As the shadows grow long and the grayness of winter sets in, I find myself reaching more often for my son's headlamp when running in the forest surrounding our home.  Tucked away for much of the year, the light it provides on the trails not only keeps the darkness at bay but also provides my eyes and mind with a context within which running in the darkness is made possible (without the danger of headbutting a pine tree). 

     Not long ago Dawid and I escaped the confines of his long division homework (which rarely seems to turn out anyway) and my full inbox by reaching for our running shoes and heading into the darkness.  As we settled into a rhythm afforded by the light cast from his bouncing headlamp, I started wondering about the relationship running has with spirituality.  Running without the details and context provided by what our eyes see is a little like trying to understand Jesus without the detail-filled context of the New Testament.  For it is in the details that context finds meaning and traction.  As Dawid quickly navigated the darkness a few steps ahead of me, I wondered just how I might help him notice the details that, in my understanding, change the way we read the New Testament. 

     Darkness, in many ways, is one of life's great equalizers.  A sense of context and surety quickly lose themselves in the dark.  Could it be that one of my challenges as a father is to help my son see the details in the New Testament -- often hidden in the generalities, broad-brushed comments, and sweeping statements of spirituality and God today? 

     Mark introduces us to a blind man in his account of Jesus' life (Mark 10).  As with most of the stories passed on to us in the pages of the New Testament, the details of this man's life and encounter with Jesus throw light on the very meaning of the episode itself. 

     Blind men, beggars, and the poor, for the most part, live in the pages of history unnamed -- unworthy of the significance only a name can provide.  This man's darkness, most likely, was no different.  Lost and forgotten in the noise and dust of Jericho.  And yet, Mark, gives him a name (even adding a quick etymological explanation of his Aramaic roots for his Greek readers).  A detail that, like a headlamp in a dark forest, provides context and traction for the whole encounter.  If Mark was writing a few decades after this man's actual encounter with Jesus, could he have been calling attention to the fact his readers could still identify and remember this beggar-turned-follower of Jesus?  Did he decide to name him for the very reason that his unbelievable story of healing was known to be true by those reading Mark's account?  Could Mark have used Bartimaeus to point to the validity and realness of the encounters found in his Gospel? Could it be that there were eyewitnesses in the early church in Jerusalem who remembered the man who received his sight on that dusty road leaving Jericho? Matthew and Luke, both writing much later, include the story but drop the name.  Why?  Maybe they realized that his name wasn't as important, since those who would have known him personally were no longer alive. 

     A small detail, possibly without significance to the overall picture.  But for me, a sign that this little episode is grounded in real time and space.  Like a headlight in a dark forest, this detail provides context and traction that takes us back to a real encounter and to eyewitnesses who saw Jesus change the life of an unknown and seemingly insignificant blind beggar on the side of the road. 

     Mark concludes with the words, ". . . he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road."  Where did that road lead?  To Jerusalem.  Did this man become part of a growing fellowship of Jesus-followers in the city?  Were his open eyes and his story a tangible reminder and a testimony to the realness of the Galilean who claimed to be God?  I think so. 

     Dawid and I stopped a few times to turn off his headlight.  As the darkness closed in on us, we quickly lost a sense of context and depth, hearing only our increased heart rates and feeling the bite of the November night on our perspiring faces -- until we turned our eyes to the heavens.  Once again, in the light of the stars, we gained a sense of place, a certain context for working out a spirituality grounded in details of the light God provides for us.  A spirituality reaching back to a very real blind man who not only received his sight but a name as well.  A story that helps keep long division and a full inbox in some kind of realistic perspective.