November 4, 2001

The balloon salesman at the County Fair released a red balloon, then a blue balloon, then a yellow balloon, and finally a white one. Off into the sky they soared. He had done that deliberately in order to attract attention especially from the young children who were scattered around the Fairground. Sure enough, the children came running.

An African American child spotted a black balloon among the many colors in the salesman's hand. "If you released the black balloon," he said, "would it fly as high as the others?" The balloon man gave the child an understanding smile and snapped the string that held the black balloon in place. As it soared upwards, he said to the little boy: "Son, it is not the outside color that matters. It is what is inside the balloon that counts." He gave that boy a new angle of vision.

Whether it is cancer, a tragedy, one of life's many crosses, the color of one's skin, the condition of one's clothes, or the deformity of one's body, it is important that we employ an angle of vision that allows us to see things in their proper perspective.

The story of Zacchaeus challenges us to adopt an angle of vision that might change our own lives and even our world. Maybe then we could see things in their proper perspective.

SO THE QUESTION: WHAT MIGHT BE SOME PERSPECTIVE, SOME ANGLE OF VISION, THAT WOULD, IN FACT, CHANGE THE WORLD?

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