Spark of light can change our view of everything

What if the difference between darkness and light is about perspective? What if it’s not nearly as much about what you see as how you see it?

The way we perceive everything directly affects how we think and believe about life — even if it’s inaccurate and untrue.

Limitations are problematic. Anything that limits our ability to see things as they really are is counterproductive. When it comes to dealing with the truth, over-compartmentalizing can force things to appear as something they’re not; justifying unhealthy thought processes based on limited information not objective enough to see the whole picture.

Thinking this way reminds me of a story I heard once.

There were six blind men and one day an elephant passed their way. They all felt different parts of the elephant and began describing what it’s like based on the part they felt.

An argument ensued about what elephants are comparable to. Each insisted the animal was something very different from what the others felt. Then a wise man passed by explaining they were all correct. Each one had felt a different part of a large animal. If they could see it they would realize the animal was actually like all the things they described.

The blind men were thankful for the wise man and happy they were all partly correct.

What if being able to see the big picture empowers problem solving at all levels? What if objectivity allows us to avoid cognitive dissonance: conflict within ourselves about strong feelings, beliefs about those feelings, emotions that allow us to have conflicting ideas about parts of truth coexisting in separate compartments of our minds; so as to remain separate pieces of a larger mental puzzle? What if allowing ourselves to see the whole picture really does matter?

It’s like that old saying I heard growing up, “It’s like the blind leading the blind.”

There’s another old saying I’ve read before, “We are like the blind feeling our way along a wall. We feel our way as if we had no eyes. In the brightness of day, at high noon, we trip as if it were night.”

If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ve felt like those six blind men. At some point, we all suffer from degrees of cognitive dissonance.

Not long ago, I woke up, with eyes full of sleep and half awake I reached in the dark for my cellphone to see what time it was. I placed the phone up to my face, touched the screen to turn it on and nothing happened.

After several attempts, I put my hand on the wall, feeling my way to the light switch. Upon turning on the light, I realized what I held actually was a plastic accessories case. Talk about seeing something differently and changing the way I felt as the truth about why my phone wouldn’t turn on came into sharp focus.

The light changed everything, allowing me to see my phone from a more objective vantage point.

How we see things matters and one spark of light can change everything around us.

Sometimes all it takes is one person, one match and reality changes forever. Our tendency to over-compartmentalize is shattered to pieces allowing us to see from the big picture frame of reference.

Our middle son, Joshua, who has Down syndrome, has struck one match in his life, changing his feelings about matches and how I felt and believed about what I thought I could see in the dark.

Joshua was hiding in the house and we couldn’t find him. I went into the basement to see if he was hiding in the laundry room. I open the door and it was pitch black, so I went back upstairs.

After searching the entire house, I decided to go back downstairs to double check knowing with the dead bolts locked he couldn’t be outside. When I open the laundry room door, it was so dark I couldn’t imagine him there, but as I went for the light I heard something. I looked and in the darkness I see Joshua’s surprised face behind a glowing match. His eyes all big and his mouth open wide he simply says, “Wow!”

He’s never played with matches again. And I’ve never forgotten how that match totally reframed my limitations and inaccurate beliefs and feelings about Josh not being in the laundry room.

He was there the whole time even though I couldn’t see him because of the limitations of a pitch-black basement.

There’s another old saying: “The people sitting in darkness have seen a great light.”

This Christmas, may all your cognitive dissonances be shattered to pieces by the light of the truth. May the light of our savior change the way you feel and see everything in the dark.

As you become objective enough to light your own candle, may all your limitations be illuminated, allowing you to clearly see yourself becoming a big-picture problem solver who sees and reframes everything with the wisdom and wow behind a glowing light.