Sunday of the Blind Man
May 29, 2011
Lord, it’s Sunday morning and we are here, drawn to this place from many places. The week is behind us. A new day is here.
Lord, open our eyes.
Each of us has our own reasons for being here today. Some have come for the sake of routine. Some are here looking for shelter from the storm. Some are troubled and some have deep joy. Some worship because they believe they owe you and some are filled with love and awe. Regardless of why we are here this morning….
Lord, open our eyes.
Gracious Lord, life is both amazing and terrifying at times. We’re riding a small blue ball hurtling alone through space and the days of our lives are like a sigh in the storm. We live but we’re not always sure why. We cling to small things to explain everything and the mystery of it all can be overwhelming. In our soulful ponderings…
Lord, open our eyes.
At times we are well. At time we are downtrodden. We bear in our bodies both the durable strength of an amazing creation and the everyday marks of mortality reminding us that we, too, shall pass. Resilient and fragile. Enduring and as light as a whisper. Possessed of a will to live yet gone in an instant. As we are in this form waiting to be transformed…
Lord, open our eyes.
Out toil consumes us at times and enriches us as well. We eat from the sweat of our brow and yet there is still creative light within us released by the work of our hands. In all that we must do and all that we choose to do, as we create and recreate, and set our hands to the tasks before us…
Lord, open our eyes.
Because You love we love and our lives are filled with this love, even when it breaks our heart. Our love is a faltering flame but still it warms us. Our love is a shadow of Yours but it still can be true. We fight to love. We fail to love. We hope to love. And as we grasp for everything that love is and can be…
Lord, open our eyes.
And at the final hour, when all is done and the only breath that remains is your Spirit, the only life the life you have given us, and our sun sets in the hope of the dawn. When every moment is sealed for eternity. When all our earthly joys become heavenly and every tear is wiped away. When our work is done, our love is left behind, and only the good remains…
Lord, open our eyes.
Because, Lord, whoever we are, wherever we go, however the path of our life unfolds we need most of all to see you.
There are a thousand distractions but only one Truth. There are uncounted dark corners but only one light. We dream almost every night for good or bad but there is only one hope. We look for a way out, a way up, a way through, but there is only one salvation. We wander in the dark and yet there is only one true path.
Grant us to see you Lord to the fullness of who you are, as much as we can understand in our hearts. Grant us to see you so that we can know what is good and right and holy and true and perfect and eternal. Grant us to see you so we know which way to go and how to direct our lives. Everything around us screams for our attention, desires to draw us here and there. Grant us to see you Lord so that our days are full of everything that matters and that the world, not just with its darkness but also its glorious destiny are always with us.
Blind as we are we ask that you touch our eyes with your healing. Let our baptismal washing continue to illuminate us. May the vision we receive from you change everything about us. Let it be that which lets us see the world, each other, everything in our lives, and especially you as it was all meant to be. And if in the course of the days of our lives our eyes track away, if anything or everything less captures our sight draw us back to You, our clarity, our truth, and our salvation.
Lord, how blind we are without you. How confused. How challenged. How rudderless. Yet when your vision becomes ours how great is our light, our faith, our perception, and our peace.
Heal us Lord and open our eyes.
One Hundred Fifty Knots 