I didn’t realize I couldn’t see before I got glasses in the second grade. But I remember a night shortly after getting my super sturdy (and nerdy) frames with the thick bifocal lenses. I was riding in the car with my parents and as I looked out the window at the passing cars, I noticed their lights looked different. Before I had glasses, the lights were big and fuzzy (blurry). After I had glasses, they were smaller and sharper.
Everything, as a matter of fact, was smaller and sharper. It was unsettling to realize that the way I’d been seeing the world was not actually how the world looked. My reality wasn’t real. What I’d believed had actually been a blurred version of the world.
These days I wear contacts and am fully aware of how desperately I need corrective lenses. All it takes is a day when I see my bathtub clearly to remember that I miss a LOT when I leave my contacts and glasses on the sink while I shower. And yet, despite my daily reminders that our vision cannot always be trusted, I forget that when it comes to matters of the heart and soul and life.
The holiday season is here, and with the turkey and our thanks already a distant memory, we can’t deny that it is, indeed, beginning to look a lot like Christmas. But what if what we believe Christmas looks like isn’t true? What if our perspective has been left on the edge of the sink? What if our vision is as blurry as the bokeh in that photo of the lights on your tree?
