john on Physical Blindness

Years ago, my wife and I traveled to Kentucky where I went to seminary and decided to stop and tour Mammoth Cave. The trip marked my first and only time ever to be in a cavern like this, and I’ll neve...

Helen Keller, the blind-and-deaf woman who made history by learning to overcome her disabilities, was once asked if there was anything worse than being blind. She answered, “Oh yes! There is something...

For fifty-one years Bob Edens was blind. He couldn’t see a thing. His world was a black hall of sounds and smells. He felt his way through five decades of darkness. And then, he could see. A skilled s...

Two kinds of blindness are easily combined so that those who do not see really appear to see what is not.

The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.

In Annie Dillard's Pulitzer Prize winning book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, she mentioned the work of Marius Von Senden who became curious about the effect it had on people who had been born blind to...

What are blind spots? They are areas in which people continually fail to see themselves or their situation realistically.

I have walked with people whose eyes are full of light, but who see nothing in wood, sea, or sky, nothing in city streets, nothing in books.... It were better far to sail forever in the night of blind...

We may remark in passing that to be blind and beloved may, in this world where nothing is perfect, be among the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness. The supreme happiness in life is the assura...

If I had a choice, I would still choose to remain blind... for when I die, the first face I will ever see will be the face of my blessed Savior.

In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

Blind in heart since my birth, I come to you, Light of the World...Let me live as a child of light.

Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.

People bind themselves into political teams that share moral narratives. Once they accept a particular narrative, they become blind to alternative moral worlds.

When my grandparents were in their eighties, their television developed a fault that made the screen permanently bright green. It was good for viewing garden shows or nature programs, but it was prett...

God of healing, we look for you in all the wrong places. We assume we have figured out how you are at work. Because of this, we miss out on seeing your glory, and we fail to join with you as partners ...

James Elkins talks about how even the sense of sight is more complicated than we might believe: “Our eyes are not ours to command; they roam where they will and then tell us they have only been where ...

Humility rests upon a Holy blindedness, like the blindedness of him who looks steadily into the sun. For wherever he turns his eyes on earth, there he sees only the sun. The God-blinded soul sees naug...

Introduction Leaning Toward the Light What does it mean to lean towards the light of Christ? What does it mean to be open to the work of God? For the Pharisee in Jesus’ time, the answer was clear: y...

Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons conducted an experiment at Harvard University more than a decade ago that became infamous in psychology circles. Their book The Invisible Gorilla popularized it...

Faith is seeing the invisible, but not the nonexistent.

Vision is the ability to see God’s presence, to perceive God’s power, to focus on God’s plan In spite of the obstacles….Vision is the ability to see above and beyond the majority. Vision is perception...

By the way, I have terrible eyesight. When I don’t have my glasses on, I can see shapes and forms and colors, but not much else. And that’s sort of what I think it’s like to look at God without Jesus....

In his book, A Peculiar Glory , John Piper provides an illustration of the kind of faith we are called to. This is no “blind faith,” in which we are supposed to simply believe without using our minds...

God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. But often, we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness. By doing so, we lie and do not live out the truth. We too easily claim t...

Jesus is clear that it is dangerous to close one’s ears, eyes, and heart to the leadings of the Holy Spirit. In The Magician’s Nephew , a novel from C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series, Narnia i...

Amazing grace How sweet the sound. That saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, But now am found. Was blind, but now I see. Lord of all, you have called us toward a new way of life. Give...

Pastor: Because God is our refuge and strength, we can acknowledge our weakness and confess our sins before Him.  Because He is our fortress, we know we are secure in His grace and mercy.   Sile...

AIM Commentary Introduction Leaning Toward the Light What does it mean to lean towards the light of Christ? What does it mean to be open to the work of God? For the Pharisee in Jesus’ time, the an...

Father in Heaven, we confess that we never knew you had come down. We confess that we were in the dark as to your light among us. Though the world was created through your Word, we could not grasp the...