Monday, March 29, 2010

I Am Bartimaeus




I've been reading The Year of Living Like Jesus, by Pastor Ed Dobson. I have had a hard time getting through this book, as I have found it so far a bad imitation of A.J. Jacob's The Year of Living Biblically. This seems to be a new genre of books: take a topic and live it out for a year, like the Happiness Project, and one other book whose title escapes me but has to do with living for year taking Oprah's advice.

I was reading a section of Dobson's book on Bartimaeus, the blind man who yelled out to Jesus: "Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me?" In response Jesus asked, "What do you want me to do for you?" Bartimaeus answered, "Rabbi, I want to see." I realized upon reading this that my request is the same: I too want to see. But I want to see not because I am physically blind but because I am spiritually blind, or at least I need significantly corrective spiritual lenses. After almost 50 years of living my Catholic faith, I still have too many worries, concerns, fears, judgments, temptations, shortcomings, etc. Would that I could see spiritual reality and put all these problems into perspective, or elminate them entirely if I could improve my spiritual eyesight and see things as they really are. Perhaps then I could turn my attention to the things that really matter, and cast my eye upon eternal truths, and not those illusions that mislead us daily. Yes Rabbi, I want to see!

No comments:

Post a Comment