My Struggle With Shifting Paradigms

I allowed my thoughts to take me back to over fifty years ago to a time and place that I haven't thought of in at least the last forty five years. The time was 1963.  The place was Cabrillo Community College, in Aptos, California.  I had subsidized my classes at Bethany Bible College with a philosophy course.  I remember, distinctly, this twenty year old, fully hair headed, bull legged cowboy from Wyoming, being completely befuddled since arriving in California.  It seemed my entire person was turned up side down. One assignment for that philosophy class was that we were to read and write a paper on Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions which had popularized the concept of "a paradigm shift" in the realm of scientific thought. Later in life my understanding came as to struggles with personal identity and such when experiencing the duck/rabbit optical illusion used by Kuhn to demonstrate the way in which a paradigm shift could cause one to see the same information in an entirely different way. Kuhn described a paradigm shift as that which opens up new approaches to understanding that would never have been considered valid before.

After a friend had kidded me about my personal practice of following the routine of the church calendar, that’s when it kicked in for me the other morning.  The word "epiphany" offers another way to speak about paradigm shifts. To have an epiphany is to have the proverbial light bulb go off in one's head, as a new idea changes the way in which one sees or understands information. The lights are "switched on" when understanding comes. The English word epiphany comes from a Greek word meaning "manifestation or appearance." I’m thinking that an epiphany is that "a-ha" moment that comes as a result of new vision—of blindness being turned to sight. It is, to borrow from Kuhn's description, an experience of a paradigmatic shift in view. And, at seventy one years, no one knows better than myself that I need reorientation, reordering, a transformation of my view from one way of looking at the world to another.  That’s what I thing an epiphany does. 

I’m thinking I missed out on a great deal over many years by not practicing this season of Epiphany because, it seems to me, to be a season for new sight, new vision, and paradigm shifts. The season commemorates the arrival of the foreign magi at the birthplace of Jesus. Magi (not three kings of the orient as sung in the famous hymn) were a caste of wise men specializing in astrology, medicine, and natural science, which the New American Standard Bible notes reference.  As the Gospel of Matthew records it, these wise men "saw his star in the east," and recognized that this young child was worthy of worship as King.

During Epiphany, I am asked to pay special attention to the teaching and healing ministry of Jesus for the ways in which he is revealed to be the Messiah. In seeking the truth I am asked to reconsider Jesus during this season, to have my eyes opened and paradigms shifted. The author of the letter to the Hebrews invites all who would look at Jesus to see in him the very epiphany of God. "In these last days God has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the world."  Everyone who looks at his life has the opportunity to experience epiphany, and to have vision altered as time is spent looking at his life and listening to Jesus through his teachings.

I confess, on the other hand, the more aged I get, the more paradigm shifts become burs under this cowboys saddle.  They have never been easy for me, but now their becoming a down right ugly sight.  I have to keep my focus on the biblical image invoked again and again for this process of acceptance and personal action as that of moving from blindness to sight. One very ironic example is recorded for in the Gospel of John. It is the story of Jesus healing a man born blind. Using the ordinary elements of clay and his own saliva, Jesus applies the necessary ingredients to literal eyes in order to create the opportunity for spiritual sight. After the man washes the healing balm off of his eyes in the pool of Siloam, his healer is nowhere to be found. The religious leaders are incensed that healing has occurred in such an ordinary way by an ordinary man:

"How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?"

The once blind man answered, "Whether or not he is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see."

Thinking they see the situation quite clearly, the religious leaders put the formerly blind man out of the temple, cutting him off from their community, and taking away the opportunity to make sacrifice to God. Hearing this, Jesus comes to confront these leaders who claim superior knowledge and insight. The kicker for me is in paying attention to what He says in a couple of sentences in John 9:  "For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind... If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, 'We see,' your sin remains."

Father, God, I approach You today, thanking You first and foremost and then the Church fathers for this season of Epiphany.  I am thankful that this season has presented the challenging opportunity for paradigm shift. I recognize that the Christian story proposes that it is in the humble acknowledgement of blindness that I come to see anything with clarity or insight. Ironically, I confess, especially during these later years that I too often assume I know all the answers or am proud of my clever arguments or assumptions. I humbly ask Your forgiveness, Father. May the Holy Spirit convict me to allow Jesus to turn all of my paradigms upside down from this time on.  Even today, might the realization of my blindness be the paradigm shift that opens this elder's eyes.  Amen