“Seeing through a Knothole or an Observatory?”

Sometimes the best thing we can do is to change our perspective.

As many times as I have been to the doctor for an eye exam, I never cease to be amazed at how the chart on the wall changes. Through one lens, the largest letters on the chart are blurred, while through the next lens, even the smallest letters are clear and sharp.

In this darkest time of the year, it is easy to become self-absorbed, brooding about our circumstances. It is like looking though a knothole. Our perspective is limited. We see only our immediate surroundings. Sometimes it is like “belly-button-gazing.”

I wonder if the alternative to looking through a knothole is to look through an observatory, where the perspective of the universe is opened to us. We see beyond our immediate circumstances and can situate ourselves within a larger perspective.

I imagine the Magi looking through an observatory rather than a knothole. I wonder how different the world might have been had they not gone outside their own backyard, seeing only through a knothole in their privacy fence.

The season of Epiphany is like looking through a new lens that allows us to see clearly. Epiphany is like exchanging our knothole for an observatory on the highest mountain. Let the Magi inspire us.

Pastor David