Af­ter many clou­dy and fog­gy mor­nings the sky is clear. The tops of snow-co­ve­red trees have tur­ned a de­li­ca­te shade of pink and the icy patc­hes on the road ref­lect the co­lor. I en­joy the sce­ne­ry while dri­ving to meet some friends. The days are gro­wing lon­ger day by day. And I can see this be­au­ty with my own ey­es. What a great gift ey­e­sight is!

Some time ago a friend of mine sud­den­ly lost her sight. She could not even read, which was a big loss. She could on­ly see the rough out­li­nes of things but no de­tails. In that si­tu­a­ti­on we dis­cus­sed what we lose if we can­not see pro­per­ly. It is good, ho­we­ver, that mo­dern tech­no­lo­gy can help. My friend was ab­le to ins­tall in­to her de­vi­ces a di­gi­tal re­a­der that con­verts writ­ten text in­to speech. She was al­so luc­ky to have her sight gra­du­al­ly imp­ro­ve over time.

This ex­pe­rien­ce made me won­der what my life would be like if I lost even part of my vi­su­al ca­pa­ci­ty. I would not see the co­lors of da­yb­re­ak, the glim­mer of sun­light on a lake, the me­a­dows of wild flo­wers, the fa­ces of dear pe­op­le, the fa­mi­li­ar ob­jects in my home and many ot­her things. I would have to for­get all about re­a­ding, wri­ting and the kind of fid­d­ling with small thing that I like. I would just fumb­le around in the mor­ning to find my clot­hes and ca­re­ful­ly feel for the knobs of the stove and the dis­hes in my kitc­hen. I would try to ma­na­ge my dai­ly cho­res ba­sed on what I re­mem­ber. Ha­ving had ey­e­sight, I would still have many vi­su­al me­mo­ries. Ma­y­be they would be­co­me even more im­por­tant than be­fo­re.

Many el­der­ly pe­op­le, when re­fer­ring to so­met­hing in the fu­tu­re, say: ”I won­der if my ey­es will still see that?”

I have a friend who be­ca­me blind as an adult, and I ac­com­pa­nied her to sum­mer ser­vi­ces a few ti­mes. She wan­ted me to desc­ri­be exact­ly what I saw. The row of flags, the fes­ti­ve gate and the de­co­ra­ti­on of the spe­a­kers’ stand in the tent were im­por­tant to her. She wan­ted to go and touch the fes­ti­ve gate, to feel its sur­fa­ce, and to walk around the gate fol­lo­wing its shape with her hand. That hel­ped her get an idea of the size and shape of the gate.

Mat­ti Ki­vi­nen, the wi­de­ly known spe­a­ker brot­her who was blin­ded in the war, on­ce came to speak at my home ser­vi­ces. He wan­ted me to con­firm that the tab­le cloth was white and al­so wan­ted to know what the tab­le nap­kins loo­ked like. These were not tri­vi­al things to him.

But the si­tu­a­ti­on of those who were born blind is cer­tain­ly dif­fe­rent. How do they view their fa­mi­li­ar sur­roun­dings? Pro­bab­ly dif­fe­rent­ly from see­ing pe­op­le.

We see many be­au­ti­ful and im­por­tant things all the time. But we al­so see things that make us ang­ry or sad. We see things that look ug­ly, arou­se an­xie­ty, or cau­se pain and suf­fe­ring. We may feel it would have been bet­ter not to see those things. There may al­so be so­met­hing in­vi­sib­le to our na­tu­ral ey­es that cau­ses even gre­a­ter pain. We do not see all things with our ey­es; our he­arts can sen­se and pick out mes­sa­ges that are not ver­ba­li­zed or made vi­sib­le.

I of­ten get ti­red of the flood of vi­su­al and au­dib­le sti­mu­li that sur­rounds us. I won­der what kind of men­tal ima­ges child­ren and yo­ung pe­op­le re­tain, so­me­ti­mes in­vo­lun­ta­ri­ly? Those ima­ges may dis­tort re­a­li­ty, cau­se be­wil­der­ment and fear, or give rise to un­re­a­lis­tic ex­pec­ta­ti­ons. We should dis­cuss ac­ti­ve­ly with our yo­ung pe­op­le and al­so en­cou­ra­ge them.

As hu­man beings we plan, an­ti­ci­pa­te and pon­der. We can­not see in­to the fu­tu­re. The things that will hap­pen are hid­den from us. But there are ey­es that see eve­ryt­hing. Not­hing is hid­den from God’s ey­es. We can trust in His gui­dan­ce at all ti­mes. He has pro­mi­sed us a new life af­ter our tem­po­ral life, and that life will be so­met­hing that no ey­es have seen, no ears have he­ard, and no-one has even been ab­le even to ima­gi­ne. How be­au­ti­ful that will be!

Text: Ai­li Pa­sa­nen

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

You will find the ori­gi­nal blog post here.