What Happens When Someone Will Not See?

The circle of death swirls on the screen and it shifts. The bank balance appears, and with it, my heart sinks. It’s been a tough few months, financially.  The bottom line proves it.

My reaction? Inhale. Exhale. “Okay, now we know the worst. We can do something about it.”

My husband, on the other hand, suffers a definite blow. Kevin might not sleep that night. Instead, he’ll mull over what we could have done differently, how we can make changes, if he’s a failure at this thing called life.  He’ll pray—for hours.

They say ignorance is bliss. And sometimes, that’s true. It’s also a personality thing, I think. I tend to be a “let me have your worst” kind of gal. But when the negative arrives, I also tend to want to shield Kevin from it all. I don’t know how he can worry so much.  He can’t fathom how I can turn it off.

But sometimes those personality things go deeper—into what can be serious faults.  It has been said,

There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know.”

Or, in the words of Jeremiah,

Now hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear.”

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What does this have to do with not seeing?

As I work on the Sight Unseen series, one recurring theme happens, of course. Memory loss—the removal of all insight into one’s past.  You can hear who you were, be informed of what you did and why others think you did it, but you can’t know your own self the way you once did. It’s a fresh slate, and it can be a good thing in some respects.

Those around you can now see the difference between habits and personality traits—true dislikes and those conditioned by life. What might have been a fear once could be gone if the cause of that fear is blotted out.

But even for these fictional characters, truth doesn’t change. In None So Blind, Ella takes her memory loss and uses it as an opportunity to reinvent herself, if you will. And you know what?  If you asked her family about it, they’d tell you that it fits her personality.  That take-charge, gotta- get- ’er-done attitude Dani may have used in different ways, but both “manifestations” of the woman had those qualities.  Sure, Ella’s was tempered by recent experience, but not much.

Vikki Jeffries is almost the antithesis of Ella in that respect. 

The past is in the past. It scares her. Is it because she doesn’t know it?  Because she’s frightened by the unknown? We don’t know. But what we do know is anything associated with that past, even the few very personal items she finds, she rejects. It’s as if ignorance of them will protect her from them. Where Ella runs to face her problems, Vikki runs from them.

But despite those differences, I find it interesting that both women did the same thing, basically—just at different times.

Before her “episode,” Ella chose to blind herself to her faults.  She knew them. Lived with them daily, but couldn’t face or address them. So, she “refused to see.”

Vikki—we don’t know. But I think the story shows that she couldn’t blind herself to truth before her episode.  As much as she might have ached to, she just couldn’t. Now that the opportunity is here, however, she grasps it and if she insists on squeezing her eyes shut indefinitely, it may cost her everything—her life.  Her soul.

Philippians 4:8, “…whatever is true.”

They say ignorance is bliss.  Well, “they” also say, “Truth hurts.”  And sometimes it does. But so do the consequences of that ignorance.  I guess the next time the bank balance dips low, I won’t be handling the fallout alone.  Then again, one can always pray that it doesn’t dip low!  I think we’ll start there.