Looking but not Seeing

A decade ago I was the interim at a church near Detroit.  At a Vestry meeting not long after I arrived, I made bold to declare that the parish needed a new sign for the front of the church.  The existing sign consisted of plastic letters affixed to a low brick wall placed parallel to the road.  The sign was all but unreadable unless a passerby was directly in front of the wall and driving very slowly.  But that was only part of the problem with this sign.

Always ready to resist needless squandering of scarce financial resources, several Vestryfolk objected.  "What's wrong with our sign?" one member asked in hurt tones.  "My late husband designed that sign... I drive past it a dozen times a week and remember him!... It's perfectly fine just as it is!"  Other members grunted their approval.

"The 'o' in the word 'Episcopal' is missing," I said.


"It is?" the Vestry replied, incredulous.

I suspect the "o" had gone missing several years earlier, but no one noticed.  People who are already members know where their church is and give their sign just a glance, if that.  They don't consider visitors who actually look at the sign, note a missing letter, and wonder if these folks are really serious about being a church.  Lesson: most Episcopal congregations have made hiding in plain sight a high art — but that's a different sermon.  More broadly, this vignette illustrates how we can look, but not see.

Now consider the two photos below.  What's different?

The west garage door.

The east garage door.

This summer I noticed that the door on the east side of the garage wasn't working properly.  It stopped halfway down, reversed direction, and then the motor made an ominous click-click-click sound for several seconds.  Meanwhile, the west door worked flawlessly.  Very odd!  When Dave came to do the parging, I mentioned the problem to him.  We ran the door up and down several times, but concluded that this was a holy mystery.

Then, a couple days ago, I was surprised to find that the east door is working better, although its motion remains rather rough.  I assume that cooler temperatures have contracted materials and better aligned the door in its track.  But as I pondered this change, I looked and finally saw!  On the east door, the arm which drags the door along its track is installed backwards!  I've looked at this door hundreds of times over the months, but without seeing what I assume is the reason for its balky action.

Now I have to dig out the owner's manual (it's around here somewhere!) and figure out how to fix this problem!  Chalk up one more adventure in homeownership! •••