"Seeing with New Eyes"

My husband recently had cataract surgery and he is now delighting in what he calls his 'new' eye. The world has definitely become a better place for him, brighter and clearer. It has expanded his activities too, allowing him to once more drive after dark or in the twilight times.

I took this photo just a few days ago in my neighbourhood. I have been watching this tree for a few weeks now as it has done something very strange, with the colour was appearing at the ends of the branches and in splotches throughout the tree. Surely this must have had something to do with the extreme winter weather we had experienced last winter! Or if not that, then this must be the way the trees normally look at the beginning of the fall season as they begin to turn.

But as the days and weeks passed and the tree didn't change appreciatively, I waited in vain to hear any broadcaster or weather person talk about this phenomenon that I had noticed, I began to wonder why? Was it really possible that the trees had always turned colour in this way and that only after 70 years did I actually see it? Could really have lived all these years, seeing and rejoicing in the colours of autumn, without really seeing what was there? Why did I not notice before? What made me take notice this year?

Was what I saw before wrong? No, but I wasn't seeing the whole picture. Is what I see now, all that there is to see? Who knows, but for the moment it is enough. Will I ever see more fully? Perhaps or perhaps not. What it did do however was being these verses to mind. (Emphasis mine)

" The reason I (Jesus) speak to them in parables is that “seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.” With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says:“You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive..." But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear."(Matthew 13:13-16)

This has helped me to better understand those times when my theology has morphed, usually without warning, into a new understanding or way of looking at something that had been an innate part of me. Those times when something that I had 'seen' in one way for many years was suddenly changed so that I saw it in a completely different way. Did that mean the first way was wrong? No, of course not, just like the way I have previously seen the autumn colours is not wrong. It was just different or incomplete. Does it mean that the 'changed' way of seeing things is the 'right' way? It is neither the right way or the wrong way but simply a different way. My understanding has changed over time, and will hopefully continue to change. Each stage is different from, but takes something with it of what went before.

What have you seen differently lately?

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NUDGINGS: a journey into the unknown

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