Do You Need a Visual?

I did not need glasses.  My vision was clear.  Then one day I noticed that the print in books, magazines, and especially the small print at the bottom of the page, was more and more difficult to read. 

My brother who is 10 years older than I am has worn reading glasses since his late 40's.  I used to tease him about how silly he looked with glasses worn at the end of his nose so that he could look over them.  Sigh...it is not tasty in the least when you have to eat the words that you have indiscriminately used!

So I bought a pair of slide to the end of your nose reading glasses.  I think they look better on my brother than they do on my face!

Vision...it's one of our senses which also include, taste, touch, and hearing.  I believe there is one sense that I'm forgetting, maybe it's memory? 

I read a story about a man who was born blind.  He had a job that he enjoyed, a happy social life, and was considered very successful.

Then he went to the eye doctor.  He heard about an amazing miraculous surgery that could possibly restore vision to the blind.  He had mixed emotions about the idea.  Who needs vision when they have NEVER had it and they are happy as they are?  His well meaning friends, and family encouraged him to have the surgery.

He did, it was successful, and he retreated to his home and nothing could get him to leave it.  He had constant headaches.  His brain that had never had the stimulus of vision was violently overwhelmed.  Depression followed on the heels of this huge change in his life.

Finally he was referred to a good counselor.  The therapist was able to help him work through the psychological minefield of learning to live with a sense that he had not had for around 3 decades.  Everyone had told him how wonderful it would be to see.  Imagine his disappointment, and frustration when vision almost ruined his life!

This story did have a happy ever after.  Slowly he was able to teach his brain how to respond positively to such a new skill set. 

Vision is a sense that we often take for granted.  Most of us will need some sort of visual assistance at some point in our lives.  Glasses, or contacts make life easier when we need them. 

Other types of visual assistance include microscopes, to help us see things at a cellular level, telescopes, to help us observe the Heavens over our heads, and magnifying glasses, to extend our ability to read things too small for our natural eye to witness.

It is very common for us to believe that our senses do NOT lie.  We believe that if we can taste it, touch it, see it, or hear it, then it is real!  Sometimes we extend this dynamic to our emotions.  If you don't feel like washing the dishes, or going for a walk our emotions tell us that we shouldn't do that activity.

This idea can also be related to death.  We can't see a spirit, or soul, or life force, whatever you wish to call the essence that leaves our bodies when we die.  Not one of our earthly senses can quantify that the person that used to inhabit their body still exists without their body.  The idea that follows says if using our senses can't quantify something it simply does not, CAN NOT exist. 

Let's return for a moment to the realization that our regular vision also can't see a cell that we place under a microscope.  Our regular vision can't see stars that are light years away from us so we use a most useful tool, the telescope.  Before these devices were invented there was a wealth of information that we simply could not learn.

When my beloved husband died I could see with my mortal eyes the exact moment when his spirit left his body.  Oh I couldn't SEE his spirit.  I personally believe that spirit matter is so refined, so delicate that our all too human eyes can't behold that dimension, that type of energy.

I could SEE the difference in his body when his essence left.  There was no expression on his face.  Yet I could FEEL him still there with us.  I could FEEL that fine, spiritual essence still present with us, his family. 

Do not make the mistake of assuming that our senses do not lie.  As Ebenezer Scrooge says in "Christmas Carol," when he is confronted by the tortured spirit of his dead business partner, "A little thing can make the senses cheat.  A bit of underdone potato, a piece of bread.  There is more of gravy than grave about you..."

We all agree that there are methods to sharpen our senses.  Yet you are cheated from much of the intangible wonders of life if you believe ONLY what your senses quantify.  Think about this idea.  When we are born, do we come from nothing?  When we die, do we return to nothing?  We have technological wonders that are being discovered each and every day.  Maybe some day we WILL have a measure that opens our view to the spiritual realities.  Just think of having a good visit with your expired Grandma and finding out why she seemed so distant and cold, or why she was so loving, and warm.   

Put on your spiritual glasses today and envision those you love that have died.  Imagine that they are healthy, happy, and busy ministering to those that they loved on this earth.  If we can see cells, and stars, and print with assistance, then maybe we will one day have a type of visual assistance that helps us to see our beloved friends and family that have died. 

Until that remarkable discovery is made remember, just because you can't use your physical senses to experience something does not negate the experience.  When you cross from the realm of evidentiary experience, to something your senses can't explain that is faith.  We have faith that scientists can SEE cells (even though we may never have had the experience).  We have faith that scientists can SEE those planetary bodies so very far away (even though we may never have had the experience).  When we can't prove or experience something through our mortal senses, put on your spiritual glasses. 

"Faith is the evidence of things NOT seen."  Let's all use our faith glasses today to experience the wonder of things NOT seen.