On Blinding Lights, Daily Life, and Transformation
I, even as a youngster, was skeptical.
The story of Paul on the road to Damascus is one I’ve always found uncomfortable and reassuring. Let me talk about the uncomfortableness first.
This story was exciting enough when I was a kid. It sounded a bit like a plot line in the comic books I loved to read – a villain picking on good people who is thwarted in his evil plans by the hero.
But then the story turned from one of my comic books tales into one of my grandmother’s bed time stories. Grandmother Bill was a wonderful story teller. The week that my four cousins and I spent with Grandma and Grandpa Bill was filled with adventures that only four boys in the 1950s could get into. Each evening delightedly ended with an adventure story from our grandmother. Her stories always featured five brave boys who, remarkably, had names the same as our names. And these brave boys always put the end to some nefarious scheme. Except, instead of annihilating the villain (we were Quakers after all), we showed him the error of his ways. He then joined us in undoing the wrong he’d done and became one of our biggest allies.
I, even as a youngster, was skeptical. I preferred the comic book stories. Evil defeated, soundly. The villain often done away with. Neat. Clean.
As I’ve examined the reason why I find the story of Saul/Paul so unsettling, I’ve come up with two reasons.
But let’s look at Paul’s conversion story first. It’s all recounted in Acts, chapter nine.
Like the big bad wolf and the three little pigs (though we Christians are usually referred to as lambs), as the story opens Saul is lurking around Jerusalem “breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples” as the NIV reports. He’s trying to get authorization from religious leaders for letters of introduction to the synagogues in Damascus, where he wants to hunt down Christian women and men and drag them back to Jerusalem.
As he and his entourage are nearing Damascus a light from above flashes on him. He falls to the ground. Lying there, he hears a voice saying, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
A bit surprisingly (at least to me), he asks who’s speaking. I find it surprising because it always makes me wonder if there were other heavenly figures that Saul was persecuting.
The Lord answers, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Then Christ tells Saul to go on to Damascus where he’ll learn what he’s to do.
Saul gets up off the ground but is blind. The fellows traveling with him heard sound (the Bible doesn’t say whether they heard clear words) but weren’t sure what happened. The led him into Damascus where he waited blindly, not eating or drinking anything.
Eventually, a disciple named Ananias has heard from God in a vision that he’s to go to a certain house and heal Saul. Ananias is a bit reluctant, to say the least. Who can blame him? Isn’t this Saul the big bad wolf? But God, as God often is, is insistent and tells Ananias that Saul has been divinely chosen. So off faithful Ananias goes and heals Saul. Saul is promptly baptized, eats, regains his strength, and immediately begins to preach that Jesus is the Son of God.
This story was exciting enough when I was a kid. It sounded a bit like a plot line in the comic books I loved to read – a villain picking on good people who is thwarted in his evil plans by the hero.
But then the story turned from one of my comic books tales into one of my grandmother’s bed time stories. Grandmother Bill was a wonderful story teller. The week that my four cousins and I spent with Grandma and Grandpa Bill was filled with adventures that only four boys in the 1950s could get into. Each evening delightedly ended with an adventure story from our grandmother. Her stories always featured five brave boys who, remarkably, had names the same as our names. And these brave boys always put the end to some nefarious scheme. Except, instead of annihilating the villain (we were Quakers after all), we showed him the error of his ways. He then joined us in undoing the wrong he’d done and became one of our biggest allies.
I, even as a youngster, was skeptical. I preferred the comic book stories. Evil defeated, soundly. The villain often done away with. Neat. Clean.
As I’ve examined the reason why I find the story of Saul/Paul so unsettling, I’ve come up with two reasons.
But let’s look at Paul’s conversion story first. It’s all recounted in Acts, chapter nine.
Like the big bad wolf and the three little pigs (though we Christians are usually referred to as lambs), as the story opens Saul is lurking around Jerusalem “breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples” as the NIV reports. He’s trying to get authorization from religious leaders for letters of introduction to the synagogues in Damascus, where he wants to hunt down Christian women and men and drag them back to Jerusalem.
As he and his entourage are nearing Damascus a light from above flashes on him. He falls to the ground. Lying there, he hears a voice saying, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
A bit surprisingly (at least to me), he asks who’s speaking. I find it surprising because it always makes me wonder if there were other heavenly figures that Saul was persecuting.
The Lord answers, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Then Christ tells Saul to go on to Damascus where he’ll learn what he’s to do.
Saul gets up off the ground but is blind. The fellows traveling with him heard sound (the Bible doesn’t say whether they heard clear words) but weren’t sure what happened. The led him into Damascus where he waited blindly, not eating or drinking anything.
Eventually, a disciple named Ananias has heard from God in a vision that he’s to go to a certain house and heal Saul. Ananias is a bit reluctant, to say the least. Who can blame him? Isn’t this Saul the big bad wolf? But God, as God often is, is insistent and tells Ananias that Saul has been divinely chosen. So off faithful Ananias goes and heals Saul. Saul is promptly baptized, eats, regains his strength, and immediately begins to preach that Jesus is the Son of God.
“I was a bad person. I scoffed at God..."
Saul of Tarsus
Now back to the reasons why I find this story unsettling. The first is that that I am not a naturally trusting person. That could be in part all the conversion stories I heard as a young Evangelical in church, at church camps, and in the half-year I spent at a Bible college.
Many of those conversion stories had a ring of Paul’s in them. “I was a bad person. I scoffed at God, ran around with wild women (or men), drank, robbed banks, burned down churches. And then, while I was in jail, God came to me and I got saved. The next day I became a preacher. Now I’m saved, sanctified, and on my way to glory.”
Which they may have been. But I still found them some of the most mean-spirited people in congregational business meetings, the most judgmental of folks in regards to other people’s sins, and just generally not the sort of ambassador of Christ that would win some by being winsome and invitational.
So, besides what I considered a fairy tale-ish ending, I guess I’ve never fully trusted that Paul was completely rehabbed. I mean, here was a fellow who sounded pretty sure of himself in his pre-conversion days. And post-conversion – well, he still sounds pretty sure of himself. Instead of issuing edicts against the Christians he issues edicts to them. Sure, he calls them by a gentler name – epistles. Letters. But many are pretty directive. Things like “Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak…” seem more like the old Saul than the converted Paul who says he’s serving the Jesus who had a number of women disciples and didn’t seem to be to concerned with them speaking or being silent.
Of course, one could argue that Paul’s statement was contextual, just for the church at Corinth, but still, the Church through the ages has used Paul’s words to subjugate women and deny them a full role in faith and life.
So, like every human, I look through the lens of my experience – religiously, socially, comic bookly. I want to believe the story. I want to trust Paul is on our side now. But his harshness feels pretty much to me like old Saul’s. Has he just switched teams.
The above is, of course, a cynic’s view. Or maybe a doubter’s view. In that, I guees, I’m in good company with Thomas – “I’ll believe it when I see it. When I put my fingers into the actual holes.” Doubt and cynicism and belief and hope are often, I find, intertwined.
The second reason this story makes me uncomfortable is that if God really intervenes with those who go against God in such extreme ways – well, I may be in a lot of trouble. I, in my own way, am an enemy of God. “Brent, Brent, why do persecute me?” No I’m not killing faithful. Or anybody, for that matter. But I’m still not living up to the way of Jesus in the manner that I should. I frankly do not want to be riding along in my Altima and have a blinding light from Heaven shine down upon me and put me, blinded, on my keister. Nor do I particularly want to hear a booming voice from above asking me hard questions and then pointing me in a new direction.
Many of those conversion stories had a ring of Paul’s in them. “I was a bad person. I scoffed at God, ran around with wild women (or men), drank, robbed banks, burned down churches. And then, while I was in jail, God came to me and I got saved. The next day I became a preacher. Now I’m saved, sanctified, and on my way to glory.”
Which they may have been. But I still found them some of the most mean-spirited people in congregational business meetings, the most judgmental of folks in regards to other people’s sins, and just generally not the sort of ambassador of Christ that would win some by being winsome and invitational.
So, besides what I considered a fairy tale-ish ending, I guess I’ve never fully trusted that Paul was completely rehabbed. I mean, here was a fellow who sounded pretty sure of himself in his pre-conversion days. And post-conversion – well, he still sounds pretty sure of himself. Instead of issuing edicts against the Christians he issues edicts to them. Sure, he calls them by a gentler name – epistles. Letters. But many are pretty directive. Things like “Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak…” seem more like the old Saul than the converted Paul who says he’s serving the Jesus who had a number of women disciples and didn’t seem to be to concerned with them speaking or being silent.
Of course, one could argue that Paul’s statement was contextual, just for the church at Corinth, but still, the Church through the ages has used Paul’s words to subjugate women and deny them a full role in faith and life.
So, like every human, I look through the lens of my experience – religiously, socially, comic bookly. I want to believe the story. I want to trust Paul is on our side now. But his harshness feels pretty much to me like old Saul’s. Has he just switched teams.
The above is, of course, a cynic’s view. Or maybe a doubter’s view. In that, I guees, I’m in good company with Thomas – “I’ll believe it when I see it. When I put my fingers into the actual holes.” Doubt and cynicism and belief and hope are often, I find, intertwined.
The second reason this story makes me uncomfortable is that if God really intervenes with those who go against God in such extreme ways – well, I may be in a lot of trouble. I, in my own way, am an enemy of God. “Brent, Brent, why do persecute me?” No I’m not killing faithful. Or anybody, for that matter. But I’m still not living up to the way of Jesus in the manner that I should. I frankly do not want to be riding along in my Altima and have a blinding light from Heaven shine down upon me and put me, blinded, on my keister. Nor do I particularly want to hear a booming voice from above asking me hard questions and then pointing me in a new direction.
...I also find this story reassuring.
Such an event would scare the devil out of me. Truly. Literally. Figuratively. But at what cost? I would, I think, be so rattled by that experience, that I would never be a reliable witness for God and the Gospel.
Which is the reason I also find this story reassuring.
Part of the point of the story, for me at least, is that God deals with us in ways that we can learn and grow. Scary Saul with his righteous rage and pernicious persecution probably needed the persuasive effect of the blinding light, knocked to the ground experience. A round of gentle talks with some of Christians in Damascus, witnessing to their new faith, most likely would not have turned his spiritual tide.
One thing I think this is that I’ve noticed in this encounter, as opposed to some other Divine interventions, is that there is no voice proclaiming “Be not afraid.” Instead, this seems more like a “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” moment. And it achieved its desired effect.
God worked with Saul/Paul in a way that he could not mistake that it was the Divine breaking through. God works with me in the same way – but sans sonic booming sounds and dazzling brilliant light from above.
As I thought about how God breaks through, I remembered the story of the Samaritan woman. I realized that it she came face to face with the eternal as she set out to do the most mundane of tasks – drawing water from the community well. It’s there she has her epiphany, a major spiritual event in which, with a sudden flash of recognition, she finds she knows with every fiber in her being the essential nature of the Truth of that encounter. And is she ever surprised.
Think about it. This is a woman with a past. It’s not a pretty past either, not the sort of life that would have her on the social register in her village. The day she meets Jesus she’s sneaking out in the heat of the noon-day sun, hoping to avoid her nosy neighbors and gossipy townsfolk. She succeeds in that, but instead runs smack dab into Jesus, who has the audacity to ask her, a member of a despised race and a woman to boot, for a drink of water, all the time looking her full in the face.
She shakes her head and asks him if he knows what he’s doing, making such a request of her. His answer is a riddle to her. “If you knew what God can give and if you knew who it is that said to you, ‘Give me a drink’, I think you would have asked him and he would have given you living water!” This intrigues her, so she answers his riddle with a riddle and in their ensuing wordplay he reveals the nature of this living water. In spite of her checkered past, or perhaps because of it, she is ready for the divine encounter. She wants to know more of the living water and experience its spiritual refreshment – now! Though she came to the well unaware of what was going to happen, when it did she grasped it. She embraced the encounter and welcomed the holy out of the humdrum into her life. As the story shows, she becomes his most fervent follower in that town, imploring people to come and meet the Christ.
Which is the reason I also find this story reassuring.
Part of the point of the story, for me at least, is that God deals with us in ways that we can learn and grow. Scary Saul with his righteous rage and pernicious persecution probably needed the persuasive effect of the blinding light, knocked to the ground experience. A round of gentle talks with some of Christians in Damascus, witnessing to their new faith, most likely would not have turned his spiritual tide.
One thing I think this is that I’ve noticed in this encounter, as opposed to some other Divine interventions, is that there is no voice proclaiming “Be not afraid.” Instead, this seems more like a “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” moment. And it achieved its desired effect.
God worked with Saul/Paul in a way that he could not mistake that it was the Divine breaking through. God works with me in the same way – but sans sonic booming sounds and dazzling brilliant light from above.
As I thought about how God breaks through, I remembered the story of the Samaritan woman. I realized that it she came face to face with the eternal as she set out to do the most mundane of tasks – drawing water from the community well. It’s there she has her epiphany, a major spiritual event in which, with a sudden flash of recognition, she finds she knows with every fiber in her being the essential nature of the Truth of that encounter. And is she ever surprised.
Think about it. This is a woman with a past. It’s not a pretty past either, not the sort of life that would have her on the social register in her village. The day she meets Jesus she’s sneaking out in the heat of the noon-day sun, hoping to avoid her nosy neighbors and gossipy townsfolk. She succeeds in that, but instead runs smack dab into Jesus, who has the audacity to ask her, a member of a despised race and a woman to boot, for a drink of water, all the time looking her full in the face.
She shakes her head and asks him if he knows what he’s doing, making such a request of her. His answer is a riddle to her. “If you knew what God can give and if you knew who it is that said to you, ‘Give me a drink’, I think you would have asked him and he would have given you living water!” This intrigues her, so she answers his riddle with a riddle and in their ensuing wordplay he reveals the nature of this living water. In spite of her checkered past, or perhaps because of it, she is ready for the divine encounter. She wants to know more of the living water and experience its spiritual refreshment – now! Though she came to the well unaware of what was going to happen, when it did she grasped it. She embraced the encounter and welcomed the holy out of the humdrum into her life. As the story shows, she becomes his most fervent follower in that town, imploring people to come and meet the Christ.
If we are willing to see them, we find that life is full of everyday epiphanies.
As I thought about that story and how it compares to Saul/Paul’s, I thought about the ordinariness of her task and how it was while she was performing it that she had her life-changing assignation with the sacred. The Bible is full of stories of God meeting women and men in the midst of their everyday tasks and life. That’s not surprising. As Elton Trueblood says in The Common Ventures of Life, “Christianity is the most avowedly materialistic of the world’s great religions.”
Elton goes on to explain this thesis, and shows that when he talks about materialistic, he does not mean the same thing as the preachers on TV. He is not talking about material goods, he is talking about our bodies and that the nature of our faith is that it is one that blends our souls and our bodies. It is a holistic faith. “We must see our religion…,” Trueblood asserts, “as the way in which all ordinary enterprises are conducted. It must be connected with the way we eat, the way we work, the way we make love, the way we think, the way we dream, the way we die.”
When we read the stories of the Bible we see that the glory of our faith is that God meets in the stuff of everyday life. Sure there are times of holy majesty, where God is remote, powerful and barely approachable, like Moses on the mountain and Saul on his way to Damascus. But more often than not, God encounters people while they are going about their daily living.
It is doubtful that Jesus will walk through our front door today and announce his coming and our healing. Even if he did, would we recognize him? Or be knocked senseless?
The bigger question is do we even look for Jesus at our front door? Perhaps the reason we do not see him is that we do not expect to. After all, we are just teachers or factory workers or farmers or whatever who live in Indiana or New York or Ontario or France..
Jesus is seeking us today. Just as he sought Saul. Christ rides in the car pool – and county school bus. He puts in his time in factories, office buildings, farms and homes across the planet. He is wherever people are, doing the things they do – eating, sleeping, laughing, crying and working.
“Where,” you ask? He is in you and around you and in the person next to you. If you would encounter the holy, begin with your life and the light in your friends and families’ eyes. Early Quaker George Fox urged us “to walk cheerfully over the world answering that of God in every one.” If we look for that of God in others then we can find a haven of spiritual refreshment and encouragement in their lives and be transformed, as Saul was transformed, by the holy in a fresh way every day.
If we are willing to see them, we find that life is full of everyday epiphanies. The things we do day in and day out are, if we choose to make them so, the true sacraments, the true sign of our faith in action. There, whether it be kneading bread in the kitchen or treading water at the office, we can meet the Mystical Savior, today – if we open our eyes. In our feasting and fasting, our travels and conversations, our labor and leisure, we will come face to face with the ever-living Christ. Just as Saul did, just in a less dramatic way, perhaps. Or … maybe not.
It has been said that life is what happens to you while you’re waiting for something big to happen. The holy is that way, too. It is all around us.
God will find us. The means God uses differ in the particulars – coming in a way that is unmistakable for us. Blinding lights. Burning bushes. Angelic visitations. Walking in the woods. The smile of our beloved. Transformation awaits us. God bless us – Saul and you and me – every one.
Elton goes on to explain this thesis, and shows that when he talks about materialistic, he does not mean the same thing as the preachers on TV. He is not talking about material goods, he is talking about our bodies and that the nature of our faith is that it is one that blends our souls and our bodies. It is a holistic faith. “We must see our religion…,” Trueblood asserts, “as the way in which all ordinary enterprises are conducted. It must be connected with the way we eat, the way we work, the way we make love, the way we think, the way we dream, the way we die.”
When we read the stories of the Bible we see that the glory of our faith is that God meets in the stuff of everyday life. Sure there are times of holy majesty, where God is remote, powerful and barely approachable, like Moses on the mountain and Saul on his way to Damascus. But more often than not, God encounters people while they are going about their daily living.
It is doubtful that Jesus will walk through our front door today and announce his coming and our healing. Even if he did, would we recognize him? Or be knocked senseless?
The bigger question is do we even look for Jesus at our front door? Perhaps the reason we do not see him is that we do not expect to. After all, we are just teachers or factory workers or farmers or whatever who live in Indiana or New York or Ontario or France..
Jesus is seeking us today. Just as he sought Saul. Christ rides in the car pool – and county school bus. He puts in his time in factories, office buildings, farms and homes across the planet. He is wherever people are, doing the things they do – eating, sleeping, laughing, crying and working.
“Where,” you ask? He is in you and around you and in the person next to you. If you would encounter the holy, begin with your life and the light in your friends and families’ eyes. Early Quaker George Fox urged us “to walk cheerfully over the world answering that of God in every one.” If we look for that of God in others then we can find a haven of spiritual refreshment and encouragement in their lives and be transformed, as Saul was transformed, by the holy in a fresh way every day.
If we are willing to see them, we find that life is full of everyday epiphanies. The things we do day in and day out are, if we choose to make them so, the true sacraments, the true sign of our faith in action. There, whether it be kneading bread in the kitchen or treading water at the office, we can meet the Mystical Savior, today – if we open our eyes. In our feasting and fasting, our travels and conversations, our labor and leisure, we will come face to face with the ever-living Christ. Just as Saul did, just in a less dramatic way, perhaps. Or … maybe not.
It has been said that life is what happens to you while you’re waiting for something big to happen. The holy is that way, too. It is all around us.
God will find us. The means God uses differ in the particulars – coming in a way that is unmistakable for us. Blinding lights. Burning bushes. Angelic visitations. Walking in the woods. The smile of our beloved. Transformation awaits us. God bless us – Saul and you and me – every one.
Brent Bill
Brent Bill is a Quaker minister, photographer, retreat leader, and writer. He lives on Ploughshares Farm in rural Indiana. His newest book is "Life Lessons from a Bad Quaker" which is due out December 1st.
