Open Your Eyes!

 

At the end of October, each year, Jewish people in synagogues read from a particular chapter in the Bible which tells the story of Hagar, Abraham’s handmaiden, and her son, Ishmael. Abraham has sent Hagar and his son away at the demand of his wife, Rachel. As the story goes, they are wandering in the desert. Expecting to die of thirst, Hagar had abandoned all hope. The child cried out and Hagar wept. God heard, it is written, and “opened” Hagar’s eyes. Suddenly she saw a well. She was able to draw water and their lives were saved. The well was there all the time, but God had to “open” Hagar’s eyes for her to see the well.

 

Doesn’t this story tell us truths about so much in our own lives? When I think of events in my life, there were so many times when it appeared to me that I was facing an impasse in my affairs. A good night’s sleep sometimes “opened” my eyes. Options for action that I had not seen before came into my mind, opening new avenues for the resolution of conflicts which I was facing.

 

So often, when I am writing the stories I tell, leaving the text aside for a time gives me an opportunity for new ideas to appear in my mind. And they do. The mind is an autonomous engine not always under our direct control. It works for us whether we are asleep or awake, thoughts sometimes rising to the level of consciousness without our commanding them.

 

Don’t we often hear tales of “eureka” moments when the answers we, or others, have been seeking for a long time suddenly come to mind? Suddenly, our minds deliver answers we did not know we could possibly find, even after much time and great effort expended in the search.

 

Although most people don’t know about it, the Jewish holiday of Chanukah is not in the Bible because the events that created it happened after the book was formulated. After the empire forged by Alexander The Great broke up, the piece where Israel was included was under the rule of kings named Antiochus. These kings liked to fancy themselves gods. One of them put a statue of himself in the Jewish Temple. This action opened up the eyes of the Jews that the Greeks were trying to destroy their nation by eliminating their religion. This was just too much for the Israelites and they rose up under the leadership of five Maccabi brothers, and drove out their Greek rulers.

 

Jewish history of the recent two millennia may not illustrate it, but Jews can be fierce fighters in protecting their rights, as the story of Israel’s rebirth testifies. When Rome put down the Jewish revolt two hundred years after taking over from the Maccabean descendants, the revolt the Romans feared that Jesus would lead, it took twelve legions to pacify the Jews and send them into exile. (Rome conquered the Britons with only two legions.) And the religious ideas spawned in Israel conquered Rome itself a hundred years later.

 

Some people have lived their whole lives with a particular philosophy motivating their actions. Events can occur in those lives which can change a person’s perspective on assumed realities one hundred and eighty degrees. We all know the story of Scrooge in the Dicken’s fable. His eyes were opened and his behavior was changed by an experience in his dreams.

 

These things occur in our lives more often than we realize. We all have to be open to changing our viewpoints, even if they have been long and steadfastly held, when confronted with new information that clearly contradicts the beliefs which we have held.

These realities suddenly, perhaps, not so suddenly, “open our eyes”. We probably have felt rumblings in the back of our minds that we have thrust farther into the background. Something happens which casts these ideas into sharp relief so that we can no longer ignore them. We face a painful reappraisal of our positions when “our eyes have been opened”.

 

Jews in Germany in the thirties, among the most loyal of Germany’s citizens at that time, faced a new reality when Hitler rose to power. Many fled, but many did not, those who could not believe their eyes. Many who did not open their eyes paid with their lives.

 

In our day, many Republicans in the U.S are facing an agonizing reappraisal of their party’s positions, their eyes having been opened as to what exactly their leaders have signed them up for. Some find the price to get the things in public policy they may want is too high. Some others believe that not enough of the Republican Party members have opened their eyes to their current reality, what their leaders are willing to sacrifice in terms of principle to achieve their objectives. That party is visibly shrinking in numbers of followers as these realities play themselves out. The mid-term elections in America may have been an object lesson. We may have seen that even as some close their eyes to the realities appearing before them, what has come to light may have opened some eyes?

 

 Haven’t some former adherents suddenly opened their eyes and changed their vote? It appears so!

 

It is one of the wonders of our minds is that we can hold two diametrically opposed ideas in them at the same time. It sometimes takes an internal revelation for us to appreciate this and come to terms with the internal conflict. When we do, we are forced to make a choice as to which path we will choose. When we open our eyes to the internal contradictions in our positions, we enable the forging of more rational courses of action.

 

To many it may be incomprehensible that an individual, or even groups of individuals, can be so fixated on the achievement of desired objectives that they will not recognize the evils they must overlook in the achievement of their ends. This happens to us all the time in matters great and small. We accept collateral damage to others that appears to us to be necessary to achieve our ends. Our eyes are often closed to this.

 

On the other hand, we may not even be aware of the pain we inflict in the pursuit of our ends. I know this from events in my own life. Often, it is only with time and life experience that we begin to appreciate the trail of pain we may unwittingly have left behind us in our travels.

 

Regret and remorse may not suffice to undo what we may have done when we did not have eyes to see. When we finally do see, we can only resolve to do better in the Now we are living, with eyes open wide.

 

This stuff is not easy. We may be very unhappy with important elements of our lives. But taking drastic action to materially change our lives takes courage, and often, the risk of substantial loss. The truth is we may have done this at some time in our own lives and not even appreciated we were risking all for renewal.

I myself, consciously sought to renew my life when I reached out at the age of seventy to seek a relationship with a person I had known only superficially more than fifty years earlier as a teen-ager. The object of my continued memory and attention, my future Bride, mustered up the courage to take me on as an unknown quantity, and her courage enriched both our lives. She herself, who criticizes me for leaping into the unknown without sufficient consideration, does not appreciate that she has, more than once, leaping blindly into the indeterminate in order to renew her life, leaving behind the one that had proved unsatisfactory to her. How many of us haven’t done the same thing?

 

Truth be told, the times that haunt us most in our lives are those when we did not “seize the bull by the horns” and do the thing we really wanted to do. But, in the end, failing to act for lack of courage, or some other reason, we settled for less than we ached to reach for. We can count every one of those times in our mind’s eye. Don’t we agonize sometimes about those steps not taken? We can never know for sure what the ultimate outcome would have been.

 

Looking out through the window of my eyes, seeing the young, and not so young, I am filled with enthusiasm for the future. I see the possibilities we all face in our lives to re-engineer what the future holds for us. I have to restrain myself from commentary. Such would have to require invitation, and how do I know that my vision can have any relevance for the contexts of those on the other side of my window.

 

There is so much happening out there of which I may have no understanding. What I do know is, if I really put my mind to it and concentrate on this renewal business, I can be sure to help make my tomorrows fantastic! So can you readers of my story! That is what makes our tomorrows so exciting!