What fecund ambiguity!
Clearly, the phrase ‘path of totality’ was used unambiguously earlier this week as the media covered the trajectory of the moon’s shadow over a large swath of our nation and millions of viewers witnessed the total blackout of the sun. But an unrelated news article about vision which appeared on the same day suggested to me that in a different context, the phrase could have other connotations.
The news article reported on an organization in the United States that provides young adults in poor rural areas around the globe with inexpensive eyeglasses. Because of the ubiquitous availability of inexpensive secondhand glasses in this country many of us might be surprised to learn that millions in the world go through life with some form of uncorrected vision. This is particularly regrettable for young people whose productive lives are just beginning. The organization offering them optical support asserts the productivity of these adolescents increases by as much as thirty percent once their vision is corrected. The enhanced productivity benefits them and their communities and, consequently, helps alleviate poverty.
When I heard this, I was reminded of Mother Theresa’s well-known observation that while the poor overseas suffer material poverty, the rich here suffer spiritual poverty. How, does this dichotomy relate to paths of totality and to vision, you might wonder.
The young recipients of eyeglasses in impoverished rural communities benefit from improved vision, that is sight that enables them to see more and to see more authentically. As a result, they become more engaged, more productive, and more able to realize their human potential. The spectacles, second-hand though they may be, expand their view of reality and enrich their role in life. Many of us in our country rely on a different type of eye-ware, a figurative type to be sure. Ours are not unlike the protective eyeglasses the eclipse watchers used this week. They are the blinders of materialism. They block out the world around us so that we can concentrate our focus. In our case, the focus is on physical well-being or materialism. We become so blinkered by these blinders of materialism that we fall prey to nihilism and fail to see the transcendence that surrounds us.
One spectator at this week’s solar phenomenon exclaimed that, while she was not religious, to her great surprise the experience inspired in her a sudden spiritual urge. One wonders what prevents her and the rest of us from having a similar response to the countless marvels of creation visible to us every day. Are so dazzled and dulled by the material we are oblivious to the sublime?
Each of us has his own ‘path of totality’. It is the path we choose to pursue through life. Do we seek it with the aid of eye-ware that expands our vision and deepens our awareness of reality, of Truth? Or, do we stumble along, handicapped by the blinders of nihilism which, like the protective glasses of the eclipse spectators, block out the reality around us and lead us to believe, literally, in nothing?
For the eclipse gazers and their shrunken perspective, the path of totality culminated in the totality of darkness. How fortunate are those whose vision is enlarged and whose path of totality anticipates the totality of light.