Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?

HE Sixth and final Sunday of Pascha is called the Sunday of the Blind man. In the Eastern Rite, we use the Reading of this story from John. I have to admit that it reads to me as a bit of comedy – with the same sort of conversation being repeated several times. “This can’t be the blind man!” “It is the blind man!” “How come he’s not blind any more?”

But it opens up with those questions… Why did this happen?

I was listening to a discussion of the novel from CBC Radio’s Ideas podcast. At one point the presenter of the episode, Hassan Santur, was discussing the current fad of seeing one’s life as a story, a narrative with a beginning a middle and an end. The writer he was interviewing insisted that for some (including the writer) life was experienced not as a narrative but as episodes. We don’t move from one part of the story to the next in a smooth story arc, but rather it is from episode to episode, discrete chunks of time and events.

Narrative people tend to view their lives as a whole story. The I at the present is the I in the past and will be the I in the future. Episodic people tend to view themselves as cyclical/non-continuous. Episodic people are not the same person as the person that lived ten years ago, five years ago, three years hence.

As I listened, I began to hear recognise my own experience of life – not an extended Narrative but rather episodes of Good and Bad, fun and not fun. I confess a small sense of jealousy of those who have a Narrative…

Today, thinking of the Episodic Life of the Man Born Blind: from one moment to the next his entire life changed, even his own parents didn’t know what to say about him. Indeed, if there’s one thing the Man Born Blind could say, the story of his life changed totally in that one contact with Jesus as it’s recorded for us. What happens to us who come into contact with Jesus on a weekly basis?

When I tell the story of my life in hindsight, I have to admit the episodic rather than narrative nature of the path. It is impossible for me to tell the story in one Arc. I can break my life into two names – and each of those into a couple of “subnames”. I can tell my life in a series of religious episodes of several different religions. Geographically, it breaks up into Georgia, Alabama, Georgia, NY, Georgia, NY, NYC, SF, A’ville and Buffalo. Romantically it breaks into a series of relationships and a time with no relationships and now Brodie. Within each relationship I can spot cyclical and repetitive patterns but point out the differences between my doing of one thing and then of the next thing. On each cycle, I am different.

But some how, the same.

Something changes.

Something moves.

Some things remain.

I’m impressed by people who claim to be narrative. Their life has followed one unalterable story arc – to hear them tell it. They, inevitably, look down on people who have a different experience: we need help. We need to be fixed. We need to have a plan. To get a grip on things. And I think they need to be less boring, less control oriented, and more realistic.

Because the longer I know Narrative individuals the more I see the story they tell themselves – inevitably that they are “self made” and in control of things – is a lie: they are nearly delusional.

Thinking of the Apostles and the Martyrs we find the same lack of Narrativity. St Paul freely talks about the times his plans had to change because he wasn’t in charge. Peter is warned in the Gospel that he may go “where he wants to go” now, but later he will be taken where he doesn’t want to go. The saints all tell stories of their encounters with God has, at the heart, suddenly realising they were not in control of their lives.

Look at the Gospel today… the Apostles ask Jesus to tell them the story of this man’s life. Was he born blind because he sinned? (I would assume that means in a “past life” and that some part of the Early Church, at least, believed in some form of reincarnation.) Was he born blind because his parents sinned? Who was in charge of the story of this mans life? Who is telling it? Himself? His Family? “Nature or nurture?” Jesus response is “Neither: God is telling this Man’s story and, for what it’s worth, this man has lived in darkness so that you might see the light.”

I am not… you are not… we are not in control of the story of our lives. No matter what Oprah and therapists might tell you, God is writing the story that you read, as you make the choices you make – not because God is “large and in charge” but because you can’t make choices alone: none of us lives in a vacuum. Our free will, even, is hindered in its operation by the very choices of others made around us. In this complex dance of will and will, person and person, God is the actual writer who brings all of our stories into play, all of our dances woven together.

And ultimately the purpose of those stories is so that we all might give God the glory, although we sometimes avoid the real truth and purpose of our lives.

How this plays out in reality is more of a dance of grace than most people want to admit. The famous “not really Kurt Vonnegut Commencement Address, that’s been floating around the net since 1997. Here’s the quote:

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t.

It is Ironic to cite these words in the context of a loss of control because, of course, Kurt never said those words. They were written by a journalist who later referred to “the lawless swamp of cyberspace” because it wrested her words from her control. All of our life is that way: wrested from our control – it never was, at all, within our control at all. Notice that the Gospel Healing story does not come at the request of the Man Born Blind! It doesn’t come at the request/intercession of the Apostles. They are seeking only to know who is telling the story. Jesus’ answer is, clearly, God is telling this story.

How do we live ourselves into a place where we are not telling the story but rather the story is God’s for his glory, his beauty, his telling?

I think it’s important that the story of the Man Born Blind arrives on the last Sunday of Pascha. We’ve been moving through this festive season rather like a dream. I’m usually exhausted by the time we get here. Christians may love this season, but we’re not up to living in it yet for eternity. The party gets old. Singing “Christ is Risen” grows to be a burden. The Church year moves on – we are not yet Immortals living in the Kingdom of Heaven. The cycle changes again.

The story of the Man Born Blind is the story of us waking up to our reality: we are not yet in heaven. We are here. Yet we are not in control. God is. The Man Born Blind has brought us to the realisation of our own lack of narrativity. We can not sustain the arc we want to imagine. The church isnt’ perfect and the world isn’t yet ready for a feast. The Man Healed of Blindness is confronted with the reality that his own community – his own family – is rather messed up. And, for all that this was for the “glory of God”, his healing has brought a lot of crisis into his life and the lives of those around him.

Pascha has disrupted our world – but life can never be the same again. The chaos is even more distressing now than it was before – because we can see the reality of not being in control. But that’s the blessing as well. We cycle into a new place – same as the old place – but it is us who have changed. The New Man stands ready.