Midweek Faith Lift
March 5, 2025
The Power of Understanding-Insight
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Spiritual Passages
February 24, 2025
A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers playing ahead of them. They start getting really upset as the long wait went on. The engineer, fuming with anger and lots of judgment, finally asked, "What's with these guys? We must have been waiting for 25 minutes!" The doctor replied, "I don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude!" The priest jumped in, asking a nearby greens keeper, "What's with that group ahead of us? They're incredibly slow." The groundskeeper answered, "They're a couple of blind firefighters. They both lost their sight last year while saving our clubhouse from a fire. So we let them play here free of charge!" After a long silence, the priest, "That's so sad. I will say a special prayer for them tonight." And the doctor responded, "Good idea. I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them." Then the two looked at the engineer who asked, "Why can't those guys play at night?"
"The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not the possessing entity - the thinker. The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You realize that all the things that truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken." - Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
"I no longer think that any principle or opinion is worth anything if it makes me unkind or intolerant." - Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness
Affirmative Prayer for today: Infinite Presence that is my “I AM” consciousness, empower me through the spiritual gift of insight that allows me to truly see what is there in my mind, my heart and my body. In that seeing, may compassion grow and deeper love unfold. Amen.
Wow, that is a lot to process in connection to the spiritual energy of insight, which is the third aspect of the Power of Understanding. For the past two weeks we have been exploring the human/divine energy that comprises the spiritual power of understanding. First, we explored comprehension, which is the cognitive process of “getting it.” Last week it was about the heart, and the process of realization, or making it real when the head and the heart come together. This week is all about insight, when we pause and look within to truly understand what our part in any given circumstance may be. This is the part that truly empowers us to respond rather than react to any given circumstance.
Let’s take a look at the characters in our opening story through the lens of the Power of Understanding. They were delayed in their golf game and did not know why, so the first step was the information that allowed them to comprehend what the hold up was…blind golfers. Then they were given additional information about why the golfers were blind and why they were allowed to play on this particular golf course. This added an emotional component to the story that called forth realization—made it very real as to why the delay was happening. It was an opportunity for the spiritual Understanding to be present. Is that what happened? Well…..let’s unpack this a bit further and see what insights unfold for us.
The information about the reasons for the blindness resulted in at least two of this threesome to have some empathy or compassion that comes with realization. They each responded with their particular “fix” for the situation. The priest was going to pray for them, a special prayer, and the doctor was going to try to find someone to “fix” their vision. Both are kind, understanding responses, or so it seems. What is lacking is any true insight from either of these characters.
What is insight? What does Rev. Linda Martella-Whitsett say about insight? In Divine Audacity, on p. 58-59 she writes:
Insight is our capacity to employ realization in particular circumstances-applied understanding……The more you have comprehended and realized spiritual truths, the more likely your insights will be accurate and useful. Insight is not cold calculation, but spiritual intelligence arising in both the head and the heart.
When we react to the plight of another with the thought that somehow we need to “fix” them whether through prayer or medical intervention, we are not engaged in the true spiritual understanding that is insight.
The insight that is lacking in the priest and the doctor is the idea of actually speaking with and listening to the blind golfers. The realization that is lacking is to understand that these golfers do not seem to define themselves by their perceived “limitations” and may not really welcome attempts to “fix” them. Clearly, they are not limited in their access to golf and the capacity to find a creative way to play it. And the golf course they play on certainly is responsive to their need for extra time, unwilling to ask them to accommodate everyone else because of their needs. That seems to me to be the greatest insight in this story!
When we rush to “fix” a perceived problem in another, we are lacking insight. We are in reality as blind as the golfers with respect to our capacity for true spiritual understanding. What the priest and the doctor offer is comes from their skill set and is not necessarily what is needed here. Perhaps the prayer needs to be for patience and true compassion, so that the priest can show up differently. The priest describes the situation as sad, but he has no idea how the blind golfers feel about it. They may actually be quite grateful that they survived the fire and saved the clubhouse! When we pray for others, it is essential that we do so from a place of spiritual Understanding that is insight, not our uninformed perception of the real need.
The true insight comes with understanding our own reactions of impatience and pity or discomfort in the presence of the suffering of another. Insight is an inside job in our own consciousness. The same is true for the doctor who just assumes that these golfers have not had access to excellent medical care. There is no small amount of arrogance in thinking he has a solution without knowing what has already been offered or attempted. Having had the protracted illness of pneumonia, I certainly found it tedious when well-meaning people kept offering suggestions and asking me have you tried this or that remedy. Even more tedious was the question of “Do you know what this is about emotionally?” suggesting that if I did, I could then just process my feelings to get rid of it!
Not particularly helpful or insightful, for sure!
Their intentions were kind, but not particularly welcome which indicates a need for reflection and true human/divine Understanding. I had to just be with my own journey with pneumonia and gradually understand what the meaning of it was in my life. It should also be noted that in all the examples of Jesus healing people in the Christian Scriptures, he always asked if they wanted to be healed first! Good question! True insight in action right there!
And then we have the engineer who reacted with a solution that required the blind golfers to accommodate him by playing at night, which initially was funny. On deeper reflection, that reaction is the least compassionate, the least evidence of any true understanding for sure, either human or spiritual. What is the saddest to me right now is that this reaction is the most prevalent in our culture. The belief is that no one should be uncomfortable learning about the systemic racism in our history. No one should be uncomfortable hearing the story and cultivating true understanding of the refugee, seeking asylum in our country or the plight of the immigrant. No one should be uncomfortable around transgendered people, so let’s legislate them out of existence. And on and on and on….ad nauseum.
Let’s consider other options here! With genuine insight, the engineer had the greatest capacity to analyze the golf course and determine how it could be re-designed to best accommodate blind golfers. With self-reflection, he could have realized his need for ease when playing golf could be accommodated in a myriad of ways that honored everyone. He could have listened within to a voice of compassion and kindness that called him up higher in consciousness. Now, before we judge this engineer too harshly, pause and realize all the times you have been impatient and judged another because they were not accommodating your very pressing need! I have certainly been feeling that way, lately, especially behind slow drivers. We are indeed all of the characters in this story, for sure!
We are truly charged by the message of the Gospel to cultivate the spiritual power of Understanding- comprehension, realization and insight as part of our human/divine journey. There is the message of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew 25:40-45 in which Jesus says that whatever you do for the least of these, you to for or to him. He also says that whatever you fail to do for the least of these, you also fail to do it for him. We cultivate the power of spiritual Understanding so that we comprehend and realize, making real all that we are called to do. We cultivate insight so that we do not fail to do what we are called to do for the least of these. As Rev. Linda Martella-Whitsett states, “Comprehension and realization facilitate insight-the ability to see the truth in the midst of circumstances.” May it be so….
Blessings on the Path
Rev. Deb