John Hull started to go blind when he was a teenager. By his forties, he had lost all perception of light. He had, in his words, "taken up residence in another world". At times, the utter darkness caused him to panic, to despair. He found himself facing a terrible dilemma, to "re-create his life in darkness or be destroyed".
In some ways the man born blind journeyed in the opposite direction. One day a man named Jesus approached him, mixed spittle and dirt, rubbed it in his eyes and told him to wash it off in the pool of Siloam. When he did this, he could see. Light, colour, faces, sky... an unvisited new world. But instead of freedom, joy, release, he found himself thrown into a terrifying set of interrogations, apparently abandoned by the one who had given him sight.
What might we learn from these two parallel tales about our own journey towards the God we cannot see?