Eyes To See

I was watching The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers yesterday and saw something I hadn't ever noticed before. When Smeagol/Gollum are having their argument with themselves, in addition to playing with camera angles to give the impression that it's two separate people having a conversation, they do something else to distinguish the two personalities. When the Smeagol personality speaks, his pupils are dilated to a more or less normal level, but when the Gollum personality speaks, the pupils are constricted to mere pinpoints. I think that this is a helpful visual demonstration for the emotional state of the two personalities. Smeagol still has some degree of hope and is still open to the possibility that there is perhaps some light and goodness and kindness and decency in this world. But the Gollum personality can see none of this. His pupils have shrunk so that almost no light can get in. He is consumed by fear and hatred and pain. He does not have the eyes to see the light and the hope and the goodness. Our eyes can only see if we let the light in. If we become too obsessed with our own vanity or misery, if we have shrunk our whole field of view to only pay attention to our own wants or our own problems, then we are like Gollum, whose pupils have all but vanished, they are being squeezed so tightly shut. The more we open our eyes, the more light we will take in. God is constantly pouring down upon us literally an infinite amount of light and love and hope and goodness. If we have none in our life, it is because we do not have the eyes to see it, we have not opened ourselves up to receive it. The more we open our eyes, the more light we will receive. The more we open our hearts, the more love we will receive. It may be perfectly natural if we have been kicked and beaten and lied to seemingly as often and as cruelly as Gollum has for us to close ourselves off to stop the pain from getting in. But the pain comes from inside us. Closing ourselves off only stops God from pouring His love and light and healing into our wounded souls. We may feel that we have good reason to have abandoned all hope, but God will never abandon us, and the moment we ask it of Him, He will help us to open our hearts and our eyes to see the radiant hope that is all around us.