Born blind

We are born blind,
we never had eyes,
we have never seen light,
nor known it,
nor experienced it,
we have no idea even of what it is,
just what others have told us.
But did they have eyes?
Were they born with sight?
Or do they speak of what they imagine but never see?

This is how it is, for us,
for every human being who has ever walked the earth,
but One.

We are born blind.
We hear the world around us,
but cannot see it.
We know it’s there,
we bump into it,
sometimes hurting ourselves,
until we learn how to navigate through the darkness.

Darkness?
Our world doesn’t look dark to us.
It’s light, it’s beautiful,
there’s so much in it to see and experience.
Yes, but all that you say we are seeing,
all of it, my brothers,
is dark and featureless,
as shallow yet as deep as a starless night,
and yet you say you see.

Let me,
one blind man who does not see but feels, tell you
that as wonderful as it would be for a man born blind
to be granted the faculty of sight,
that is how wonderful, and even more, it will be
when we who have been born blind and see only this world
are granted to really see.

To really see,
when we have received our sight,
we cannot remember anymore that seamless darkness
that was what we thought the world to be.
We will be able to close our eyes for a moment—
only the demons are eyelidless—
and see the world we left behind.

And just as we close our eyes to better pray,
so there will we close our eyes for our brothers
who live yet in that world born blind,
which never (since it sold them) had eyes nor sighted birth,
as we intercede without ceasing
for those who await with longing to receive their sight.

And open them again,
to receive Him who was always everywhere present,
filling all things,
the Lord and Creator of Life,
to receive Him into our hungry eyes,
to become what we behold,
finally, finally,
after waiting for what seemed for ever,
waiting only to be fulfilled,
to see only Him.
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