Some friends went to Philly to hear the most famous tenor on earth. Andrea Bocelli is the man whose mother was urged to give up on him even before he was born because of his disability. This was back in the fifties, and somehow doctors could predict that he would be sightless. That confuses me, because what is there even to look at in the womb? Everything is black. How could anyone assess a handicap that had not yet kicked in? 

When Andrea sings in Madison Square Gardens this week each of the thousands of tickets will bring in as much money as I charge for a quilt that took a week to create. He will not be able to gaze out into the crowds and enjoy the colorful holiday dresses, or teary eyes. But maybe he will know by other means. 

One of the numbers he performed was Amazing Grace and my friend was especially moved that they repeated a line. 

"Was blind but now I see."

Watching him on You Tube Andrea was the heartbeat of a hundred person choir, and huge orchestra, all dressed in black. A conductor held everyone together, but again there is that squirmy detail. Bocelli could not see the baton. 

Most of us can relate to being blind to events that are all around us. When we are in a hurry, the circumstances of the people in traffic escape our notice, in the fixation on arriving to our own destination.  When we are self absorbed by the annoyances that inevitably arrive around Christmas it can block out any awareness of the needs of others, even those who are within earshot. 

One of the lines in the tableaux my family was part of this week catches in my throat. 

"The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the dead will live again.

The lame will leap, the dumb will speak the praises of the Lamb."

Perhaps the greatest gift of God's birth is the possibility that we will expand our vision to include those who have previously been invisible to us. Some disabilities can actually be healed.