Blind Spots

The little bones within their ears vibrated, giving tone and texture to the voice. They all heard it. But none saw that spoken Light, save one man.

His name was Saul.

Blinded by his myopic focus on the Mosaic Law, he sat confidently on his high horse as though by divine mandate, condemned by his pride to put out the Light. 

Suddenly and conversely, blinded by the Light of the Lord, he lay on his back as one blessed with human frailty, humbly enabling him to need a relationship with the God who loves him. 

Dazed or dazzled, stricken dumb or dumb-founded? His brilliant but little mind could not even begin to take the next step on his own. So they led the little one by the hand, and in silence and stillness this neophyte of the Light began to see, little by little, just how blind he had been, and how blind he still was. The one he thought to be his enemy was now revealed as his fiercest Friend. 

Let us give him a moment, so his eyes can adjust. 

Blind spots…

We all have them. We all live out of them. And amidst those in close proximity to us we are usually the last ones to become aware of our own unique “brand.” That is the nature of a blind spot—in a particular way, we just cannot see. We just don’t know what we don’t know. 

Others perceive them, either through direct understanding or by a tacit knowledge gained by uncomfortable experience with us, in all our aberrant tendencies: 

Abrasiveness in conversation, emotional absence, ignorant remarks in arrogant certainty, a gloomy martyrdom, defensiveness, contradictions in speech and thought, hypersensitivity, a stoic unresponsiveness, inappropriate or excessive sharing, offensive jokes, taking ourselves too seriously, a fragile ego, overestimating ourselves, underestimating ourselves… 

When all the while we believe we are right on track, in tip-top shape, on the straight and narrow, fit as a fiddle, doing just fine, a good person, sharp as ever, in good form… am I belaboring the point? I’ve been told I can be long-winded at times… Nah, I’m doing just fine.

Problems with Blind Spots

Even though “I’m doing just fine,” blind spots cause real problems in our relationships.

Joy arises from life lived in harmony with God and with others. Blind spots steal from us our ability to live in a harmonious relationship. They are wrenches in the cogs of communion, jamming relationships by limiting our capacity to participate in God’s infinite joy.  

In these blind spots, we are not trustworthy, for we cannot clearly see anything or anyone: ourselves, the other, or even the situation we find ourselves in. And if we are not trustworthy, others cannot reliably entrust their hearts to us - there can be no deeper communion. Joy has found its limit. 

Intimacy finds its limit in the constraints of trust, and we will all find ourselves a little bit lonely at this juncture in a given relationship. We will be wanting more of the other, or wanting to share more of ourselves, but find that we are like ships in the night, so close and yet so far. In some ways, I think we feel the sadness of the Fall of Man in these moments more than any other. At any rate, our imperfections or the imperfections of the other will have stunted the full flowering of the relationship. 

This is sad. We feel alone. And there remains an ache for more…

Here’s the math on this so far:

The degree of trustworthiness = degree of entrustment = 

degree of intimacy and communion = degree to which joy is possible. 

(It is not that becoming trustworthy automatically brings joy, but that it makes joy within the relationship possible.)

Are we willing to see where we are blind, and work to become trustworthy there, so that joy may increase?

One of the greatest and most appropriate penances we could ever undertake is to do whatever it takes to love our relationships well. To suffer the truth of learning how we are deficient in love, and to suffer our own reintegration through surrender to Jesus so that we learn how to love. 

Said another way: one of the best gifts we could give another person is the gift of our own healing, for with it comes our capacity to love another well. 

Healing blind spots: Receiving Light and Love through Honesty and Humility

If we are willing to accept that we are in fact blind, the question then becomes: How do I become one that sees? 

Jesus says, “The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness. And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be” (Mt. 6:22-23). 

Just as physical sight requires us to open our eyes to the light, we must open our minds and hearts if we want to allow the Light of Christ to penetrate and transform us. 

Jesus is the Light. We are not the light, it comes from outside of us, but it has come into the world to enlighten us all (Jn. 1:8-9). We need the Lord if we are to see ourselves as we really are. 

We also need the love he brings. Without the love of God, it is very hard for us to receive ourselves in these difficult truths. We can quickly become discouraged. To encounter in truth the sinful disasters that we are on our own will lead us to discouragement and despair. This is often why we live in denial, continuously repeating the refrain: “I’m doing just fine.” 

The Lord in his love allows us to encounter our broken humanity. With Him, in every personal weakness, we find hope, because there we discover a near occasion of communion with the God who loves us. 

His light and love enable us to choose the two characteristics that constitute openness of heart: honesty and humility. 

Honesty acknowledges what is true, what is truly present within us.

Humility accepts what is true, and is willing to identify with what is present within us. 

I recently saw an interview where someone playfully answered some questions on a polygraph. A humble and intelligent man; he thought he was being honest, and was surprised when the polygraph flagged deception in some of his answers. Instead of writing off the polygraph system, he began pondering this reality as the interview continued. At the end, when asked about the interview, he commented that he learned there was room to grow in being honest with himself. 

He saw. 

His humility allowed light to penetrate and reveal to him his hidden dishonesty with himself, a blind spot. 

That is not an easy posture of the heart to take. It is much easier and much more common for us to write off the “polygraphs” in our lives as defective. God has given us the gift of many people in our lives to help us learn how to love, and love well. We would do well to learn from the indications they give us that we are not doing as fine as we thought we were. The encouragement here is to remember that, hard as it may be, it is the truth that sets us free (John 8:32). 

In C.S. Lewis’ “Til We Have Faces,” (a profound and multi-layered novel on self-deception and blind spots) the main character, Orual, is unable to see an invisible palace her sister Psyche professes to abide in. Desperately, Orual tries to “save” Psyche from her “delusion;” however, selfish motives are at work. The palace is real, but Orual is blind to it by her selfishness and pride. It is reasonable to her to disbelieve that her sister sees an invisible palace because Orual willfully ignores indicators that Psyche is telling the truth. She does not want it to be true. So she lies to herself in order to justify her selfish behavior. 

That is pride, and pride blinds us to the most beautiful realities of God. 

Yet, the moment Orual begins to get in touch with her thirst (she is honest), and the moment she follows her thirst to the nearby river (to the source that will satisfy it), and gets down on one knee before it (she is humble), all of a sudden the palace is revealed before her. She cannot believe what she sees, but she knows she sees it. Her honesty and humility open her spiritual eyes, enabling her to see. But you will have to pick up the book yourself to see how she responds…

There is so much the Lord wants to reveal to us, but we need his light and love, honesty and humility to see. 

Jesus will not fail to give us the light we need to see, nor the love we need to remain out of denial and to live in the truth. If we are honest and humble, and ask for the gift of his light, he will give us what we need to see, and love us into joy amidst it all (Jn 15: 9-11). 

But remember, we must be patient with ourselves, just as Jesus is patient with us.

It can take a bit as our eyes learn to adjust.