Fuller was a beautiful black Labrador retriever that had perfect attendance in my multi-variable calculus class. You’ve probably guessed; he was a seeing-eye dog for one of my students, Craig. I had about 70 students in two sections of the course that semester, and even though he was almost totally blind (he could see a little light and dark separation), Craig ranked second.

To help you understand how absolutely remarkable this was, I need to tell you a little about the course. Most students consider there to be a large jump in difficulty from first year calculus to multivariable. The main problems arise from having to understand the geometry of higher dimensional space. To grasp the ideas you have to visualize objects in these higher dimensions, and most of us heavily rely on diagrams and pictures. I even used a computer graphics program that could rotate three dimensional objects in space to help present some of the material. None of this was available to Craig. How did he do so well?

Craig did have a reader for the course, who read the text, notes taken by another student, and tests (under controlled conditions), but the reader had little knowledge of mathematics. While the help of the reader was necessary, the explanation for Craig’s success lies within Craig himself. Craig told me that he had to find ways to organize the ideas, and it differed from course to course and idea to idea. He told me that he was helped by that fact that he didn’t go blind until around the time he entered elementary school, but this was way before he encountered anything geometrical. He said that he tried to understand things in as complete a manner as possible, and it was important to be able to ask questions. In this course he had to create his own constructs, which he couldn’t describe to me, to do the work. He didn’t have a tutor, but he did come to my office at least once a week, each time with an organized list of questions.

Much of the Christian message is easy to understand; for example, God freely gives His grace and loves each of us unconditionally. But most of us do have trouble understanding many things: the suffering of innocents, pain, injustice, harsh acts of nature, and war to name a few. How do we reconcile these with our loving God? It’s as if we’re blind and trying to understand the higher dimensions in which God operates.

An important part is to keep asking questions, either to God in prayer or to other Christians. Fuller guided Craig to class every day, but I’m certain he never helped Craig with the math. In contrast our guide promises help; God promises that faith will guide us. In Isaiah 42:16 he is speaking of Israel as being blind, but I think it can give us hope today. He says, “I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them.”

Jim