BLIND
[For our Children's Liturgy / Family Mass, I like to write a story triggered by something in the readings for the day. This is a story for the 4 Sunday of Lent A.]
Blind? What’s it like to be blind? Ask Billy Beekeeper. He’ll tell you.
Billy was born blind, but when it comes to hearing, he’s the best.
Billy, now age 42, has this amazing ability to hear. Like Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, he learned to play the piano at an early age – and wow can he play. While other kids were playing football, soccer, baseball or lacrosse, Billy Beekeeper played music – by practicing, practicing, practicing. But he did exercise. He loved to walk – and walk fast. He’d bump into things at times – but in time he developed this uncanny way of knowing something was in front of him – a shopping cart or a tree. His two sisters’ shoes – now that’s a different story. If they left them lying around on the floor near the TV couch, that was a no no – because Billy would often trip on them while growing up in the Beekeeper House.
No, Billy’s dad was not a beekeeper, but they figured 5 generations back – that would be his great, great, great grandfather in southern Germany – probably was a beekeeper – and obviously, they think that’s where their last name came from. And they loved their last name. It always got comments. It always got, “Now how do you spell that.”
“B E E K E E P E R – Beekeeper.”
And the other person would suddenly say every time, “Oh, Bee Keeper.”
When his parents found out Billy was born blind – they were shaken up. Now what? They didn’t expect this. After a long nine month pregnancy, hoping for a boy after two girls, only to find out, their new born baby was blind, “Oooh!” That was an “Oooh,” if there every was an “Oooh!”. “Woo,” they thought. “A whole lifetime ahead and this their third child – their only boy – was going to have to go through life – not being able to see.”
They took Billy to every specialist – every doctor – every eye center they heard about. No luck. This was before Google – and before so many advances in medicine.
So Billy grew up blind.
It wasn’t all that bad. He was very smart – very clever – and as I already said, “When it comes to hearing, Billy was the best.”
If anyone was to go through life blind, Billy would be a great choice – because he had a great disposition.
He could hear in another person’s voice worry, sadness, doubt, faith, jubilation or celebration. He was able to really console his dad when he came home one evening and told the family after supper, “I lost my job today. The company is downsizing, but don’t worry, everything will be okay. They gave me some leads.”
His mom and his two sisters didn’t hear what Billy heard – a 42 year old man worried – worried big time – that he might be too old to get the kind of job he thought he needed – a job that could pay the mortgage payments, food bills, schooling, and teeth straigtheners that both his sisters had. The Beekeeper girls were pretty, but their teeth took a long time to be in place. They needed help with wires and rubber bands – and those kinds of wires and rubber bands were expensive. So Billy went to his dad in the garage after the announcement, after supper, to console him – and tell him, “Not to worry.”
When it came to school Billy had no problems. Of course, being blind he couldn’t read or see blackboards and all that. But he listened. Billy listened and his teachers were amazed. He always got straight A’s.
If he overheard it a hundred times, he overheard it a thousand times, teachers being amazed at how smart he was – would say, “I guess if we lose one gift, another gift gets better.”
When Billy was a kid he had to resist listening in to gossip – on the school bus – amongst his sisters’ friends when they were over to the house for a slumber party on a weekend – or when sitting in a restaurant with his family. He could hear people on other tables. He knew what waitresses were pushing – when they didn’t even know they were pushing the special of the day – because the restaurant owner told them to push the lentil soup or the Neapolitan Salmon.
Now, what to do and what to be when he grew up?
His first thought was music. He was in a band – playing the piano. He also played at the Youth Mass in his parish of St. Didymus.
Billy wasn’t sure. One advisor in his high school senior year suggested going to Georgetown – and get a degree in foreign service. Billy was great with languages – being able to speak Spanish and German. He also dabbled in Russian.
Since Billy could hear tones in voices, a high school teacher, who had worked for the CIA before he retired, knew about a blind woman who had worked for them. She was a better lie detector machine than lie detecting machines.
But Billy decided to go to college for psychology – family psychology. Since he couldn’t see, maybe he could help families see things they weren’t seeing.
And that’s what Billy Beekeeper got his degrees in. It took a lot of time, but he became a Family Psychologist – and wow was he good. Teenagers and kids were not scared of him. Husbands and wives could say things to each other – after sessions with Dr. Beekeeper – that they never said or saw before. Dr. Beekeeper could ask the best questions – questions that could get to the heart of the matter – why kids were acting out – trying drugs – not wanting to study or do homework – why families were fighting. He could hear things parents were saying that they didn’t know they were saying.
If he heard it a hundred times, he heard it a thousand times, he heard people during time with him say, “Wow am I blind?”
Then there would come the “Oops,” every time. And both Billy and the person who said it would laugh.
Billy never married. Oh he dated a few gals – and one time they were very serious, but Billy sensed down deep, there was something else he had to do with his life.
There was.
It happened one Sunday morning, on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, and the gospel story was about the man born blind.
He had heard that story before – and he liked that story and several other stories about blind people in the gospel stories about Jesus. But that Sunday the story overwhelmed him.
Billy heard the call to be a priest. Yes a priest. “But,” someone said, “They won’t ordain a blind priest.”
“Why not?” said Billy.
And the priest he talked to also said, “Why not?”
And it took time – but that’s what Billy became, a priest.
Everybody loved going to confession to him. He couldn’t see who they were – but wow were they surprised when he would ask quick, simple questions, darts of thought that often changed people’s lives and they too would say, “Wow was I blind.”
But his sermons were the best. People would come from miles around, just to hear his sermons. People would say, “I never listened to sermons all my life. I have no idea what priests are talking about, but Father Billy Beekeeper helps me to see things I never saw before. He’s the best. He’s a keeper.”
