Open Your Eyes

At regular intervals, the church I belong to holds various meetings that span two days. Recently, I was in one such meeting. When I arrived, a man was seated on the rostrum who would offer a prayer to begin the meeting.

His name is John. Before I could see his eyes, I saw his mobility cane resting against his right shoulder.

John is completely blind in both eyes. He’s a striking man. When he stood, he stood tall. He was clean-shaven; wore a pressed white shirt; his neck tie well knotted.

By itself, there is, perhaps, nothing remarkable about a blind man offering a prayer to begin a religious service. The prayer he offered was beautiful in its simplicity and touched my heart more than any sermon offered that evening.

“Open our eyes, that we may see.” He implored.

He wasn’t asking for the restoration of his physical sight, though I imagine that’s a prayer he’s offered more than once in his life. I felt as though he pled with God to help each of us in that congregation — and the many who were participating from their own homes via video conferencing — that our spiritual “eyes” be opened to greater understanding of what would be taught.

The experience I had was a decidedly religious one. However, having eyes to see shouldn’t be and isn’t limited to spiritual encounters. In fact, there’s never been a time in the world when there’s been a greater need to open our eyes.

“Open your eyes!” It’s a metaphorical mandate. Merriam-Webster defines opening your eyes as being enlightened about certain realities or discovering something you didn’t know before or seeing something in a different light (to use another metaphor).

There are opportunities for each of us, regardless of how open-minded we may be, to open our eyes a little wider to the realities that exist in the world today.

I can’t speak for the entire world, but I know in the circles where I travel, there is an increasingly prevalent attitude toward self-centeredness. It’s fuel: self-help gurus and their put-yourself-first-always rhetoric, rampant consumerism and the attendant need to earn more money, and exhausting COVID isolation.

Self-centeredness, by definition, causes us to close our eyes to the needs and desires of other people.

Let me be clear. There is a time and place for caring for numero uno. If you don’t take care of yourself, there won’t be much of you to go around. There is, however, such a thing as spending too much time on self-improvement.

In truth, a key component to improving self lives in serving others. To do that, we have to open our eyes; we must have eyes to see.

Here’s an experiment I hope doesn’t require too much thought. Think back to the last person you served. It can be anything, even something as simple as a smile on the train.

How did it make you feel?

Here’s another important question: what do you gain from really seeing others?

Looking back to our hunter-gatherer roots, I hope it’s obvious that we are hard-wired to serve each other. In the modern age, the problems I mentioned before have created motes of isolation that are hard to cross. Once we’re on the other side, however, we begin to realize the impact doing something for someone else can have on our lives.

Thanks for reading!