A Box of Possibilities

What does it mean to really see?

Dear Friends,

I had the longest eye exam of my life the other day.

To be clear, I’ve worn glasses for 27 years. I’m not new to this whole thing. Where I live now, though, I get my eye exams through a major regional optometry program – which means students are attempting to work out the details of my mild astigmatism and generally sort of unstable vision (thank you hEDS).

Prior to this eye exam, I’d spent some of the previous year having specialty vision evaluation because I felt like nothing ever looked right. Everything always seemed sort of grainy and I wanted to know where that singular moment of crisp, perfect vision that I would experience during my exams had gone. The conclusion of all of that testing: I’m simply so near sighted at this point that things are just going to look bad, even when my vision is corrected.

All of this is to say that, as I sat in the chair having this interminable eye exam performed by the students, I was waiting for that temporary moment of clarity. And it didn’t come. Finally, the supervising doctor came into the room. And she began to manipulate the optical trial glasses – the ones with all the individual lenses you can layer and take in and out, that box of possibilities. And there it was. That moment of perfect crisp vision.

Which brings me to this week’s Gospel and one of those tricky stories: the healing of Bartimaeus.

When I think about Bartimaeus and his sight, I think less about cure and more about that moment of possibility. I know that when I go and fill my new lens prescription, my eyes will still be the way that they are. And, generally, living with disability, my body will be the way that it is – my ankles will still roll if I don’t wear my AFOs, my thumb will still slip out of place as I swipe along on my phone. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know wholeness. It doesn’t mean that I don’t wonder at improvements. For goodness sake, I haven’t just incidentally injured my hip by walking around in the 9 months since I got my AFOs and that’s amazing.

But, I certainly wonder what it means when the Gospel tells us,

Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

Jesus certainly performed signs and wonders. And many of those do seem to be about healing. And, in this age of medicine, there are ways in which those signs lose some of their power. Cataract surgery and cornea transplants can also restore vision. Organ transplants can pull people back from the brink of death. But there are things faith can do that are greater and stranger than any of those things.

Vision Versus True Sight

If you’ve pre-ordered your new, revised copy of The Complete Guide to Godly Play Volume 8, you’ll find the revised script for The Greatest Parable, and that story includes the healing of Bartimaeus. And while Bartimaeus’s sight is absolutely restored in the telling, the words we use are precise, “now he could truly see.”

In a literal sense, truly seeing is exactly what it sounds like; it may even be that perfect moment of clarity that I experience once a year or so when the optometrist hits the mark with my prescription. But maybe it’s something more miraculous still.

What if truly seeing is a clarity of mind and heart? What if it is as much the ability to see God in all people as it is the ability to see each leaf on the tree, the tiny creatures scurrying through the grass? What if truly seeing is being able to detect another’s pain so that you can come alongside them in it? Or being the person who makes others feel truly seen when they usually feel invisible?

We need people who know how to see in so many different ways to make the world turn, to hold us all in our many and varied needs. We need to see and to be seen and literal vision has very little to do with that.

So sure, maybe Bartimaeus really regained normal, literal vision. And signs and wonders of this sort have their place in our common Christian story. But amidst all the things that the Bible tells us about what it means for us to be God’s people in the world, the lesson this story holds for us today may demand that metaphorical stretching, treating it more like parable, even if it was once just fact.

I wonder what makes you feel seen?
I wonder what you would like to make an effort to notice more?

Next week, I invite you, your children, whoever it is you come close to with this story on Sunday, to stay attuned to the world. Maybe you’ll see something you’ve never noticed before. Say a gift of thanks to God for that new noticing – even if you don’t like what you notice.

And if you don’t like what you see, now that you’ve seen it, how will it call you to action?

Resource Round-Up

First, the materials and events updates:

• Did you grab Illustrated Ministry’s free All Saints youth lesson plan last year? If you missed it, make sure to download this goldmine of ideas for talking about this important day with older children and teens.

• This article about simple practices for raising spiritual children, written by Lisa Miller, Ph.D. and founder of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Columbia University, Teachers College, is from 2015, but plenty of us weren’t thinking much about this stuff almost ten years ago! (I was teaching Godly Play, but I certainly wasn’t deep in the networks.) It’s not explicitly Christian, but there’s a lot of room in these meditations for particularity across beliefs, developmental needs, and other factors.

• I’m not a pro in the youth ministry space but I have definitely been more engaged with aspects of that work lately and what’s been clear in all of my conversations is that youth are deeply concerned about difficult social topics – about homelessness and poverty, war, politics, identity – and in many ways they are more equipped for navigating these conversations than adults are, or at least than we as adults may feel. That’s why I’m really excited about Season 2 of PC(USA)’s Around the Table podcast which is focused on how we come alongside young people in discussing difficult topics. The lineup includes:

  • Oct. 18: Nicole Doyley, “Hard Conversations: Talking About Mixed-Race Households

  • Oct. 25: “Election Conversation”

  • Nov. 1: The Rev. Dr. Rodger Nishioka, “Hard Conversations and Faith”

  • Nov. 8: Dan Davis, “Hard Conversations About Raising Young Men”

  • Nov. 22: Tandra Rutledge, “Hard Conversations About Suicide Awareness.”

• Registration is open for Forma! While it will be “radically hybrid” again this year, almost every Episcopal province will be hosting an in-person gathering option, so make sure that you check the on-site gathering options. I’ll be co-coordinating in Province 1 (New England) and it promises to be a lovely opportunity for both enrichment and rest.

Advent Ahead

And, because I know we all already need to be thinking about Advent - let’s get this started. I’ll keep adding more Advent resource updates as we get closer, but the new liturgical year will be here before we know it!

• I’m co-leading an online Advent workshop for Godly Play with the extraordinary Rosemary Beales, coming up on November 2nd. It’s a great combination of practical strategies for program coordinators (what do you do when other activities like pageant preparations eat up your normal church school sessions) as well as more advanced considerations regarding how to extend your advent offerings. And don’t forget to check out the rest of the training calendar while you’re over there!

• We all know I’m a Be A Heart fangirl and their Advent/Christmas products have arrived at the warehouse. Some of these things, like the Nativity wooden puzzle, sell out quickly, so you’ll want to grab them soon! They’ve also got a really cute sticker Advent calendar that tie to seasonal saints and feast days, but won’t have you scrounging for oranges and chocolate coins or a dozen other objects to celebrate the season.

• For the grownups – Kate Bowler’s annual Advent devotional is out now. You can also find previous years’ devotionals at that central hub. This year’s theme is The Weary World Rejoices.

• I’m totally enamored by StoryMakers Advent theater set. This would have totally spoken to my paper doll loving heart as a kid and, I mean, look at that little innkeeper mouse!

  

That’s all for now!

Peace,
Bird