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by Steve Taylor
John 9:1-41
It was raining again … and muddy … and cold. It was the kind of cold that creeps through one’s garments, completely overcoming any line of defense, a thousand needles stabbing at one’s skin until the white hot pain deepens to that point where there is no feeling at all. She stumbled quickly through the sucking ooze or at least as quickly as one could move in this morass, a slow struggle toward the non-descript building. She was vaguely aware that there had once been feeling in the now almost useless appendages on which she sought to hasten forward. She did move forward, but it was a journey undertaken in slow motion. Perhaps it would not have been so at some time in the distant past, but it was so now. After years of war, after a seemingly interminable time of the oppressive regime, this was the reality of her young existence. And yet, it was worth it. Inwardly she smiled, for after all, it was only rain and mud. Not so long ago, only a few short weeks in fact, the stakes of this sojourn had been so much higher. In each trip she risked everything, her own life, the lives of her parents, everything. Even then, even in the face of such opposition, even in the face of such threat, it had been worth it.
Soon, she reached the shelter of the building. She slogged through the door into the open room and was greeted by another dozen children. They too had struggled to come to this place. They too had shared the difficulty of this day, the difficulty of every day in Afghanistan. And yet, despite the hazards, despite the overwhelming obstacles, here they were … in school.
It was a characterless building with broken windows and battered, bullet-scarred walls. In most settings it might well have borne a great orange sign on the door exclaiming, “CONDEMNED,” warning off any who might be tempted to enter the premises. But not in Afghanistan. Here, it was a school. The building looked to be an empty shell, a corpse no longer capable of even the memory of life, more akin to a crypt , than a place of academics. Yet, whenever Gulchehra thought of it, it was always in capital letters with multiple exclamation points. “SCHOOL!!!” For her, it represented the deep waters of education, the healing pool where she might scrub away the nightmare of her past. It was a place of possibility, a place of hope. In her language they called it, “Sabak,” the return of learning.
For each day as Gulchehra came to this place of miracle, she would give thanks, give thanks that her eyes were being opened, opened to a reality other than death and hate and heartache and destruction. Each day, as Gulchehra would repeat the lessons offered by her teacher, she would take another step into a life beyond the horror of her past. Though there were no books to read and no paper on which to write, though there were no desks in which to sit and no chalk for the worn black-board at the front of the room, she gave thanks. For in each repeating of the lessons, in each oral rendition of basic curriculum, her eyes opened just a bit further and the potentiality of new birth blossomed. Her heart was joyous with infinite possibilities, joyous with the wonder of the healing pool.
Others soon joined her, others who came from far away, who came from a country about which she knew little, others who came from the North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church. They didn’t slog through the mud. They didn’t feel the freezing cold. Yet, join her they did, connected in her story and connected in her joy. They joined her as they brought books and paper and pencils. They joined her as they told her story and invited others into the pool. They joined her as they opened their eyes to the wonder of her existence and the miracle of her life.
They didn’t join her because they were special people, through they were. They didn’t join her because they harbored an immense capacity to love, though they did. They joined her simply because once there was this man who made mud from saliva, because once there was a man who was more than a man, because once there was a man who was the light of the world. They joined her because in this connection of lives, in this action of love, in this reality of grace, the light shown around them and their doubt was, once again, taken away.
You see, this story was never really about the Blind man, though indeed, he is the “other” who is blessed, blessed not solely because he has been given the gift of his eyes, but more, because it is there with him, there with Gulchehra, there in his brokenness and the mystery, where Jesus chooses to be found, there at the place where we might too be sent that we can say, “I believe.”
“Open my eyes, that I may see glimpses of truth thou hast for me, place in my hands the wonderful key that shall unclasp and set me free!” *
* Open My Eyes, That I May See – Clara H. Scott ** New Living Translation – Tyndall House Publishers |