Do You See Anything?

In today's Good News (Mark 8: 23-24) we read, Putting spittle on his eyes he laid his hands on him and asked, "Do you see anything?" Looking up he replied, "I see people looking like trees and walking."


In Mark's short little account of Jesus restoring a blind man's sight we see that it took two attempts to make him clearly see. I'm one who has worn glasses since 10. When I take them off I see fuzzy, hazy, not so clearly, just as the blind man sort of describes after Jesus first touch.


Many times in my life I feel like I'm walking around at the first stage of seeing when it comes to all that is going on around me. It generally takes a second touch which can come in many ways to make me see clearly. Lately it's come from a woman who has been a member of Pax Christi in Boston whose tireless efforts against many odds including the church has made me see much better.

There have been many people throughout history who have prodded us and poked us and in their own way put 'spittle on our eyes' to make us see the injustices all around - things that I'm sure causes Juses to cry in seeing how we act towards one another. Some have told us about their dreams, such as Martin Luther King Jr. in his famous speech, I Have a Dream.

I know your time is important but take a few minutes either now or later to read the following written by Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

I have seen the truth; I have seen and I know that people can be beautiful and happy without losing the power of living on earth. I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of mankind. And it is just this faith of mine that they laugh at. But how can I help believing it? I have seen the truth — it is not as though I had invented it with my mind, I have seen it, seen it, and the living image of it has filled my soul for ever. I have seen it in such full perfection that I cannot believe that it is impossible for people to have it. And so how can I go wrong? I shall make some slips no doubt, and shall perhaps talk in second-hand language, but not for long: the living image of what I saw will always be with me and will always correct and guide me. Oh, I am full of courage and freshness, and I will go on and on if it were for a thousand years! Do you know, at first I meant to conceal the fact that I corrupted them, but that was a mistake — that was my first mistake! But truth whispered to me that I was lying, and preserved me and corrected me. But how establish paradise — I don't know, because I do not know how to put it into words. After my dream I lost command of words. All the chief words, anyway, the most necessary ones. But never mind, I shall go and I shall keep talking, I won't leave off, for anyway I have seen it with my own eyes, though I cannot describe what I saw. But the scoffers do not understand that. It was a dream, they say, delirium, hallucination. Oh! As though that meant so much! And they are so proud! A dream! What is a dream? And is not our life a dream? I will say more. Suppose that this paradise will never come to pass (that I understand), yet I shall go on preaching it. And yet how simple it is: in one day, in one hour everything could be arranged at once! The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that's the chief thing, and that's everything; nothing else is wanted — you will find out at once how to arrange it all. And yet it's an old truth which has been told and retold a billion times — but it has not formed part of our lives! The consciousness of life is higher than life, the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness — that is what one must contend against. And I shall. If only everyone wants it, it can be arranged at once.


Yes, people who strive for peace and justice are labeled, weak, ridiculous, and sad to say even un-American.

Lord, please touch my eyes once more, in order for me to see more clearly.