Preview(S): Transformed...Oh! I see.

   What does Beethoven's Fifth look like?  Or...what sound does the color orange make?  How about sandpaper...does it taste salty when you touch it? Does the word "basketball" taste like waffles? You may not have an answer for any of those questions but there are some folks who do...sort of.  The disorder is known as Synesthesia and people who suffer from it have the unique problem of having sensory experiences from one mode cross over to another mode. Thus, a person with Lexical-Gustatory Synesthesia might experience certain flavors and tastes when they hear certain words.

     The most common form of Syesthesia is called Grapheme-Color Synesthesia.  In this form of the disorder letters take on a certain color.  When one sees an "A" for example it may look red.  For centuries people have studied synesthesia with a variety of observations from the sublime (they have been touched by the Gods) to the absurd (correct it with electroshock therapy).  What science has been able to tell us, and it is actually surprisingly little, is that this brain disorder is present in people from childhood and may be a matter of how the brain comes to understand abstract concepts.  Over the many years that people have studied grapheme-color synesthesia the pattern of what color people associated with each letter was random...until the early 1970's.  All of a sudden most people associated the letter "A" with red, "B" with orange, "C" with yellow, and "D" with green.  The pattern for all of the letters of the alphabet went from random to fixed over a single generation baffling psychologists.  

    The solution to the mystery turned out to be a product from Fisher-Price that gained popularity in the late sixties to early seventies: the magnetic letter set.  This ubiquitous toy had letters in a fixed sequence of color that somehow imprinted on the children who owned them.  As the children learned their letters their brains, quite by accident, forever tied the concept of "W" to the color blue. From that time on, when reading, synesthetes (people with this disorder) would see text that LOOKED LIKE THIS. Contrary to what you might think synesthetes almost universally like their disorder and most consider it something akin to having a super-power.  Science has backed up their approbation when in study after study synesthetes score better (by far) on memory tests, overall IQ tests, and generally possess superior creative skills.  Something about seeing things in a slightly different modality has actually improved their lives.  

    Frankly all of humanity could use some super powerful vision

upgrades, and I don't just mean those of us who wear bifocals. It seems like we have a really hard time with seeing what is instead of seeing what we want to see.  Unlike the folks with synesthesia who see abstract things that are not there, like color in letters, most of us see character traits and virtues where we only hope to see them.  The prophet Samuel had this problem when he chose Saul as king over Israel. He saw a physically powerful, charismatic, forceful man and immediately "decided" to see the gifts necessary for a successful king.  Saul was far from successful. Even though he possessed all of the traits that most folks think make for a good king, he was a horrible failure.  His strengths made him vain and proud leading him to turn away from God's leadership and assume the role of supreme authority in Israel. The ensuing failures and disasters slowly eroded away his sanity leaving him a maddened and dangerous monarch.  
    When God sent Samuel to anoint a new king he warned him against trusting his limited sight:  

1st Samuel 16:7: But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart."

    Sight has always been a bit of a sticky thing for humans to understand. For centuries we struggled to even glean the barest fundaments about how it worked. Forget understanding how folks with super enhanced synesthesia did it, we could not figure out how WE did it. Up until the eighteenth century the prevailing theory of sight was called the Emission Theory. This theory proposed that eyes projected invisible beams of light at an object thereby allowing us to see.  In current times we understand that light actually bounces off of objects, or is generated by objects (like the sun or a light bulb) and enters our eyes and causes us to see.  

    Interestingly the Roman thinker Lucretius proposed in 55AD that "The light and heat of the sun; these are composed of minute atoms which, when they are shoved off, lose no time in shooting right across the interspace of air in the direction imparted by the shove." which according to Lucretius then bounced off of objects and into our eyes...Despite being absolutely spot-on, this theory caused him to be the object of derision and scorn among the "better educated" thinkers of his time.  You see, human vision...it is a flawed thing. Especially when we try to walk in the light of our own reason.  Paul points out that:

Ephesians 5:8-14For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light- for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.

   When we see things in the light of God's presence we perceive things differently. Sometimes very differently.  In the Gospel lesson we have this week Jesus encounters a man who was born blind. Like he always did, Jesus mercifully restored the man to sight.  The formerly blind man went on his way proclaiming how good Jesus was, only to be brought to testify before the local Jewish powers-that-be.  They questioned him mercilessly demanding to know how Jesus did what he did in hopes that they could bring some charge against Jesus for some evil action.  The man finally responds in frustration saying, 

John 9:30-33:  "Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing."

    The blind man could see that Jesus was from God but the seeing men could only see their jealousy and fear.  Who was really blind here?  When we learn to abandon our fear of seeing things from God's point of view, walk in his light, and accept that our own vision is far (very, very, very, very far) from perfect then we actually have the chance to see things as they truly are, not how we mis-perceive them to be. 

    There is no telling the amazing things you will see if you just take a moment and adjust your vision.  What were the church leaders from Jesus' day so afraid they would see that they could not bear to look at the truth that even a, literally, blind man could see.  Why did they want to walk so much in this world's darkness? What did they hope to gain by only seeing things from the outside in, instead of the inside out like God does?  The same question could be asked of us.  If God wants to cure our blindness and make us to see as clearly as he does, why do we fight to stay blind? If we allowed God to really give us vision, and we threw away all the filters, assumptions, preconceptions, philosophies, and ideologies of this world and just walked in the light of God's love and grace as spoken to us in his Word what would we see?  I am ready to see with a little spiritual synesthesia, how about you?