Blind people don't run... they saunter; in music notation their walk would be Adagio. The young man's tutor was waiting for him.
"I'm sitting over here, Ryan" said the tutor.
Ryan approached her table and his cell phone rang. He answered with a jovial voice, "Yes, I'm here." At the end of his conversation, he said, "OK, I will see you later." I smiled.
I watched Ryan find the table and chair with his cane and reflected on his words- 'I will see you later', an expression used countless times around the world... an expression that extends beyond our natural vision, 'I will see you later' speaks to the knowledge of a future event, a reunion of souls. Eyesight is unnecessary for the reunion of souls.
The Human Creature is indeed a mystery, capable of performing astonishing feats, even in the throes of adversity. I watched Ryan interact with his teacher, and, I confess, listened to their conversation. Ryan was studying for a test, reading aloud from a braille article- on digital art! Again, I smiled. I was witnessing Beauty in Action... a young student, fully alive and articulate, brimming with curiosity and joy, reading an article on visual art with his fingertips.
"Beauty is a mind-frame," a student once told me. I wonder: with 'what' is my mind framed? The frame contains my reference points, my definitions. It is through the mind-frame I see; some call it worldview, and when the frame is challenged by opposing frames or circumstances beyond my border, I consider, or reconsider, the validity of the frame. Can my frame withstand the storm of criticism or circumstantial evidence? Can my frame outlive the ever-changing definition of success?
Henry David Thoreau said, "I have met one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks- who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering: which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going a la Sainte Terre," to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a Saint-Terrer," a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander."
The Ryans of the world inspire me; they remind me we are more than our circumstances or physical limitations because our mind-frame is a choice. Peter said it thus:
...let your adornment be what's inside- the real you, the lasting beauty of a gracious and quiet spirit, in which God delights.
I Peter 3:4 The Voice
I choose to believe the One who made my mind frames my life...
the God Who is Love,
the God Who saunters.
