Since being invited by Dr. Craig Satterlee (homiletics professor at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago) to think more critically about certain metaphors that we tend to throw into our worship life as liberally as my fellow Midwesterners and I throw cream of mushroom soup into casseroles, I have become very sensitive to them - most particularly the metaphor of blindness and sight.
This coming week both our Old Testament and Gospel lectionary texts speak of sight very literally. Some weeks the texts themselves are much more metaphorical. Often, those of us who preach interpret the language metaphorically whether the texts do or not. While I don't think we necessarily need to stop doing this entirely, I am convinced that we need to be doing it much more carefully.
Dr. Satterlee's own sensitivities and concerns, as a careful liturgical theologian and as one who is blind, have always struck a deep chord in me, because I have been fully blind in my left eye since before I was two years old. And while I have often choked on the beloved line of Amazing Grace - "I was blind, but now I see" - I had never thought much about others in worship whose experiences are similar to mine (and often tremendously more challenging) until coming to seminary.
There are many potentially problematic dimensions to the practice of using sense language metaphorically. Most common, perhaps, is the interpretation of biblical healing stories and use of sensory limitations as metaphors for sin. While those of us who experience a literal physical limitation can surely understand metaphor as metaphor - there is still something hurtful in hearing a leader talk about how we are "blinded by selfishness" or in coming upon a line of a hymn that calls for the day when "hatred and blindness will be no more," as if the two really belong in the same category of the world's ailments and brokenness. (Dr. Satterlee reflects powerfully on this particular hymn, "We Are Called," in his book When God Speaks Through Worship.)
To narrow the focus a bit - there is one particular dimension of this problem that I have been pondering and upon which this post is meant to focus. I don't mean to suggest that other dimensions of the problem are less important. It just happens that many scholars far more qualified than I have already addressed many of the implications of the use of sense language in liturgy and in the interpretation of healing stories in preaching and teaching.
As a result of my recent ponderings, I would like to assert that one huge problem with the use of the metaphor of blindness and sight, in particular, stems from this: Those who have decided how the metaphor of blindness has been used have almost surely been fully sighted individuals...because they so often use it wrong.
To begin with, consider how the blindness/sight metaphor is often paired with darkness/light language (see hymn texts like "Be Thou My Vision," "Gather Us In,"and "I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light"...and various biblical texts, especially those connected to the Johannine community). Blindness is in almost no way equivalent to darkness in my experience. Full blindness, which I experience in part, is not the experience of darkness but of visual nothingness, which is entirely different - though very hard to explain. (The closest I have come to successfully explaining the difference is when I remind my friends as they walk around with one eye closed to approximate my experience of limited depth perception, it is not the same...because with one eye closed they are still looking at the back of their eyelid.)
Furthermore, for others who live with limited vision, it seems to me that a challenge is often (though surely not always) a matter of clarity or acuity rather than "light." The resolution of images, their distinguishability, is often what makes navigating a visual world challenging. (I realize I am making some assumptions here regarding something I do not experience directly. While I know this to be true of Dr. Satterlee's experience, I hope those who have different visual experiences will feel free to correct me if I am mistaken.)
And, finally, for many who experience blindness, light is actually an enemy to sight and not a friend - especially sunlight, which is so bright that it may cause pain or even further damage visual capacity. (Again, I owe this observation to Dr. Satterlee.)
Yes, it is true that without visual sight, a guiding light cannot be followed. And yes, perhaps sometimes blindness and sight can be a helpful metaphor for spiritual matters. But the metaphor is used so often and so carelessly, that I believe it is almost bankrupt.
For example, it is one thing to say: "God, grant us sight that we might see your will for our lives even when our selfishness and the temptations of this world blind us" when we could just as easily say: "God, guide us in your pathway. Nourish us in your love. Prune away the fruits of our selfishness so that we might bear the fruit of your kingdom." Both are metaphors with biblical precedent. But, the first makes me feel like my physical reality is corollary to sin, and I suspect that fully sighted people hardly hear the metaphor at all, because it lacks any real nuance. The latter may lack some nuance, as well, but at least it might avoid marginalizing anyone.
I hesitate to even try to give an example of how the metaphor of blindness might be used well...but for the sake of discussion, I'll attempt it:
"There is a truth...a deep beauty we crave...that seems to lie behind a veil. We sense it but lack the ability to fully perceive it, to truly have communion with the one for whom we long. This separation we feel is painful, even more so because it is beyond our power to change. Just as I cannot change the way I see or hear the world, neither can I change my inability to reach beyond that veil. But, this is the amazing truth of the Love behind the veil. It is perfect and safe from all the wounds of this world if it stays there...but it does not. God comes into the wounds and limitations of our life. Jesus comes to be human, to be hurt, to be limited, to love us, and to die. He takes on all our limitation - losing all his capacity to walk and see and hear and feel as he breathes his last on the cross. And in the first breath of his resurrected life, we are born into the promise that whatever limits us in this life is not what defines us, and does not finally claim us. Through Christ there is no separation between you and the love and life for which you hunger anymore. Love has come. For you."
It seems to me that thoughtful speech pruned of careless cliches would go far in creating a loving space where all people are valued and fully welcomed. I encourage you to pay careful attention sometime, if you haven't already done so, to how many times sense language is used during a Sunday liturgy. I know that, as I have become more conscious of this issue, I have been amazed by what I've noticed - even (and sometimes especially) in my own choice of words.
Finally, as we vet our liturgy, hymnody and our own language, it might behoove us to be in conversation with those who experience blindness, deafness or limited mobility. Who could better teach us whether our metaphor is helpful or even truthful than one who actually has experienced that which we use as the basis of metaphor? We might learn something astonishing about God in the process. These words we use have power - more than we know. They aren't just cream of mushroom soup. I, for one, will strive to use them with tender care, so all might be encouraged to tenderly care for one another and speak the precious truth of God's great love.
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