Sometimes my problem is lack of imagination.
I hated the sermon on Sunday for what I acknowledge isn't a big-deal reason. Part of the problem is in the text already. John 9:1-7 is Jesus giving a random blind person sight in order to score points with his disciples. You've lost me already. The blind dude isn't a character and we're dehumanizing the disabled. GREAT. Well, okay, the Bible's an old book, we can look past some of that. The theological point the disciples are arguing is about bodily abnormalities and bad luck being the result of sin--this is getting harder to overlook--as they ask whether this guy was born blind because his parents sinned or because he himself sinned. Jesus starts out with "neither" which is almost enough to save the whole thing but then goes on to say the guy is blind to give Jesus the chance to prove a point. WTF God. Now the actual point of these verses is that it doesn't matter where your sin/problems (same thing) come from, Jesus can get rid of them. So it's the cheapest kind of recruitment propaganda. Wint claimed that Jesus denies a connection between health and virtue, but I'm not sure that's actually what happened, but would be a WAY better interpretation to go with as far as the point of a sermon is to get the listeners to be better people. Some bit of "bad luck doesn't mean you don't deserve good luck" kind of thing might be apropos. I honestly can't tell you whether Wint made that point. In spite of the fact that I was paying attention enough to take notes, I can't reconstruct what the message of the sermon was supposed to be. (Partly it made a bunch of good small points, like that agreeing to differ can be respectful, and partly I was angry.)
But anyway, the point where it lost me entirely. And actually this wasn't just Wint, it was the entire service around these verses. The central activity, and it was Wint who said it in cleartext, was imagining what it would be like to see for the first time as an adult who has been blind since birth. There was a (gorgeous!) piece about the beauty of sunlight.
And here's where my lack of imagination kicks in. Back in high school, I was bored and read an article about the effects of an invention of a surgery to remove, I dunno, some kind of congenital cataract or something, that had the effect of giving sight to a large number of blind adults in the couple years after it was developed and then was used on babies with the condition thereafter so they grew up sighted. This article, which I don't think I read all of and only half-remember, had lots of accounts of what congenitally blind people ACTUALLY SAID about receiving sight. Summary: interesting but confusing, and they often went around with their eyes closed most of the time afterwards. It took a long time to learn to see meaningfully.
As a result of knowing this one thing (and also of having a couple friends who are in or collaborate with communities of people with different kinds of disabilities), I was unable to imagine receiving the gift, not just of light hitting my retinas (which is painful in many circumstances, especially if you LOOK AT THE SUN), but of instantly being able to interpret it and experience all the pleasures that someone socialized since birth to the meanings of light patterns receives from looking at things. 'Cuz don't get me wrong, I value my 20-20 eyesight and spend lots of time looking. But I also really enjoy, say, Wagner. And even people who have not been hard-of-hearing from birth have trouble with Wagner.
Now if the blind dude really, really wanted to see, and it is totally possible that he did, and incidentally also totally possible that, God being God, he received the ability to interpret the visual world along with the ability to receive visual inputs, and, like, asked Jesus for sight, then there's nothing wrong with Jesus's actions, except possibly that using your spit to cure somebody is kind of disrespectful.
Anyway, yeah. Tl;dr: Zee is put off, yet again, by a sermon that treats somebody as a prop. A prop for compassion I guess, but an object to be helped, not a peer of the helper who can return usefulness, or even GIVE AN OPINION. Dad says Wint is not like this in person when interacting with lower-status people. I think Wint was socialized to have very good manners, and that holds up in all encounters with actual people, which is a really important function of manners. (Not trying to be faint praise, here.)
The Kitsu Nekane challenge to readers: blindfold yourself, then participate in a group discussion. You won't learn what it's like to be blind (from birth or long-term), but you will learn what it's like to be ignored because you can't signal for your turn to talk with eye contact.
But anyway, the point where it lost me entirely. And actually this wasn't just Wint, it was the entire service around these verses. The central activity, and it was Wint who said it in cleartext, was imagining what it would be like to see for the first time as an adult who has been blind since birth. There was a (gorgeous!) piece about the beauty of sunlight.
And here's where my lack of imagination kicks in. Back in high school, I was bored and read an article about the effects of an invention of a surgery to remove, I dunno, some kind of congenital cataract or something, that had the effect of giving sight to a large number of blind adults in the couple years after it was developed and then was used on babies with the condition thereafter so they grew up sighted. This article, which I don't think I read all of and only half-remember, had lots of accounts of what congenitally blind people ACTUALLY SAID about receiving sight. Summary: interesting but confusing, and they often went around with their eyes closed most of the time afterwards. It took a long time to learn to see meaningfully.
As a result of knowing this one thing (and also of having a couple friends who are in or collaborate with communities of people with different kinds of disabilities), I was unable to imagine receiving the gift, not just of light hitting my retinas (which is painful in many circumstances, especially if you LOOK AT THE SUN), but of instantly being able to interpret it and experience all the pleasures that someone socialized since birth to the meanings of light patterns receives from looking at things. 'Cuz don't get me wrong, I value my 20-20 eyesight and spend lots of time looking. But I also really enjoy, say, Wagner. And even people who have not been hard-of-hearing from birth have trouble with Wagner.
Now if the blind dude really, really wanted to see, and it is totally possible that he did, and incidentally also totally possible that, God being God, he received the ability to interpret the visual world along with the ability to receive visual inputs, and, like, asked Jesus for sight, then there's nothing wrong with Jesus's actions, except possibly that using your spit to cure somebody is kind of disrespectful.
Anyway, yeah. Tl;dr: Zee is put off, yet again, by a sermon that treats somebody as a prop. A prop for compassion I guess, but an object to be helped, not a peer of the helper who can return usefulness, or even GIVE AN OPINION. Dad says Wint is not like this in person when interacting with lower-status people. I think Wint was socialized to have very good manners, and that holds up in all encounters with actual people, which is a really important function of manners. (Not trying to be faint praise, here.)
The Kitsu Nekane challenge to readers: blindfold yourself, then participate in a group discussion. You won't learn what it's like to be blind (from birth or long-term), but you will learn what it's like to be ignored because you can't signal for your turn to talk with eye contact.