Reflection/Quilt: The Man Born Blind

The second reflection is based on John 9:1-41 and is the story of the man born blind.

By Fred Fosnacht

Reflection on Second Scrutiny

The Man Born Blind

Outside the temple gates,

Locked and guarded,

I wait for the sound of coin.

Instead the shuffle of feet

Amidst talk and laughter

Grows faint and fades.

If I were to merit

A closer space to

Footpath traffic,

My empty stomach might

Know hunger satisfied.

Even more,

I need to be seen

Despite blank eyes.

To be touched,

Despite my tunic, never washed.

To be recognized,

Despite a face unshaven and frozen in Scowl.

So, when my skin

Feels the brush of touch,

And my ears judge you too close,

I dare to hope.

Clay, bearing all of creation

Becomes the salve burning away

Scales of darkness.

And your charge to wash

In the purity pool

Where others go

To be made clean

Lifts my ban of segregation.

I plead,

Do not hold me in my blindness.

Do not hold me in sin.

So when the holy people ask,

How, this son,

Usually not one to trouble us,

Except for outstretched arms and

Clanging cup,

Has now entered the temple space,

Let me be the one

To tell of unbridled mercy

And the opening of the gate.

The Man Born Blind

Designed, Pieced and Quilted

By Mary Kay Fosnacht

23" x 39"