Eyes wide shut

Until very recently, if you had asked me what blind people see, I would have answered without any real hesitation, and also without a lot of thought: nothing at all, just complete blackness and that all the time. Well the BBC recently ran an article written by one of their blind journalists, Damon Rose, who lost his sight as a child. He wrote:

“The logical assumption is that when sight is snuffed out, a person must be left in darkness. If you dive under the bed covers you can’t see anything at all. If you close your eyes then everything turns to black. So, blind equals black? It makes sense, right? Apparently not. … So what replaces 3D technicolour vision once it’s gone? The answer – at least in my case – is light. Lots of it. Bright, colourful, ever-changing, … light.” He goes on: “Some people of faith have occasionally tried to tell me that I’m seeing the after-life, and I never know how to respond to that.”

Well I for one, would not want to promote the fanciful idea that a person who has had his optic nerves severed will be granted an early preview of heaven. What does, however, come to mind, is the end of that “love chapter”, which often gets read out at weddings: “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully...” (1 Corinthians 13)

Truly then, the truths of the heaven are to be seen even down here, though merely in broad-brush strokes. A question to reflect on, in regard to heaven, is whether your own eyes are wide shut or not?