Limited Vision
A line from today's Gospel reading caught my attention.
Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." - John 14:8
What came to mind was this. Do you think Philip would have been satisfied if he received what he asked for?
When it comes to wanting proof, we tend to think of Thomas, the one who doubted, but here we have Philip wrestling with the same issue.
The need for one more piece of evidence, one more proof, one more test, one more condition to be met, this is the way we go through life, isn't it?
The more facts we can stack up in favor of or against something, the more we can find corroborating evidence, the closer we get to believing we have found the truth.
But there is no guarantee we will get it right.
We see things through the eyes of our experience, and that has an influence on the picture we see, on the words we hear.
There was no way Philip could have accepted whatever vision of the Father Jesus could have shown him. It wasn't possible to see God and live. That was what Philip believed as a Jew. His ability to perceive, to accept and to understand was limited by his faith and culture.
I attended an Anti-racism course a few years back, and it opened my eyes to what I think of as Limited Vision, that inability to see through a lens other than the one we developed within our culture, our lives and through our experiences.
Looking back over generations of decisions and actions taken by people raised within a different framework, it is easier to see the affects of that limited view in our laws, our actions, our lessons in school and sermons in church.
We only have what we have. Like Philip, we can't see what we can't see, even if we really want to.
Some look at our history and see oppression, racism and abuse and they come to the conclusion that we are inherently evil, institutionally committed to these abuses as if they have become doctrine.
I think we need to be careful with such labels, as they could lead to self hatred and anger, emotional responses we may not be able to control.
I pray that we learn from these things and move forward, expanding our limited vision. The only way to do that, I believe, is through communication, friendship and love.
Unfortunately, so long as we are calling each other names, the chances of coming together and talking to each other are as limited as our vision. And that means we will never get to know each other.
It's a shame that the very efforts we seek to make to rectify the ills of the past may separate us even more.
A product of our limited vision, I assume.
More to come...