Blind

I like my car a lot. I like my bike still more, but my car has been faithful longer. While I was in Korea this past year I left my car here at my grandparent's house and when I got back, “tuh-yeh-yeh-yeh…” it nearly started right up! We charged the battery a bit with gpa's charger and voila, works! Golden. Faithful as ever. Nearly. I noticed over the past month that it seemed a little weak when starting up. The battery wasn't doing so hot.

Yesterday was the second time away from home that I couldn't start the car. The first time was the day before yesterday, at Grace. A friend kindly gave me a jump-start, no problem. I had left the running lights on, so... it'd been dead by "natural" causes. Yesterday, I drove to a bookstore about 20minutes away and needed another jump-start after sheepishly discovering that I'd left my wallet at home and couldn't get the book I'd left home to get. Got a jump from an electronics store nearby.

On my much delayed way home I got to the intersection where a couple weeks ago I had managed to bang myself up while bicycling. This happened when I braked too completely to keep myself from entering a soon-to-be-red intersection. My right palm is nearly healed from the accident already. This time at the intersection I noticed a man on my right waiting to cross. He was a blind man and could only go by his sense of hearing to decide whether to cross or not. I waited and watched and after a short time of no cross traffic, he charged across the intersection (while it was still green for cross traffic). There was one car coming and they slowed and waited in the middle of the intersection for him. Everyone was very gracious, and he was very bold.

I wanted to talk to the guy afterward, but instead thought about what I'd want to say. He's blind, but otherwise completely normal. He was bold, didn't let his blindness keep him from going outdoors, risking crossing busy intersections, talking with seeing people, stumbling, etc.. that's common courage. I wanted to praise that courage and let him know that I feel like I'm blind in more ways than one. Sure I can see, but there are things I don't see. There's other kinds of blindness.. relational blindness, justice blindness, a blindness to the spiritual in life, blindness to grandeur and majesty, suffering, etc.. A lot of these are learned, and some are willful. Sometimes there is simply too much to see, we filter out what we can't comprehend/deal with.

My thoughts driving away from the intersection were on where I am blind. To quote the famous "known knowns, known unknowns.. etc" I've no idea what my unknown unknowns are. Things that I don't even know I can't see. I do know about boldness though, and the inspiration the blind man at the intersection gave me is to not let my known blindness keep me from taking risks. People are often gracious, and God has shown himself to be even more so. The future is written on palms more permanent than stone and that provides all the security I need.