Block out the light to let God shine in

In the 1984 movie "The Natural," the owner of the fictional New York Knights baseball team sits in his dark office, his work illuminated only by a small desk lamp putting out a feeble light. The drapes are drawn closed. The team's star player, Roy Hobbs (played by Robert Redford), has a testy conversation with the owner, and as he leaves, Hobbs switches on the overhead fixture.

"Come back here and turn out that infernal light!" the owner thunders.

For much of my adult life, bright light has bothered my eyes. The problem is probably congenital. My mother had the same problem until she had her cataracts removed. That surgery appears to be in my future as well, or so my optometrist advises.

In the meantime, you cope. One of my daughters brought me a gift late last month that helps. In cleaning her room, she found a blindfold from an international trip we took several years ago. Lufthansa hands them out to passengers for the long trip over the Atlantic. That cloth garment now is over my eyes every night. I'm getting to sleep more quickly and sleeping more soundly. The principle is sound. If light is a distraction, if it is bothersome, eliminate it as best you can. Blessed slumber should follow.

Ever wonder why we close our eyes to pray? Children are told, "Press your palms together, bow your heads, close your eyes and let us pray." Bringing the palms together is about supplication; we are supplicants to the one who made us. Bowing our heads is about humility; it is obeisance -- a gesture of great deference and respect to the one who saved us. The thought process behind closing your eyes, I'm persuaded, is about light.

Moses once asked God, "Show me your glory." (Exodus 33:18) The Lord replies to the deliverer of Israel that he must stand in a crevice in the rock. As God passes by, Moses is told, "No one shall see me and live." (v. 20) God offers Moses a blindfold of sorts. "I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by." (v. 22) An inference we draw is that God's presence is so bright, so luminous, so overwhelming that a human being cannot continue to live unless a cover is provided.

It can be argued, biblically, that we show supplication with palms pressed together, that we show deference when heads are bowed and that we acknowledge God's great and incomparable glory when eyes are closed.

Not many adults, in my experience, still pray with palms pressed together. Many, but not all, bow their heads. But nearly everyone, regardless of age, closes his or her eyes. There is a practical purpose behind this -- one that goes beyond affirming the awesome and powerful nature of God.

We close our eyes to eliminate the distraction of the world around us. Open eyes drag and pull us toward the temporal and the earthly. Closed eyes provide the potential for seeing something else. We have the chance of viewing the inward and the spiritual.

The journalist Bill Moyers once wrote that the great journey of the 19th century was the migration westward across the American frontier. The most significant journey of the 20th, he opined, was the journey to space. But in our century, he offers, the chief and most important journey will be the journey within -- the journey of the spirit.

The lyrics of the old pop song are notable here: "So close your eyes, you can close your eyes, it's all right." And it is.

Jeff Long is pastor of Centenary United Methodist Church in Cape Girardeau. Married with two daughters, he is of Scots and Swedish descent, loves movies and is a lifelong fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers.