So I was surfing around the internet the other day, thinking about forgiveness, and I came across the fable of the magic eyes … see what you think!

a fable about THE MAGIC EYES.

 

Once upon a time in a land that was far away and near to my heart there was a small village which had a baker, Zed, who was well steeped in righteousness. Zed was a tall thin man, even his face was long and thin. He was so upright and righteous that he seemed to spray righteousness even as he spewed vituperations on any who came within his sight. So, people mostly stayed out of his sight.

In contrast, Zed’s wife, Amia, was short, soft and plump. She just looked cuddly, and her soft cuddliness invited people to come closer to enjoy her warm, open cheerfulness. Now, Amia loved and respected Zed, but his upright righteousness kept her at arm’s length, and she yearned for something more. And in that yearning need was the seed of sadness within Amia’s soul and between Amia and Zed.

Life went on and wants and needs followed their course, and one morning, after Zed had been working since dawn preparing his doughs for the oven, he came home for a brief rest and found Amia with a stranger in their bedroom. Amia’s indiscretion became the talk of the town. Now scandal was in the house of Zed the righteous.  Everyone expected that Zed would send Amia away. Everyone thought that his righteousness would demand it of him.

But, Zed surprised everyone, and simply said that he forgave Amia as the holy scriptures said one should do. But as we all know the heart and the mind are not always in harmony, and in Zed’s heart of hearts he should could not let go of his anger and disappointment with Amia for bringing shame to his home and to his name. Whenever he thought about her, as much as he tried to forgive her, he only felt angry and began to despise her as a whore. Even he began to recognize that his forgiveness was a thin veneer for the punishing righteousness that he heaped upon her. What he really came to feel for Amia was hatred for betraying him as her faithful husband.

As life went on, over some time, Zed’s internal duplicity began to rankle his guardian angel. This angel was a wise old soul, and so each time Zed wallowed in his animosity and resentment of Amia, the angel would drop a tiny pebble into Zed’s heart. Each time a pebble dropped into his heart, Zed would feel a stab of pain. The more he hated her the more pain he felt, and the more pain he felt, the more he hated her. Soon enough, Zed’s heart grew heavy with the weight, and he now walked bent over from the waist from the weight in his heart. Zed became so weary from the pain and the weight in his heart, that he began to wish he were dead.

At that point Zed’s guardian angel, Tess, appeared to him in the image of Della Reese. Tess told him that to be healed of his heart ache, he would need magic eyes. Through those magic eyes he would be able to look back to the time before his hurt and to see Amia not as a betrayer, bur as a weak woman in need of his kindness. Through the magic of seeing through these new eyes, the pain of his old wounds might be healed.

Zed was not convinced. His righteous self said that nothing could change the past, and that Amia was guilty of betraying him. Tess agreed that the past cannot be changed, but she said, you can change how you see the past. Your vision of what happened is open to re-vision, and you can allow it to be healed through the magic eyes.

Zed was still not convinced and his hatred of Amia had become a refuge for him, but he was a desperate man, and so he asked Tess how he might look through these magic eyes. Tess said, “You only need to ask with a sincere desire to see through them, and their vision will be granted to you. Each time you see Amia through the magic eyes of understanding, one pebble will be lifted from your broken heart.”

Zed still had his doubts, but he asked for the vision of the magic eyes with all the sincerity he could muster. Tess smiled her blessing. Zed felt that he had been touched by an angel.

Over some days Amia began to change in Zed’s eyes. He began to see her as a sad woman with unmet needs rather than a heartless evil being. Zed’s vision changed and his heart began to soften as one by one each of the pebbles lifted from his heart. This took a long time, but over time Zed’s heart became softer and lighter. As these changes grew in Zed’s heart, his whole being began to change. He began to stand straighter and his countenance softened. He no longer spewed righteousness, but was less sharp than he had been. Eventually he welcomed Amia back into his heart, their hearth grew warm together and together they resumed their journey through the second season of their lives in hope and humility, together learning to temper righteousness with compassion with eyes of understanding.