THE BLIND CAN LEAD THE BLIND
The story is told of a blind man who wanted to free himself from the restrictions of his handicap by going about without his usual guide. With the use of a stick, he found he could leave his house and walk down the street well enough, but when he came to the crossing where the cars drove by in unending stream he could not get himself to start across, although he knew that the drivers would almost certainly stop when they saw him leave the curb. He didn't quite have the confidence and was turning back discouraged with himself, when he felt a hand on his arm, and a voice said, "May I go across with you?" Reassured, he and his companion stepped out into the street, the cars came to a halt, and they proceeded across safely. When they got to the far side he was about to thank his friend, but before he could do so the other said, "I'm much obliged to you for your assistance in crossing the street, for, you see, I'm blind."
A passage from the Bible comes immediately to mind, does it not? "And he spoke a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind, shall they not both fall into the ditch?" The answer is no, not necessarily.
Blind men may be excellent guides; it all depends on where the blindness lies.
Our Lord was warning us of men who are blind in the eyes of the mind and spirit. As Marianne Moore wrote in her poem "In Distrust of Merits":
"Job disheartened by false comfort,
knew
that nothing can be so defeating
as a blind man who
can see. O alive who are dead, who
are proud not to see. O small dust
of the earth
that walks so arrogantly."
These are the people to guard against, the blind who can see.
On the other hand, many men are coming back from the war who have lost the sight of their eyes, but it would be fatal for the world to imagine them all blind. They have seen and known what most of us have escaped, the horrors of war, and it is their compelling experience that we need to help fight against the seeds of another war.
Blind men may be excellent guides, (and in the last analysis aren't we all blind?) but they also need faith—they must have faith in the insights of each other, they must have confidence that together they can reach their destination. The men in the story could not accomplish what they wanted by themselves but when they joined forces they got the necessary confidence to go ahead. But that's what faith entails. Joining forces with men who rely primarily on the eye of the mind and spirit. And that's the faith we all need so desperately in the days to come.
How far do you think you can get without the insights and understanding of others? Look at the past. How much wisdom have you acquired all by yourself apart from the experiences of humanity that you have met in books or face to face? We are embarked on a highly cooperative adventure in this life. Let no man pride himself on his own ability to reach his destination alone; nor let him feel a coward for needing the assistance of others.
Most of us know this well enough at least in large sections of our living—our culture, our business, our enjoyments are clearly mutual enterprises. Neither conceit nor ignominy are apt to enter these, for it is only too obvious how much we depend upon our fellow humans.
But oddly enough, when it comes to our religion, where mutual faith becomes the clearest necessity, that is the point at which we frequently leave our fellow blind men and plunge off by ourselves. Why people suppose that they can find God, their ultimate destination, by themselves, is a unique mystery. Why, to put it more concretely, a man can claim to have his own religion and not need the corporate advice and encouragement of the church can only be understood if he is content with a fragmentary faith, content to leave his house, walk down the sidewalk, but never cross the street to the other side. That kind of blind man would indeed fall into the ditch and all who followed him blindly would end there too. It all depends upon mutual faith, mutual confidence in each other.
One of the great pictures by Pieter Breughel the Elder shows a procession of blind men entering a river. The casual observer would suppose that they were all about to be drowned; that is if he observed in a superficial way. But the subtlety and greatness of the picture lies in the fact that that is not the only possible conclusion. They may be making their way across. It all depends upon what is in their minds. They may be blind, but they may not be following blindly. They may have the same faith of the two men in the story that will bring them safely across.
"And when Jesus departed thence, two blind men followed him, crying, and saying, Thou Son of David, have mercy on us. And when he was come into the house, the blind men came to him: and Jesus saith unto them, Believe ye that I am able to do this? They said unto him, Yea, Lord. Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you. And their eyes were opened."
Is it just a coincidence that there were two blind men in this story and not just one? Two men who had faith in God and in each other, and faith that together they could reach their final destination.
"If Satan also be divided against himself how shall his kingdom stand?"
The answer, of course, is that it won't stand any more than any other house. But unfortunately the forces of evil seem to recognize this fact more clearly than do the forces of good. Satan and his followers cling together so tenaciously because they know what they want and they realize that they must be unified in order to get it. Just compare Germany and France at the beginning of the war. The Nazis had one all-consuming aim behind their actions—to conquer the world—and because of this unity of purpose they came within a hair's breadth of succeeding. Indeed they would have done so had it not been for a unity of desperation forged at the last moment between vastly stronger nations. On the other hand, France didn't begin to know her own mind until it was too late. Conflicting interests and internal antagonisms made her a pathetically easy prey for the invader.
The fact is that the natural tendency among humans is to differ rather than to agree. Centrifugal force seems to be stronger in society than centripetal, and this is why so many houses are brought to desolation.
But just because divisiveness is natural, it does not follow that nothing can be done to keep men together. It merely means that unity has constantly to be made or it will not come about. The drift is not in that direction. Here is a place where man must use his freedom of choice and will, to transcend his inclinations. Fatalism and unity do not mix.
This being the case, where are man's unifying efforts particularly needed today?
The area where politics rises above itself is one of the most crucial for future world welfare. There are many elements in politics which are of necessity partisan and controversial. In fact, His Majesty's loyal opposition or the equivalent is essential to progressive government. But the fundamentals which all should have in common must not therefore be neglected. No politician in this country ever rose to such heights of community understanding as did Abraham Lincoln, and the great words he used, "government of the people, by the people, and for the people," states clearly that underlying unity without which democracy becomes anarchy. But it is not merely coincidental that this famous phrase appeared first in the preface that John Wyclif wrote to his translation of the Bible. Unity comes from God in the sense that He wills men to achieve it.
On a national scale partisanship must not allow another post-war fiasco, and it is appalling to hear that certain people are still firmly opposed to a world organization. On the local scene, religious, racial and social antagonisms have brought about a shameful state in the educational systems of our cities. Can't the welfare of our children be a matter of united action? It must become so.
Our heritage from the reformation is another value which we are in the process of losing because of disunity. At a public hearing in New York City recently the question came up why certain individuals had received no attention. A social worker remarked, "Oh, they are only P.P.P.s" When asked what this meant he replied, "Poor, powerless protestants."
Protestant unity is the first step toward Christian unity and world-wide religious cooperation. And it takes only a moment of sober, realistic thought to see that all Christians have vastly more in common than they have in particular. Why not spend more time and thought rejoicing in and applying the unity that already exists instead of magnifying our differences?
What it all comes down to is an attitude of mind. Do we try and cultivate our ability to agree when we can, to see the scope of our common aims, or are we consistently developing our divergences? Take the time to analyze yourself in this regard. If we take pride in our contrariness we are playing straight into the hands of the devil, for he is not making the mistake of a divided house himself—rather he is waiting for us to fall into that desolation. But if we hold steadfastly to the implications of the Christian doctrine of one God and all men as his equally valuable children, we are headed for a final victory in world brotherhood, the place where victory counts most.
"Put on the whole armour of God."
Very few passages in the Bible are as well known or as highly esteemed as this exhortation to stand against the wiles of the devil. And certainly it has an immediate bearing today when the outcome of the battle between good and evil is crucial for the very existence of civilization.
But this passage has a potentially misleading character about it which may have a disastrous effect upon the waging of the battle. Much of it sounds purely defensive. "To withstand in the evil day", "to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked"—the word "armour" even has the connotation of protection. All this can easily play into the hands of those who have the notion that the main duty of a Christian is to keep himself unspotted from the world. Like the three famous monkeys of the East, who see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil, it is thought that evil itself will somehow cease to exist if it is merely avoided. Of course there is some truth in this point of view in as much as the Christian must have adequate defensive equipment, but it must be forever emphasized that the vital element in the armour of God is the last one that St. Paul mentions, namely, the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. For we can be sure that all the breastplates, helmets, and shields ever made will be of little effect by themselves in defeating the principalities, the powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world. That is like building a tank of the most shell-proof armour but not putting in a powerful engine and a hard hitting gun. It just won't win battles.
Indeed, the most alarming sign of these times is the tendency to go onto the defensive, to try to side-step problems which appear to be too great to solve. It is a sign that the end of our era may be at hand. When the French Army came to the Marne in its retreat on Paris in the first world war, defeat seemed imminent. At that moment General Foch made his memorable decision. "My center is giving way, my right is pushed back—excellent! I'll attack."
As we know, that attack saved France. And as we also know, the lack of attack in this last war brought France's downfall. Without the sword of the Spirit, which is the spirit of the offensive, the most that can be hoped for is that defeat may be delayed. But it will surely come.
And defeat will surely come to this nation unless we take the offensive in solving the titanic problem of power that we have suddenly found in our hands. It cannot be hid under a bushel, it cannot be evaded, it cannot be kept to ourselves. It must be shared, for that is what the offensive means in this case—the exploration and achievement of new methods of cooperation which have never yet been tried. Small-minded and fearful men think only of retreat—retreat into self-protection. But the alternative to one world now is one Hell, or even more accurately one complete annihilation.
It may seem like an anti-climax to say that your own personal defeat will come in the same way if you put your faith in defensive armour and fail to acquire and use the sword of the spirit. It may have been possible in years gone by to live blandly in the Puritan house on the hill where all questionable literature was carefully banned, where temptation was kept at a minimum; where the turmoil, poverty and disease of the factory-filled valley could not be seen. But that is no longer possible because the ways of the valley and the hill have met. It never was Christian, it was merely rationalized egotism, to escape the problems of evil and call it purity. The Christian paradox must never be forgotten that dirty water washes clean when used in the service of God.
The time has come both personally and nationally to put on the whole armour of God in order to take the offensive against the powers of darkness of this world.
"How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?"
When Peter asked this leading question he may have been trying to seem magnanimous. For Jewish law required only a threefold forgiveness, after which, apparently, you were free to take revenge. Our Lord rejected this whole legalistic approach by his reply and penetrated, as he always did, to the inner spirit of the matter. Until seventy times seven was a traditional way of saying "without limit." He was trying to make Peter realize that to attach numbers to an action of this kind prevents your heart from being in it. Even if there were no chance of your brother sinning against you more than seven times, you were not really forgiving him the first time as long as you had a limit set to the extent of your forgiveness.
The forgiving love of God, which is the pattern for the same spirit in man, has no boundaries, no qualifications.
But hasn't it? you may well ask. Doesn't the Lord's prayer set a condition to his forgiveness of trespasses that we forgive those who trespass against us? Doesn't the parable of the unmerciful servant which follows Peter's question end with the stern "So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you if ye from your hearts forgive not everyone his brother their trespasses."
No, to regard this as a condition to God's forgiveness is to misunderstand radically the way God works, to mistake his very nature. To regard him as a bargainer, an exchanger of favors, is to descend to the really false kind of anthropomorphism which is to impute to him our weaknesses rather than to find in us his strength.
God's forgiveness flows from him continuously. When we do not experience it, it is because we fail to allow it to operate. To put the situation in its real terms, unless we learn to apply the spirit of forgiveness toward others we can never expect to discover the meaning of God's forgiveness in our own lives—we can never forgive ourselves; for that is one step more difficult than forgiving others. This may sound like nonsense at first. Difficult to forgive ourselves? Why that's easy, we reply. We are always coating over our mistakes, rationalizing our errors. But don't you see? In the very use of the words coating over and rationalizing, we admit that there is a core of guilt there somewhere that has not been forgiven but just covered up temporarily—and if the truth were known, allowed to fester and grow till its effect becomes deadly indeed. If you don't believe this, explore the inner recesses of your mind and look for a minute at the gallery of thoughts and actions you are trying to forget because they hurt. They hurt you still because they have never been touched by God's forgiveness. You have not learned the spirit of forgiveness toward others sufficiently to apply it to yourself.
But suppose you have tried to be forgiving and found it difficult or well-nigh impossible. It actually is not an easy thing to learn. And it cannot be accomplished merely by saying to oneself in a stern voice, "Forgive others and forgive yourself." Much could be said on how to learn, but one point stands out above the rest as wise counsel. Look at others and yourself with a sense of perspective. Our brother sins against us, the magnifying glass is brought out and focussed upon that sin, and our brother appears entirely sinful. We ourselves commit a sin, the microscope is turned upon that spot in us, and all our good seems evil in its darkness. Learn to take away the magnification as soon as the trouble is sufficiently examined. See again the good which greatly outweighs the evil, for that good is the light in which forgiveness thrives.
"How oft shall I or my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?" I hope you know by now.
"For our citizenship is in Heaven."
One of the greatest works on the philosophy of history is St. Augustine's City of God. Though written in the dark days after the sack of Rome by the Goths, it has perhaps an even more immediate bearing upon these brighter times because it is now that we are in the greatest danger of taking a nationally self-sufficient view of history.
St. Augustine saw that a Christian is a citizen of two worlds—the Earthly City and the City of God. These two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly, by love of self even to the contempt of God; the Heavenly, by the love of God even to the contempt of self. The earthly city is the state, and although it is a relative good, it must exist to maintain civil order in a sinful world. The city of God is the ultimate good where man's highest loyalty must reside, for as St. Paul pointed out, our true citizenship is in Heaven.
Our Lord himself recognized this double responsibility of man when he told the Pharisees "to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are God's." This shouldn't be too hard to comprehend, and yet history reveals the repeated error and tragedy of man's desire to be a citizen of one world or the other, but not both. Perhaps the difficulty lies in the fact that citizenship itself is a two-fold affair. It involves one's allegiance to a state and it also entitles the citizen to the protection of that state. It may be, therefore, that a double allegiance is too much for most men to bear, or it may be that the protection of the earthly state seems so much more tangible. In any event, the "either-or-ness" has been most unfortunate in its consequences.
To be a citizen of Heaven alone is more difficult for the average American to understand. Few men these days are tempted to go off into the desert and live an other-worldly life in prayer and contemplation with the sole desire of saving their own souls. And yet a more subtle form of this escapism is the chief object of the attack made by politically liberal and radical groups upon Christianity. Socialists and Communists have with good reason charged that much of every man's Christianity is a Sunday escapism with little or no effect upon his daily living, unrelated to his civic responsibilities and to existing evils.
Bad as this may be, the opposite form of single statism would seem to be more devastating in our present situation. When Stephen Decatur made his famous toast to "Our Country, in her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right, but our country, right or wrong," he revealed the stupid tragedy of all the many forms of the American First principle. But he incidentally admitted the existence and necessity of a superior standard of judgment by which the nation is seen to be either right or wrong. Unless our citizenship is in Heaven we cannot be effective and reliable citizens of this country or any country on earth. All we are fitted for without it is to be slaves to a Fascist state, saluting and goose-stepping moronically at the command of a self-appointed leader. We must have a basis for judging even our own country and our most honored institutions.
This nation is in the midst of the most important decisions any people on earth have ever faced. If we make them as members of the Earthly City alone, which as St. Augustine said is formed by love of self even to the contempt of God, we or our descendants will witness the final form of uncritical patriotism: the end of our state in the end of all civilization. But if those in authority, pressed on by us, will recognize their ultimate allegiance to the City of God which transcends all national sovereignty and boundaries there is good hope that the decision will be made for the good of all mankind and not simply for our destruction.
If they or we are fearful in this fatal moment, we might remember the other side of citizenship—as members of the City of God we are also entitled to its protection and its power.
Remember the experience of Elisha and his servant. And Elisha prayed and said, "Lord, I pray thee open his eyes that he may see. And then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw, And behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha."
"Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before."
One might well assume that these words of St. Paul are an accepted part of all theories of progress; looking forward instead of backward. But Lewis Mumford in his book The Condition of Man points out that this has unfortunately not always been the case, to the confusion and sidetracking of mankind's efforts. Progress, he says, may be considered in either of two ways—getting closer to a goal, or getting farther away from a starting point. And it was in the latter sense that the exponents of progress in the era of Romanticism; Hume, Voltaire, and the others, preached it—the casting loose from a past crippled by evils: brutality, superstition, ignorance, misery.
But have these curses disappeared from the earth? Have they not in many respects grown worse? I am afraid so, and I think it is due in large part to this negative theory of progress which has possessed man since the Renaissance. The intended cures of evils have been too often sought purely as an escape from the evil itself and not with a view to ultimate good.
Serfdom and slavery were evil, so men broke away and became free; but free for what? That was of little consequence as long as they were free. The Germans felt the pressure of other nations around them so they needs must make more Lebensraum—room in which to be free. And what nation has ever become so enslaved in the process? We didn't want war, and so with the mounting fear of war before our eyes, we temporized until the greatest war in history came upon us. An individual realizes how great is his own selfishness and so to overcome it, he concentrates upon self-centered cure and becomes even more entangled.
No, this kind of progress is no progress at all, but rather a circle back into greater evil. Man was not made to run with his eyes turned backward. He will inevitably fall into the same or deeper pit.
The only true and effective kind of progress is progress toward a goal with that goal clearly and constantly before our eyes.
We want peace. What then is peace? It certainly is not the mere avoidance of war. It is rather the achievement of those conditions which allow for men's dependance upon each other with greater mutual respect and affection.
We want internal national harmony. Does that come from the suppression of the demands of labor or the abolition of the guidance of management? Certainly not. It comes from a joint appreciation of the values of living without which there is no possible common ground.
Do you as an individual want to grow in wisdom and stature? Yes, certainly. But that will not come from mere reaction to your past; although that is a delusion under which many men labor. This frequently reveals itself in their attitude toward religion. Almost everyone goes through a period of reaction against religion and all that it stands for. It usually happens about Sophomore year in college. Actually it is a reaction against the authority of our parents, our school teachers and our unthinking past in general. It is necessary for each one to think out his purposes and goals, his religion for himself, or else it will never have his whole hearted support. But because of this confusion between authority and religion many people reject both together and forever after are motivated by reactions and not by any real positive ideal. They are the followers of the illusory theory of progress and are forever in frustration.
No, if you would make real progress you must start as soon as possible disentangling your ultimate ends from your reaction to your beginnings; keeping what is true for you and discarding what is false. Once this process is begun, it must be continued and developed until you have a religion that really pulls you on, until you are reaching forth unto those things which are before, until you have found the God who is your God and in whom you live and move and have your being.
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