{"id":868,"date":"2016-05-26T16:34:57","date_gmt":"2016-05-26T21:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=868"},"modified":"2016-06-21T16:37:15","modified_gmt":"2016-06-21T21:37:15","slug":"overcoming-spiritual-blindness-u","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=868","title":{"rendered":"Overcoming Spiritual Blindness (U)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday of the 8th<\/sup> Week in Ordinary Time<\/h3>\n

1 Peter 2: 2-5, 9-12; Mark 10: 46-52<\/h3>\n

Dc. Larry Brockman<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Blindness!\u00a0 Something all of us fear.\u00a0 Imagine what it would be like not to see in this beautiful world of ours like God\u2019s creative work in nature- the mountains and the sea; God\u2019s gift of life- a newborn baby; or God\u2019s energy manifest through the wonderful works made by the hand of man.<\/p>\n

And yet even worse than physical blindness is spiritual blindness.\u00a0 Jesus often criticized the Pharisees, who knew the law of the Lord, but didn\u2019t see the intent of the law.\u00a0 They suffered from spiritual blindness!\u00a0 And likewise, he praised the children of the world, whose innocence and openness made them receptive and not blind.<\/p>\n

Bartimaeus was a truly lucky man.\u00a0 He was fortunate enough to be open spiritually to Jesus message because he had trained himself to be discriminating about what his senses told him.\u00a0 He had to be discriminating- he couldn\u2019t see.\u00a0 And so, he was open to the \u201cpure spiritual milk\u201d that Peter was talking about.\u00a0 He was so blessed by his simple faith, that his physical blindness was healed as well.<\/p>\n

Lest we be too critical of the Pharisees, it is fair to say that all of us can suffer from the same kind of blindness.\u00a0 First, it is easy for us who do see to be blinded by what we see and have seen.\u00a0 It\u2019s a kind of sensory overload- sight, sound, and all of the other senses bombarded by so much all day long, all the time so that we don\u2019t see the truly meaningful amongst the chaff.\u00a0 Second, we hear and see some things so often, that they don\u2019t register with us, and their meaning can escape us.\u00a0 And lastly, we are blinded by expectations based on what we have heard and seen.\u00a0 Propaganda works like that.\u00a0 If you show people something often enough, and tell them something often enough, they can be convinced that it is true, even when it isn\u2019t.\u00a0 Real truth, real understanding, is something that is a gift from God.<\/p>\n

And so, \u201csighted\u201d folks need to be careful.\u00a0 We need time out occasionally- time to close off the loud noises and the vibrant sights; long enough so that we will be open to the \u201cpure spiritual milk\u201d that Peter talks about; time in which we put aside our prejudices and expectations and what everybody else is doing and saying so that we can reflect on what our conscience tells us. and what God is urging through His Spirit.\u00a0 Only then can we truly say,\u00a0 \u201cI see\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday of the 8th Week in Ordinary Time 1 Peter 2: 2-5, 9-12; Mark 10: 46-52 Dc. Larry Brockman   Blindness!\u00a0 Something all of us fear.\u00a0 Imagine what it would be like not to see in this beautiful world of ours like God\u2019s creative work in nature- the mountains and the sea; God\u2019s gift of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[31],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=868"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":869,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868\/revisions\/869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}