Читать книгу Theopoetics - Phillip Michael Garner - Страница 5

With the Eyes of God

If he touches me and opens my eyes

I shudder at the thought

To see the world with the vision of God

Like the blind man of old my vision was blurred but clearing

Is it heaven I see emerging in me

Forgive me O Lord

Seeing my blindness grips me with pain

In the eyes of my friends I have become a madman

I am as one misunderstood, an alien, an exile

Your hope has become my imagination

As you draw closer

I refuse to look away

It is your ways that I have not seen

My death comes near as my sight clears

I see a world to come living in me

With my last breath I will speak of your love

I will demand justice

Cry out for peace

Stand alongside the poor and oppressed

I was blind but now I see

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,”

Luke 4:18

Blindness

A visionless soul cannot imagine beyond the status quo. It is to this condition that Jesus applied the word blindness. The healing of this blindness results in the witness of an uncompromising life; in a person who lives the vision of an alternate reality; this is Jesus› reality, it is born of God. For this reason Christianity is more than dogma, more than reason, more than words, it is a way of living.

It is not a better argument that changes the world; it is a better life, a life marked by a power that can only be termed Spirit. A better argument is not effective because words are like spirit; they are invisible to the blind. This truth would prompt Jesus to make statements like, “Come and see” and “Follow me”.

When the gospel is understood in all the fullness of its message and meaning it makes sense of reality. For this reason, communal movements toward the utopian, the ideal, the reign of God can embody a better argument for how humanity is to live, and how the world will be governed. However those arguments press against the power of normalized structures established by culture and the state.

The loss of order is a fear that holds each individual back from embracing their power as creators of reality.

People are in need of order, yet they should fear ordering the world offered by mandates of institutional or legal power because regulations stagnate, they limit damage but do not exemplify Spirit. Of course Jesus, through his life, taught his followers to tolerate the powers of government and taxation so that they could embody a greater power; the reign of God in humanity.

Those people who acquire the most also fear the most. It is not God who they fear, but suffering. They ignore the poor and suffering because without faith, suffering is meaningless and personal or national security becomes their god. To ignore the suffering of the poor is to live unethically and defy the voice of morality that comes from God. The attempt to provide meaning through acquisition, through self-empowerment, is to avoid experiencing the meaningless of a life without faith. Such an effort is self-deification and ignores the connectedness of each person with one another and with creation. It is the birthplace of desire and it is natural to human beings. Only when we become spirit and open our eyes to reality can we overcome desire.

This misguided effort to become meaningful is impotent because of mortality, bringing the eternal into the temporal through acts of love is to bring God into the world and such echoes into eternity. Human beings cannot escape suffering, they either harden their hearts to it, or recognize that suffering has meaning because God is watching, because God cares about how we live in relation to one another. Ultimately we do not possess life in ourselves; life is a gift from God.

Blindness is healed when eyes are opened. Love is the healing salve that mediates healing to the fearful; everyone is afraid and everyone wants to be loved. Love is irrational, love is self-sacrificing, love is not selfish and offers mercy to all. The love of God flows through a life, a person, whose belief in the goodness of God is supported by a conviction that opens the heart of the blind who long to see.