worldly blind eye

Each morning I awaken to start my day, shower, medicine, coffee, gather my papers and off to work I go no stops along the way save for gas now and then. I do not notice much along the way, my thoughts on the planned events of my day. I arrive at work, fulfill my responsibilities and then drive home stopping only for the occasional items PK calls for me to get from the store.

I say all this to illustrate how easy it is fall into bland routines and become blind to the world in our peripheral vision.  Going fast is the modern trait of our society; cell phones, pda’s, I-phones, IPODS, Netbooks, and the list goes on. We are connected, and wired to work and to home, to facebook and twitter. If we are not careful we may slam into a bridge abutment if we are not careful and look where we are going, as my Grandma Cope would say. But this is not the blindness I want to talk about. William Wadsworth wrote “The World Is Too Much With Us”, decrying the materialist world and our pursuit of materialism. We become all consumed with the latest whatever and neglect the things of importance. As Wordsworth wrote;

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
little we see in Nature that is ours;
we have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

In Jerusalem, Jesus encountered a man who had been an invalid there for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him stretched out by the pool and knew how long he had been there, he said, "Do you want to get well?" The sick man said, "Sir, when the water is stirred, I don't have anybody to put me in the pool. By the time I get there, somebody else is already in."  Jesus heals the man and the man goes on his way, we do not hear of him again. What is intriguing is that Jesus does not speak about those who were line jumping and not offering aid to the invalid man, they just brushed by going about their business, taking care of their needs. The world was too much with them, that had given their hearts away! Had their hearts been open and their pace a bit slower… Well that is the question for me, for us. Are we willing to slow down, to look around, and see the needs around us and be the people of God to the world.