It all began last week when the entire family was here. I found myself reading
sentences—sometimes entire pages—before realizing that that my mind was simply
elsewhere. With my eyes moving along the paragraphs, taking in the ordered
sentences as if my mind pronounced each word into a room with no
vacancy. I was reading in a way that can't even be called half-hearted. I’ve
concluded that much of the issue was for the fact of trying to multi-task; proving I could keep up with what was happening all around me. Bettyann was in the the kitchen with the daughter working on a meal, chattering away, Mitch and Jason were on the opened porch in conversation and the gradchildren were doing whatever. I was trying to catch hearing a glimpse of each. Was my desire to be a part of each conversation or activity? After all, we hadn't been all together like this for a year or so. I really don't know, but I do know it wasn't working for my main objective: reading. I'm thinking that, evidently, at seventy two, the practical spirit of
multi-tasking isn't always practical. I’m even more chagrined to realize when Bets
provides me a to-do list, I do much better at tasks. Mentally outlining my to-do
list while reading Tolstoy isn't reading Tolstoy. Hearing the words, I have
heard nothing. I walk away from the paragraphs as if never seeing the sentences
at all.
So it is distinctly possible, as Jesus once stated, to see without seeing, and to hear without hearing. I do it often, and not only with Tolstoy.
Like all communication there are degrees to which, I can hear the stories of Scripture, the words of Christ. There are levels of interest, concentration, and understanding. Like all metaphors there are levels in seeing, layers to uncover, depths that call for attentiveness. Jesus's parables, conversations, and descriptions of reality ring in my ears on many wavelengths. I can hear them as moral fables, abstract stories, truthful similes and images, great and awful mysteries at which I do well to pay attention, words I must try my hardest to ignore. Like the Pharisees who fumed as Jesus told the parable of the tenants, I might even recognize myself in the storyline. But it’s the way I react to these mirrored images that are of significance.
I ask myself; Bill, what does it take to look into your shaving mirror and step out of the shower as if completely forgetting what you have seen? I’m finding, as with my less than half-hearted reading, not much. When the Pharisees saw themselves in the words of Jesus's parable, they were furious. Wholeheartedly, they began scheming a strategy to silence him. Ironically, they were plotting to do exactly what the parable said they would do.
I’m discovering Christianity describes this world with a wealth of detail. But more than a system whereby I believe certain information and thus call myself, Christian, it is a transforming way; it is intended to be life itself. If I merely hear God's words, or half-see reflections of truth, I’m actually missing everything. I don’t think such a response cannot even be called half-hearted. Like the pages I have read mindlessly—lifelessly—in seeing I have seen nothing, hearing I have heard nothing. The writer of the New Testament book of James, in the first chapter, describes this as common self-deception, "If any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like".
As when the Pharisees saw themselves in Jesus's words, so my own reflections wait to be noticed in his words. A response is inescapable; I will hear and live into a new story, or I will walk away as if never hearing.
Upon Jesus's telling of the parable of the tenants, his hearers walk away from the mirror holding only vacant memories. Though they saw themselves in the story, they walked away from this knowledge. Furthermore, Mark recounts, "Then they looked for a way to arrest him because they knew he had spoken the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left him and went away"
Bill, will you intentionally embrace in your seeing what you see? Will you intentionally embrace in your hearing what you hear?
So it is distinctly possible, as Jesus once stated, to see without seeing, and to hear without hearing. I do it often, and not only with Tolstoy.
Like all communication there are degrees to which, I can hear the stories of Scripture, the words of Christ. There are levels of interest, concentration, and understanding. Like all metaphors there are levels in seeing, layers to uncover, depths that call for attentiveness. Jesus's parables, conversations, and descriptions of reality ring in my ears on many wavelengths. I can hear them as moral fables, abstract stories, truthful similes and images, great and awful mysteries at which I do well to pay attention, words I must try my hardest to ignore. Like the Pharisees who fumed as Jesus told the parable of the tenants, I might even recognize myself in the storyline. But it’s the way I react to these mirrored images that are of significance.
I ask myself; Bill, what does it take to look into your shaving mirror and step out of the shower as if completely forgetting what you have seen? I’m finding, as with my less than half-hearted reading, not much. When the Pharisees saw themselves in the words of Jesus's parable, they were furious. Wholeheartedly, they began scheming a strategy to silence him. Ironically, they were plotting to do exactly what the parable said they would do.
I’m discovering Christianity describes this world with a wealth of detail. But more than a system whereby I believe certain information and thus call myself, Christian, it is a transforming way; it is intended to be life itself. If I merely hear God's words, or half-see reflections of truth, I’m actually missing everything. I don’t think such a response cannot even be called half-hearted. Like the pages I have read mindlessly—lifelessly—in seeing I have seen nothing, hearing I have heard nothing. The writer of the New Testament book of James, in the first chapter, describes this as common self-deception, "If any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like".
As when the Pharisees saw themselves in Jesus's words, so my own reflections wait to be noticed in his words. A response is inescapable; I will hear and live into a new story, or I will walk away as if never hearing.
Upon Jesus's telling of the parable of the tenants, his hearers walk away from the mirror holding only vacant memories. Though they saw themselves in the story, they walked away from this knowledge. Furthermore, Mark recounts, "Then they looked for a way to arrest him because they knew he had spoken the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left him and went away"
Bill, will you intentionally embrace in your seeing what you see? Will you intentionally embrace in your hearing what you hear?
Father God,
thank You for Your Spirits’ conviction that I might not continue to be dull in any
of my senses during these last chapters of aging. Amen
