sight unseen
About a month ago, I received a call from a friend in Canada. He’d just returned from Haiti after serving a two-year stint in the Peace Corps, and he wanted to share something with me.
The people there, he said, are suspicious of folks with disabilities, and he encouraged me to be extra careful while on an upcoming trip. “There’s something especially troubling to Haitians about the blind,” he said, “so please take good care.”
Huh. The Haitians are blindists. Who knew?
As for the wish to be safe and take care, I assured him that it wouldn’t be a problem. First of all, I was going to Ohio, not Haiti. Secondly, even if I had chosen the Caribbean over the Midwest, it’s not like I’d have swung my stick at ‘em like piñatas. Contrary to what some believe, being visually impaired hasn’t made me a complete nitwit.
I spent the remainder of the day packing my travel essentials (Bible, iPads, journal, favorite pens and pencils, Kerouac, and several pairs of glasses and sunglasses), and neatly organizing my bag.
Only one person questioned my selections. Cole, Jayne’s latest new boyfriend, seemed confused as to why I just didn’t download a digital copy of the books onto a device.
“If you have to ask, you’ll not understand,” I said, “but I believe electronic books are akin to desecrating the flag.” I then shot a disapproving look in what I believed was Jayne’s general direction and quickly dismissed him. I can’t be bothered with dolts who don’t appreciate the community of the written word — an arrogance defined many years ago by a dear friend named Jacob, and bestowed upon me by the man himself.
Jacob loved words and books, and he lived his life in their immediate presence. Indeed, his life and the element of language in which he lived were indivisible. I cannot imagine his existence — a man made of flesh and blood, a man who walked in the sunlit streets of Europe, chatted with friends, ate good food and drank good wine, who slept and dreamed in the light of the moon — unless I remember as well the language in which he placed these things. His presence in my life taught me to understand that our human experience, however intense it may be, is truly valid only in proportion to its expression in words.
Expression is a word and a concept in which he had complete faith. He believed that poetry was expression and that it was founded upon aesthetics. Consequently, in our time and place, we’re distracted by the notion of communication, which is perhaps inferior to expression. I believe Jacob thought so, anyway.
I say all that to say just this: while I’m legally blind, words nonetheless allow me to see farther into the world than most sighted people. Little by little, I’ve come to realize the strange irony of events in the past few years. While others often think of Paradise as a garden or a palace, I’ve come to imagine it as a kind of library, with me at the center of billions of words in thousands of languages.
That’s Paradise. On Earth, however, I’m unable to make out the title pages and the spines without the aid of technology. In the early stages of my impairment, I felt anger at my God who granted me books and blindness at one touch. Now I feel neither self-pity nor reproach, as I’m compelled to make it the cornerstone and definition of my being. In doing so, I’m reminded of Homer, also blind, who made as much of a balance between oral tradition and the history of the Trojan wars.
As important as books are (and as important as writing is), there’s yet another, a fourth dimension of language that’s just as important and that’s older and more nearly universal than writing. This other side of the miracle of language is the oral tradition, which encompasses the telling of stories, the recitation of epic poems, the singing of songs, the making of prayers, the chanting of magic and mystery, the exertion of the human voice upon the unknown — in short, the spoken word.
In the history of the world, nothing’s been more powerful than the ancient and irresistible tradition of vox humana. This tradition is especially and above all the seat of the imagination, and the imagination is a kind of divine blindness in which we see not with our eyes, but with our minds and souls … in which we dream the world and our being in it.
My friend’s stories of his service in the Peace Corps have proven to be a voyage of faith for me in more ways than one. Not only are each of us able to serve as the hands and feet of Jesus as we build His communities and spread the joy of His gift of salvation, but I’m living proof to the infirm that we’re defined not by our inabilities, but by our promise to look onward and, most importantly, upward.
Our resolute belief that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, diminishes our imperfections, and harnesses His love for us like a mighty beacon of light for all to see and behold.
With that, is it any wonder that I’ve found all color and brilliance in words and languages, spoken or felt, through His grace?
