1 Sm 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a
Eph 5:8-14; Jn 9:1-41 or 9:1, 6-9, 13-17, 34-38

Life Turned Upside Down
Again after another bout of being sick in bed I re-enter my world of work and being upright for the day, rather than only a few hours. Although this is not at all like being blind, it did offer me an opportunity to look at wellness with new eyes. I have noticed especially after being sick how very easy it is to take life for granted and in the midst of that forgetting to choose life from a place of passion.

The man born blind was given a whole new array of choices about everything with his healing. I would imagine that he could choose new job skills, and new places where he could travel with greater ease. At the same time, this man had the challenge of being open to a whole new way of looking at the world and the world looking at him. How did his encounter with Jesus give him the courage to take in this new world?

As a child I use to think, “How very cool to get sight after being blind!” Until the last ten years or so I never thought about what it would take to be open to all of these changes, emotionally, physically, culturally and spiritually. As I listened to the readings for Sunday March 2nd, I got in touch with what it takes to be open to healing into new sight. Our daily patterns become very familiar and familiarity is hard to give up. The man given sight had everything in his life turned upside down. Even his parents were afraid to claim his healing due to the implications of being one of Jesus’ followers.

Being sick the last two weeks made me more aware of the patterns and attitudes which I had fallen into in my daily life. What has struck me being just on the other side of being sick is that I want to see each day with more passion, more excitement. As I listened to the scriptures of March 2nd I felt a inner desire to be courageous like the man born blind and claim Jesus as the source of my seeing life with passion and excitement.

As I journey this week of Lent I seek to follow the lead of the man born blind, open to my life being turned upside down by Jesus and see anew how to claim this life changing healing.