Currently, I’m reading a fascinating Book-of-the-Month Club offering entitled The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. The author, a poetically gifted neurologist, discusses a series of case studies from the patients’ point of view. The first study describes an exceptionally talented music professor who suffers from visual agnosia, a neurological disorder that inhibits one’s ability to process whole images.
For example, while the professor identified and remembered specific details about someone’s face-an unusual nose, mustache, or beard-he drew a complete blank when shown a picture of his brother, mother, or wife. While in the neurologist’s office, he confused his wife with an adjacent hall tree and tried to lift her head from her body, thinking it was his hat. As he scanned a large National Geographic photo, his eyes would dart from one detail to another, picking up tiny features but never processing the scene as a whole.
The author, Oliver Sacks, says, “He never entered into relation with the pictures a whole . . . he had no sense of landscape or scene.”
Dr. Sacks’s statement about never relating to “the picture as a whole” has stimulated a lot of thought about spiritual agnosia. I reexamined my perspective on the church and the ministry.
Like you, I’ve been in a reflective mood while closing out the 1986 ministry year and pondering what might lie ahead. I’m painfully aware that my spiritual eyes, like the professor’s physical eyes, oft dart from detail to detail, focusing on the specific, while failing to see what should be the obvious whole.
During this self-examination I compared snatches of recent conversations with a devotional reading in Ezekiel. My responses to these conversations clearly indicated to me that I was focusing on random details rather than understanding, absorbing, and responding on the basis of the whole picture. Here is a brief log of what I heard versus what I was reading:
Heard: “Well, what did you think of Sunday’s sermon? He seemed like a nice enough person, but he doesn’t have it in the pulpit. When is the Search Committee going to start showing us some candidates worth considering? It’s been almost a year since Pastor left, and we can’t wait much longer. We’re losing ground; I fear for the future.”
Read: “I was carried away by the spirit of the Lord to a valley full of old, dry bones that were scattered everywhere across the ground.”
Heard: “I don’t see how we can make the church budget this year. We’re too far behind. That’s twice in the last three years we’ve missed our goal, and I’ve always suspected fancy accounting the third year. You know, with the new tax laws, we’d be smart to think of more realistic goals. Better to cut back now than face the embarrassment of cutting back six months from now.”
Read: “He led me around among them, and then said to me, ‘Son of dust, can these bones become people again?’ I replied, ‘Lord, you alone know the answer to that.’ “
Heard: “I’m very tired of this kind of denominational pressure. If they want to call the shots, then they ought to send someone in here to deal with the problems. I’m to the place where I don’t care what they think. Let the chips fall where they may.”
Read: “Then he told me to speak to the bones and say: ‘O dry bones, listen to the words of God, for the Lord God says, “See! I am going to make you live and breathe again.” ‘ “
Heard: “Generally speaking, I am encouraged, but I think I’ve brought things about as far as I can. Let’s face it, it’s probably wise to move on while I’m ahead. Better to leave too soon than to stay too long. My wife thinks I need a change and the church needs a change, so we’ll probably start looking around.”
Read: “So I spoke these words from God, just as he told me to; and suddenly there was a rattling noise from all across the valley, and the bones of each body came together and attached to each other as they used to be. Then as I watched, the muscles and flesh formed over the bones, and skin covered them.”
Heard: “Do you know that J_ is in the hospital? I’m not sure what’s going on. He’s not the same person since the divorce. His new wife is very lovely, but I can tell he isn’t happy. He desperately wants back into the ministry, but I don’t think he knows how to go about it.”
Read: “Then he told me to call to the wind and say, ‘The Lord God says, “Come from the four winds, O Spirit, and breathe upon these slain bodies that they may live again.” ‘ So I spoke . . . and the bodies began breathing; they lived, and stood up-a very great army.”
My conclusions? I am seriously afflicted with spiritual agnosia. Quickly I grasp and identify what is weak, flawed, and failing-the dry bones-but I grope to see the living, the breathing, the invincible army of God. Like Elisha’s servant, I can imagine it and even fantasize about it. But actually see it? Risk everything upon it? That’s another matter. And as the well-worn phrase proclaims, perspective is everything.
Christ said, “I will build my church, and the powers of hell shall not prevail against it.” That’s the whole picture. And for 1987, I am resolved to try to engage the whole. I pray for the breath of the Spirit to breathe into my dry bones the life and vitality that will help me faithfully serve my calling and colleagues.
Paul D. Robbins is executive vice-president of Christianity Today, Inc.
Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
