by Michèle Sinnott               Ireland                 30.03.2023

Welcome back and glad you can be here again this morning…
And so, together we move to the Fifth Lenten Stepping Stone to Pause On…
Outer Vision, Inner Vision…

Last Sundayè’s Gospel offered the story about the healing of the man who was blind from birth. Though my own sight is most definitely becoming more dependent on my glasses for clarity, (a reality with which maybe some of you can identify!), I can’t imagine what it must be like to have no sight, no vision at all…living life, missing so much that we all just simply take for granted.
I was grabbed by the word blind…

began to think about other ways, apart from visual impairment, through which blindness can come into our lives…
My mind meandered off on its own trail…

Some of the signposts met along the way directed my thoughts to
•that which we might like to turn a blind eye to and camouflage within ourselves
• aspects of ourselves we try to blind from those around us…
•the ways in which we can be blinded within Our Inner Selves…
•the struggles of being blinded to the True Path…
•the empty places to where we can find ourselves going, seeking a clearer vision of the way forward…maybe blind to their destructiveness…
• the Spiritual Blindness that we all might experience from time to time…

These are just a few simple, yet complex thoughts, that slowed me down along the way…
I’m sure you may well have others you can add to them…

• What does “Blind” awaken in you?
• Where might you find yourself resonating with something said here?
• Is there an insight you might like to share back with me?

Like the blind man, there is always something in us in need of healing…
His obvious need was external…

His healing, opening a whole new vista around him…though I don’t doubt for a second, that there is a Deeper Spiritual Healing in the underlying story…
a healing that was needed too, but maybe not so obvious to the naked eye…

Let’s not be blinded to the potential truths that possibly lie in some of these lines for all of us too…

Perhaps this week, we might authentically engage the stirrings around this theme, within our Own Unique Internal Worlds…

And as we do, be open to gently awakening our Inner Vision, to that, be it obvious or not quite so, which might be calling for Healing’s Embrace in our own lives…

Happy Pondering!

Editor’s Note:  Michèle Sinnott works as a Spiritual Director/Companion, in Bereavement Support, Meditation and Retreat Facilitation. She writes Reflective pieces and has a Contemplative, Earth-based Spirituality.