| Day 9: Outside the Village (Healing a Blind Man) | Bethsaida by the Sea | Security

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Music provided by Matt Maher, with authorization

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Friday, October 8: Bethsaida Excavations on the Sea
“Outside the Village”
Mark 8:22 (RSV)
When they arrived at Bethsaida, they brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. Putting spittle on his eyes he laid his hands on him and asked, “Do you see anything?” Looking up he replied, “I see people looking like trees and walking.” Then he laid hands on his eyes a second time and he saw clearly; his sight was restored and he could see everything distinctly. Then he sent him home and said, “Do not even go into the village.”
Dr. Brennan Mullaney: from his book, Authentic Love, pages 18 & 19
Reflection on What the Happens to the Lord When He Encounters Us

"When I love you, my heart, the center of the center of me, the spirit of me, leaves the confines of my body and I move into you. If you are lost, even unto yourself, I go in search of you. It is strange, this power of love, for sometimes I find you even before you have found yourself, and finding you, I will never let you go.

Finding you, I stand inside you, in your shoes, inside your skin, looking out at the world through your eyes, seeing what you see, hearing what you hear, feeling what you feel, not just understanding your hurts (empathy), but suffering the pain of your hurts right along with you.

When there is grief yet unwept, buried in your heart, my heart grows heavy as I fight away tears with you. You want to cry, but cannot, so my throat hurts. When you recount the agony of childhood rejection, my chest hurts.

When you are unjustly treated, I rage even when you cannot. And when you remain bewildered, still lost, I speak to you with my eyes, silently saying, "Here you are -- right here! See? You are the one I am loving."

Sadly, though, as you discover yourself, you rediscover the wounds that sent you into hiding,
and with those wounds comes pain, boiling up from the deep, and my heart suffers right along with you.

Finally, then, you cry, and I taste salt.

But when you sing, my heart hums along in harmony. Inside you, I can see clearly the beauty, the courage, the honesty, all your virtues -- the unique goodness that you are. Here, inside you, I can see, absorb and unite with the spirit of you that may not have been apparent at all from the outside.

Here, within, I can see unique value, strengths, and wonderful yearnings that no one could see from the outside - goodness buried beneath pain and pain's obnoxious symptoms and defenses that may have pushed people away.

Loving you, I experience you from outside-in and inside-out simultaneously; I remain me while growing in oneness with you, uniting with you, and in a very real way, albeit mysteriously, becoming you."

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