Tunnel Vision

I've been thinking all this week about tunnels.  Not sure why unless it's because they have been mentioned on the news.  But I've been thinking about them not in the sense that the news has been referring to them - as somewhere to hide people and ammunition.  I have been thinking more of tunnels we encounter on journeys and what they symbolize.  Yesterday I read a blog that talked about a woman who referred to her recurring depression as a tunnel.  She felt that it was like being in a dark tunnel and she couldn't see the way out of it until she decided to go to a counselor.  The dark tunnel of depression is something that many people struggle to cope with in their lives.


But my mind was more on the idea of tunnel vision.  It is a perfect description of that particular sight problem.  People can only see what is in front of them while all around is unclear and a bit blurred.  They are unable to see to the sides and need to turn their heads to bring something at the side into their line of sight.  I remember as a child travelling on a train through a tunnel and straining to see the light at the end of it, knowing that that small dot of white so far away was the point we were heading towards and then we would be able to see everything clearly again.  While you're in the tunnel, you cannot see what's outside of it.  Your vision in limited.  All you can see is the light straight ahead.  You are unable to see anything on either side so as far as you are concerned, straight ahead is the only possible way - it's all you can see.


Once you're out of the tunnel you become aware that there is a whole big world going on outside the tunnel.  Other people are also travelling in the same direction but by roads that run alongside the railway track.  You might think that your way is quicker and more sure but you miss a lot of what is going on around because your vision is totally centred on the light at the end of the tunnel.  I have said this before but it's what has been nagging in my head all week - we need to accept that there is more than one way to travel.  Ours is NOT the only mode of transport in life's journey.  Many are headed in the same direction with the same ultimate goal in mind but choose to travel a different way having varying encounters on the way.  That doesn't mean they won't get there.  It just means that they're not sharing our carriage with us just as others may choose not to share their road vehicle.  Just because in the tunnel, looking straight ahead they cannot be seen on the adjacent road, that doesn't mean they don't exist and that they're not travelling to the same destination.

We have always maintained that our way is the right way and therefore the only way.  God is the destination but he is also everywhere and in all things.  Whichever way we travel in life, let's not be affected by tunnel vision thinking that what we see is the only way.  It isn't!  This may seem contradictory to all that we may have thought or believed.  I like to think of it not so much as a contradiction but rather a paradox or as Richard Rohr puts it: 

Paradox is the ability to live with contradictions without making them mutually exclusive, realizing they can be both/and instead of either/or.