As Jim sat in his seat riding the MAX, the mass transit system in Portland, he looked across from him and saw a man in maybe his mid 30’s. He wore large, fully darkened sunglasses had a seeing eye dog at his feet. Jim first noticed his hands – or lack of them. At first, he thought it was a deformity, then Jim saw by the skin graft scars that he had somehow lost most of his hands. His left hand was no more than an extension from his wrist with no fingers whatsoever. His right hand had a stub of a thumb and a ½” long index finger.
Then he turned slightly and Jim saw he had no face! He saw a huge skin graft covering a surgical attempt to create facial features. His nose was nothing more than a nub with 2 holes sitting flat on his face. His mouth lacked any ability to animate – just puffy pigmented skin surrounding an ambiguous orifice.
So here sat this person who was blind, who had no face, who had practically no hands. Jim wondered what kind of life did this person have? What kind of life could he have? What’s his life’s purpose? One could ask what was his purpose to even continue to exist? After all, how could someone as deformed and seemingly useless serve any purpose in this world? And there Jim stood, judging this man’s reason to be granted a life.
As the next stop was announced over the car intercom, the man rose to get off. The seeing eye dog immediately focused his attention on his master, ready to guide him off the train. The man came and stood in front of Jim as he waited for the doors to open. Jim once again affirmed his judgement – what meaning did this man have in his life? Then his dog looked up at Jim ever so briefly as if he was listening to his thoughts and wanted him to know. And in the dog’s eyes Jim saw pity…pity for Jim because he could not see past his judgement. The dog’s attention and loyalty quickly came back to master. And then Jim saw it – the dog loved that man without judgement. Here Jim was, an advanced life form that supposedly could reason and hold compassion and offer love, and yet he could not honor this man in the way his simple dog was doing.
An hour or so later, Jim was sharing this experience with a friend, telling her how overwhelmed with sadness he felt about his own shortsighted judgements. The conversation moved on to other topics, mostly about their relationship and how they wanted it to be different – to be better. The conversation moved into her frustrations with Jim’s patterns that did not honor her. They talked about how Jim often times gets so involved with his work and tasks that he didn’t leave room for her. And how when that happens, it is impossible for him to see or notice that this is happening. As he explained my struggle to her, he had a realization. Jim started to giggle – no laugh. He remembered what the universe had shown him just 2 hours earlier. Jim was that blind man and what he needed was a seeing eye dog to look out for him! He shared this with his friend and they both laughed. “The universe is tricky”, Jim said. And with that, she agreed to be Jim’s seeing eye dog.
Do you have blind spots that keep you from being the best person you can be? Who is your seeing eye dog?