Yesterday I went with my friend Ivan to Norwich. Ivan required cataract surgery…
As a child in Sunday School I heard stories of the Jesus who made blind men see. I was taught that seeing wasn’t just about physical sight but was about understanding, seeing truth that may be hidden. I learnt the phrase ‘looking through the eyes of faith’ which at times became an unexplained cliché…
Seeing, believing, understanding?
As a child I watched ‘Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men’. Together with their friend ‘Little Weed’ they came to life and had adventures while the man who worked in the garden had his dinner. No one saw them come to life, so no-one knew…
I enjoyed reading C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books (and still do!) I liked the idea that you could walk through the back of a wardrobe into a different, perhaps parallel, world. A world that is unseen by many, yet is real and contains hidden truth…
Seeing, believing, understanding?
Whilst Ivan was having his surgery I went to a nearby Costa. I chatted to a lady who spends her weekends searching for ‘Green Man’ carvings and pictures in Norfolk churches…
Some link Green Man (with vegetation surrounding, sometimes sprouting from, his head) to Pagan religion, tree worship or ancient gods of fertility… that somehow combined with Christian traditions.
Others link Green Man to the medieval understanding of nature, rebirth, and resurrection, or more recently to ecology and our relationship with nature.
Seeing, believing, understanding?
Musing… This morning reading Isaiah’s words: ‘In quietness and confidence is your strength’ (30:15) …Believing without seeing or fully understanding?
…Job’s words of determined confidence in the face of adversity, read at Sarah’s Thanksgiving Service on Saturday: ‘I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes…’ (19:25-27)
Seeing, believing, understanding?
malcolmsmusings.org 
In 2011 the phrase, “you’ve got to see it to believe it” changed for me: as a faith-walker, I choose to “believe it to see it”! A window on Heaven opened for me, I’m so grateful.
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Thanks Leslie. You’e right. The relationship between seeing, believing and understanding is constantly changing, and when put into perspective with faith all changes again… I was thinking of the response of Judas, the Thomas, then Peter to Jesus’ death and resurrection….
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