When Harvey got on the treadmill at the gym, he placed his head within a couple of inches of the control panel, and he cocked his head slightly. Harvey’s world was donut shaped. The center of everything he looked at had a big blind spot in it.

Harvey could no longer drive. He loved to read but could only do so with great effort. When he got on the treadmill at our gym, he had to put his face really close to the controls in order to change the settings.

Harvey would have jumped at an opportunity to regain his vision.

Not everyone knows they are blind however. Matthew, a disciple of Jesus, once commented about that.

In stories that were set next to each other, he told first about two blind men who cried out to Jesus, “Have mercy on us.” They suffered the debilitating effects of not being able to see. Like Harvey, they knew it.

In another story Matthew told about religious leaders who were blind but thought they had 20/20 vision. These were proud, opinionated, and self-righteous. They could look at a miraculous good thing and call it satanic.

Unacknowledged blindness is a universal problem and it may be found in politics, religion, education, on the opinion page, and in a host of other places. It ignores gender, occupation, political party, and educational attainment and takes up residence wherever it finds a closed mind.

Harvey’s blindness is because of a diseased macula. Other forms of blindness like a mind that has become sclerotic.