Bear Eyesight

Bears have poor eyesight. But what they lack in vision clarity is made up by their sense of smell. Recently, a spiritual theme of mine has been “seeing.” As I spent time reflecting on seeing, I began to notice the subtleties of sight.

For physical eyesight, we need light. In the dark, objects melt into varying shades of black and become indistinct. In the complete absence of light, we see nothing. We need a certain shaped eye lens. Distortions cause astigmatism or hyperopia. We need healthy eye tissue. Eye problems, like cataracts or macular degeneration, interfere with seeing clearly. These are eye health concerns, but there are other things that affect eyesight. When we are attending to a particular task, we focus on the visual cues necessary to accomplish that task. Other visual elements fade into the background.

I think of Jesus’s words when he talks about those who see without seeing. I can see all kinds of things in the external world, but there is internal eyesight that sees spiritually. I need spiritual eyes. Spiritually poor eyesight is more of a hindrance than physically poor eyesight. Other senses will compensate for poor physical eyesight, but there is no compensation for a lack in spiritual eyesight.

What does it mean to see clearly in the spiritual? It means seeing the true self in relation to the Divine Creator. If I do not see myself as I am, I will repress, deny, and project onto others those things that the Divine Creator would transform in me. What I do not see cannot be changed.

Lately, I have seen that I need a new internal vision paradigm. I need a transformed way of spiritual seeing. My lack of spiritual sight has resulted in unhealthy spiritual compensations that diminish my soul.

Like the bear, I might have poor eyesight in the physical sense, but I don’t want poor eyesight in the spiritual.