We feel sorry for those who cannot see. They may not desire our pity, but we pity them nonetheless. However, physical blindness is a light matter compared to spiritual blindnesses that may plague us. One such blindness is what the philosopher William James called “the blindness with which we all are afflicted in regard to the feelings of creatures and people different from ourselves” (“On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings”). When we are blind to the concerns of others, we are blind indeed.
None of us can help placing a priority on our own well-being, because each of us is an individual with particular needs. However, Christianity puts a check on natural concern for self and leads us to consider sacrificially our neighbor. Two passages especially come to mind in this connection:
- Luke 10:29-37. But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, (over)
- I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
- Philippians 2:3. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
We may be tempted to think of ourselves as being better than our neighbors, or to think that our own concerns are more serious than theirs. Similarly, we may be blind to our own faults while at the same time overlooking the hard circumstances that have led to weaknesses in others. Josiah Royce addressed the tragedy of such blindness:
What then, is our neighbor? Thou hast regarded his thought, his feeling, as somehow different from thine. Thou hast said, ‘A pain in him is not like a pain in me, but something far easier to bear’ He seems to thee a little less living than thou; his life is dim, it is cold, it is a pale fire beside thy own burning desires…..(The Lantern-Bearers)
Let us have a Christian view of others, by folowing the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12).