I wanted to write this so I would never forget.
I can remember several times in my life – usually after listening to a Ray Charles song – when I would put on a blindfold to see what it would be like to have no sight. I was usually focused on how one would navigate through the world. Of course, with putting a blind fold on, one can just as easily take it off, there is no danger of actually experiencing blindness, therefore it’s a useless simile.
I’ve read the account of St.Paul in the Bible (Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth) and I can now relate to his experience. (Acts 9:4, NIV) For you see, I woke up two days ago blind. Thats right, Blind as a bat. I can tell you there has been no experience as terrifying as this in my life. While I had no booming voice come down from the sky, I can tell you my own voice spoke volumes. Such as “God, please don’t do this to me”.
Like Saul of Tarsus, I remained bling for three days and then my eyesight began to return little by little. The thing I remember vividly was that all of the little trivial little hurts and happenings that I identified as catastrophe’s in my life were all but meaningless. I swore from that day to see them as such. And of course two days later they are already creeping back in- therefore the remembrance in writing this article so that I do not forget so easily.
I’m sure many of us have had experiences that wake us up from time to time. This was a major wake up call for me. It reminded me to live every second in gratitude for everything, to be able to walk, to talk, to taste and of course to see. To not let the trivial first world problems filter into my daily thinking, to be completely present.
I’ve never felt so terrified in all of my life. It felt like I was buried 10 feet underground in a small cramped box. I hope you can imagine this and you also may take away from my story, the gratitude of being alive and something as simple as walking that we all take for granted.
ArtScienceMind 