Seeing is Believing??

I have always been puzzled by some of the stories about Jesus in the Bible. He does such wonderful things, amazing things... and yet some people do not believe in him... How can that be??? How can the Pharisees be so blind to who he is and who they are and what he is doing... and what they are doing?? Isn't seeing = believing??

Apparently not... in fact, they had such strong beliefs in what was real, what was true, who was God, who was Jesus... that no matter what they saw, or what they experienced... they wouldn't be able to see it. There was no room within their world for seeing this new thing. There was no space for listening to Jesus. There was no space for seeing Jesus. They saw Jesus, heard Jesus, through the filter of their beliefs and their expectations. They couldn't see clearly... couldn't hear clearly... And we know the end result...

Ultimately, they were not open to seeing/hearing/experiencing something different. Their little world was bracketed by their beliefs and they could see nothing beyond those limits. They were not open to experiencing something different, something new...

We can be like that sometimes too. We see people through the lens of our belief about them... and we really don't see them as they are. We come to a workshop and we expect it to be a certain way... and it isn't... and we aren't open to seeing something different. I experienced that with someone in a workshop a while ago. This person was so stuck in their stuff that they were not open to something new, something different. And nothing we said or did as facilitators shifted that. This person was not open... And I wonder how can that be?? How can people be so closed? And I wonder... how am I like that??? Where am I stuck in my ways, stuck in my thinking, stuck in my beliefs... stuck in general? Are there people/things that I do not see clearly because of my beliefs?? A good time to take an introspective look at my own stuff....