The Blind

If I were blind from birth and had no understanding of the meaning of colors I would have to see with sounds, observe with my hands, pause to take in fragrances, I would be more tactile by necessity.

When I am in the presence of a blind person I always feel naked, stripped down to the core of my being, raw. I feel on edge, like I have to get away from this person or they’ll tell everyone who I really am.

They cannot see me but they know I am there.

They can hear my words but they know more of what I mean because they hear the pauses in my speech, listen for the shake in my voice. While seeming to look off into space they are looking straight at me with another part of them that is not visible to me, to those who can see but are really blind.

But I, who can see have a weight that my blind friends do not shoulder for I can see the glory of God in Monet while weeping at the images of Auschwitz and the demise of two very tall columns in New York and a nation seated and shaking uncontrollably.

In the small college I attended years ago there was one blind man. He was young. I remember this because I watched him often. He would sit during chapel services and quietly tap away on his special typewriter that made impressions on paper for his fingers to see.

I observed him so often. He didn’t know I was watching him. He was blind. When he spoke, which wasn’t often, he would move his head back and forth in that unique way that blind people often do. I wonder why they do that! It’s like they are searching for a certain rhythm in what they say.


When I was a kid growing up my parents were avid fans of Jose Feliciano, the blind Puerto Rican singer-song writer. What I remember most about him was an album cover where he was posing with his beloved dog and his other companion, a guitar. I used to think as a kid that Feliciano was an amazing guitar player for being blind. I mean it really fried my bacon that this guy could play so incredibly well and yet all he could see was darkness. I think that’s when I started contemplating thoughts about music being another form of language, a universal one. To this day whenever I hear his music, it stops me dead in my tracks. My sisters and I once took turns blindfolding each other to see what it would be like to be blind. I remember that … my arms stretched out, like the feelers on insects that crawl about touching everything about them.

The great nineteenth century classical guitar composer Francisco Tarrega was taught to play the guitar by a blind man that sat outside the rope factory of which he, as a child, was employed. Tarrega would stand and listen, amazed at this man that could not see but played sounds liked teardrops from heaven. Eventually the blind man taught him how to play and as a result we have songs like Recuerdos de la Alhambra to be thankful for.

God is gracious to give us the blind. They have taught many of us to see and having seen to understand more.