Tunnel vision

After traveling through the Alsace area of France, the next morning was spent driving through some parts of the Black Forest in Germany (stopping to see the Black Forest Academy in Kandern) on roads that went up-and-down, winding around and it was beautiful if not a little challenging on the tummy. Eventually, we made our way to Zurich for the afternoon and saw some of the sites I had already seen (I had better weather when I was there earlier in the week). Because the Euro2006 games were co-hosted by Switzerland and Austria, it was difficult to find reasonable accommodation right around Zurich (one of the venues was in Zurich so the city was pretty crowded), so we stayed about an hour south of Zurich in the sleepy town of Cham. We stayed in a nice hotel right on the river and had a lovely dinner and went to bed..

The next day, after a fabulous breakfast (one of our best on the trip), we drove through Switzerland toward Italy..there are no pictures because it was cloudy and rainy so the Swiss Alps were mostly hidden from our view. One of the challenges of the drive was an 18 kilometer tunnel.... That particular tunnel got me thinking about the term, "tunnel vision." I think I understood that term for the first time after going through our 18km tunnel. In the mountains, there are many, many tunnels. Some of them are fairly short with a glimmer of light clearly seen ahead. Some of them were several kilometers long and had a feeling of anticipation, like the ooo and aah feeling I had when I was a kid and we would go through a tunnel; it was cool. However the 18km tunnel got old; it felt very confining and after a while a couple of us commented how we wished it was over several kilometers before it was. So that phrase, "tunnel vision" was made real to me: you can't see anything on either side; there is a feeling of being closed in; you don't know how long it will last; it is relatively dark with just some focused light, but no sense of openness or panorama of light. Applying that to life, I think having tunnel vision would feel like a desperate place to be. Maybe some cling to a tunnel vision because it seems like it could be a safe place, cozy and protected from outside influences...but I think in reality, it is more of a prison, a place of closed restriction.... I will never forget my 18 kilometer tunnel experience and I hope, with God's grace, to always stay open to the views around me.