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Rector's Letter, November 2004 Dear Friends, Many years ago (not exactly ‘Once upon a time’ but approaching that), a new Rector came to the Church I attended. I volunteered – my father, from his experiences in the army, always told me never to volunteer for anything, but I’ve never heeded this piece of advice, often to my regret – to help him hang curtains in the substantial Rectory. After a while I started to laugh. ‘You really do like brown,’ I remarked. Every set of curtains presented to me for alterations was brown, some patterned, some plain, but all brown. He was not amused; in fact, he was decidedly huffy at my amusement. After a while he confessed, ‘I’m colour blind. I didn’t know they were all brown; they look fine to me’. How was I reminded of this incident? Not because I learnt a valuable lesson in not offending folk, but due to an overdue visit to the optician’s. ‘Does this look rounder than this ? What line can you read? Is that fuzzy? Where’s the line?’ You will all know the kind of questions and the misplaced anxiety induced by getting it all ‘wrong’. I’m sure it all goes back to the desire to please teacher (and puff up one’s own ego) by getting the ‘right’ answer. Anyway, as ever, I digress. We were talking about how one perceives things – visible things, not philosophical concepts. So often we see, and indeed hear, what we want to, and block out the rest. This can be useful, as most of our area of vision gives us a double image that we block out. There’s also something I remember vaguely about the brain righting the image the eye receives upside down. We spoke of an advert for child safety, in which there was a scene with a dog, a child and a car. The child saw the dog very large but blocked out the car. I remember seeing two pictures of a house, seen through the eyes of a woman. The first picture was of a lovely building and garden; the second of a dilapidated building and weed-filled garden. They were actually the same place, but seen through the eyes of the woman when she was feeling positive, and again when depressed. Sometimes how we see things is due to the way our brains and eyes work physically, but often it’s to do with what is important to us, or with our mood and mental state. The constant rain we’ve had makes everywhere look dreich. I was remarking on the lovely red stems of a dogwood the other day. I glanced at them today and they looked quite dull; today it’s raining whereas before the sun was shining. The dullness robs everything of colour. We often speak of God and Jesus in terms of light. Looking at things, whether they are natural objects or thoughts and feelings, in God’s light, changes everything. The distortions and misconceptions disappear in God’s light. Just as we have genuine physical reasons for not seeing clearly, so all of us too have mental disabilities which distort our thinking and outlook on life. God is ultimate reality – hence we need to ask Jesus to help us to see the world around us through his eyes, in order to be in touch with that reality. May you know the inner light of God illuminating all you do and all you think. Janice |