“My son needs his eyes tested” I said to the ophthalmologist.

“What seems to be the trouble?” he said.

I paused. “Well put it this way….when we look out the window and say ‘Look at the cows!’ he says ‘What cows'”

He gave a hearty laugh, shook his head and took my son into the examining room. At the end of the visit he came out and said to me: 

“You’re right. There are no cows!”

A week later, fitted with glasses, my son’s vision was clear and sharp. He saw life through a different lens. The blurred vision and minimal ability to see was changed. In its place was a clarity and greater comprehension of the world around him. In a very real way his eyesight was healed. He could now see the cows!

I have relayed and thought about this story many times. It is a great illustration of my own, often troubling, spiritual blindness. I just can’t see the cows. They are there in all their natural beauty and use. Brown, black and white spotted, black –  varied colors and sizes – but I am oblivious to them because I can’t see. I need clearer vision.

With the help of a professional, my son (like others in the family!) has been able to correct his vision. Physical eyesight is easy in comparison to spiritual eyesight. While I long to see through a clearer, better lens, there are times when it feels slow in coming, times when I too need the help of someone else. A funny story has become a spiritual vision check for me where I remember, every time I see cows, that without corrected eyesight there are no cows.

What about you? Do you see the cows, or are you, like me, sometimes blind to them? It’s a seemingly trivial analogy but my guess is that a lot of us around and say “What cows?”

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