A couple of years ago an opthamologist examined that bad eye (which incidentally had never been removed) and told Wayne that while he couldn't make any guarantees, he thought there was a procedure that could restore its vision. Wayne agreed to it and, amazingly, vision returned to the eye. Imagine it! After more than thirty-five years with a dysfunctional eye, Wayne once more saw as most of us see. A wonderful blessing for him. Wayne's experience gives me a sense for how charged and dramatic Bartimaeus' restoration must have been for him. No longer was it blind Bartimaeus; now it was sighted Bartimaeus.

Would that sight could be restored to all people whose eyes no longer work, but that isn't always possible. Yet the eyes of the soul can always be repaired. People on that level can move from seeing or defining themselves as deficits to seeing themselves as God's emboldened children. Longfellow ends his poem like this:

Ye that have eyes, yet cannot see,

In darkness and in misery,

Recall those mighty voices Three,

"Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me."

"Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee."

"Go Thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole."

Bartimaeus moved from the sitting by the side of the road to walking down the road. There is something in this story that gets into all our lives -- into our fears, doubts, preoccupations, hesitations, all those ways in which we define ourselves by what's wrong. It need not remain that way for us. That it can be otherwise is what faith sees. Hence, "... thy faith hath made the whole" (Mark 11:52).

There is a story of a general whose troops stormed into a small town. When it was secure the general asked his scouts: "Where are the children of this village?"

"They have all fled in fear," the scouts replied.

"Is there no one left to pay tribute?" the general shouted.

"No one but the priest. He remains in the temple."

Immediately the general marched to the temple, burst through the doors and demanded to see the priest. After a search, the priest was found reading quietly in his study. The general, angry that the cleric refused to greet him as conqueror, shouted, "Don't you know that you are looking at one who can run you through without batting an eye?"

"Don't you know," the priest replied, "that you are looking at one who can be run through without batting an eye?"

For a moment the soldier stared in disbelief at the priest. Then, slowly, a smile danced on his lips. He bowed low and left the temple (Stories for the Journey, p. 95).

To be defined by what's wrong is unworthy of God's children. It's tragically unnecessary. So what do we do? Like Bartimaeus we say to God, "I want to see again." And what makes the vision return? Our faith that God can do it. What have we to lose by asking? Especially when there is so much to gain.

"Don't you know," the priest replied, "that you are looking at one who can be run through without batting an eye?" The general bowed low and left the temple. So too will all that poorly defines us when we again remember whose we are.