whose sight he restored, and asked him:
‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ He answered, ‘And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.’ He said, ‘Lord, I believe.’ And he worshipped him. Jesus said, ‘I came into this world for judgement so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.’ Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, ‘Surely we are not blind, are we?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains” (John 9: 35-41).
The people who were questioning this man’s experience were basing their questions merely on knowledge gained in the physical world—they had access only to evidence that could be gathered through their senses.
This whole incident, though, is pointing us all toward a more transcendent knowledge. Jesus is not trying to make a point about losing or gaining one’s physical ability to see. Rather, Jesus is talking more so about the ability to see with the eyes of our heart. Do we have spiritual insight into ourselves and who we are in relationship to God and to our world? When this man regained his physical sight, he also came away with faith and spiritual insight that allowed him to say, “I believe.”
—Becky+
Questions for Self-Reflection
In what ways do you feel spiritually unable to see clearly? What practice might you take up—or let go of—that would allow you to see yourself, your life circumstances, and our world through a more transcendent, spiritual point of view?
Daily Challenge
Try reading this week’s poems in Malcolm Guite’s The Word in the Wilderness collection, which share the theme “Prayer that Pierces” (the full poems along with audio of Guite reading them are posted on his blog).
Or, if you are intrigued by the excerpts included in today’s reflection, you can find the texts of last week’s poems by John Davies and Alfred, Lord Tennyson on Guite’s blog, too.