Becoming Aware of God’ PLAN

I just came across a remarkable book by Tom Sullivan, “As I See It:  My View from the Inside Out.”

Born prematurely in 1947, Tom was given too much oxygen while in an incubator.  Though it saved his life, it cost him his eyesight.

I was particularly struck by his experience at the Sistine Chapel.  He was frustrated to be there, unable to see Michelangelo’s masterpieces, and then his daughter, Blythe, approached a curator who had a loving heart, and opened it up to Tom to feel the sculptures.

Here is Tom’s loving account:

There are ultimate moments in a person’s life, experiences that transcend all others.  For me, this moment—this singular hour on the clock of life—changed my life forever.

I was taken behind the ropes and allowed to touch the works of the artist.  Under my hands—the hands that had been my eyes on the world—the masterpieces came alive, and in a moment of beautiful clarity I realized that I understood every nuance Michelangelo had hammered and chiseled into the Carrara marble.

I touched Moses, feeling the fullness of his beard, the tablets of the Commandments under his arm, the set of his chin, as if he were saying, “I will bring the people of Israel out of bondage.”  There was the high forehead, the angle of his shoulders preparing to move, to reach freedom.

I was crying now, uncontrollably, the tears pouring down my face because for the first time I grasped, in this place—incredibly etched in my memory forever—that I was no longer really blind because I was seeing Michelangelo[s work inside out, as he had seen it in its creation.

From that day to this and on through the rest of my time on earth, I realize that my way of looking at the world will remain unique and, yes, unusual.  I’m sure that in God’s essential PLAN I was chosen to be blind, and after many years of struggle I’ve come to terms with that remarkable truth.  I now celebrate my own uniqueness with closed eyes and a completely open soul.

And this is beautifully echoed in these passages from A Course in Miracles:

A healed mind does not plan. It carries out
the PLAN  that it receives through listening
to Wisdom that is not its own. It waits
until it has been taught what should be done,
and then proceeds to do it. It does not
depend upon itself for anything
except its adequacy to fulfill
the PLANS assigned to it. It is secure
in certainty that obstacles can not
impede its progress to accomplishment
of any goal that serves the greater PLAN
established for the good of everyone.
(Lesson 135.11)

Time is a trick, a sleight of hand, a vast
illusion in which figures come and go
as if by magic. Yet there is a PLAN
behind appearances that does not change.
The script is written. When experience
will come to end your doubting has been set.
 (Lesson 158.4)