{"id":4727,"date":"2025-07-07T08:41:48","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T12:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4727"},"modified":"2025-07-07T08:41:48","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T12:41:48","slug":"the-eyes-have-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/07\/the-eyes-have-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The Eyes Have It"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

It\u2019s all about the eyes.<\/em>

According to their brilliant creator Jim Henson, what always \u201cmade\u201d a particular Muppet were the size, shape, and placement of its eyes. \u00a0

That\u2019s why Henson insisted on personally applying them to every one of his furry puppet creations.

When the eyes were just right, a Muppet\u2019s true personality \u2013 whether joyful, thoughtful, or a bit unhinged \u2013 faithfully emerged.

Long before Henson\u2019s cast became the stars of Sesame Street, <\/em>and The Muppet Show <\/em>reigned as the most-watched television show on the planet, the only way he could pursue his artistic dreams (that is, realistically finance them) was to feature some of his creations in TV commercials.

In the late 1950s, in Washington D.C., he agreed to create a series of promotions for Wilkins Coffee.\u00a0

No one had ever seen commercials like the ones Jim Henson came up with.

One of his very first Muppets was an odd-looking, coffee-loving creature named Wilkins.\u00a0His foil was an even odder-looking, coffee-disdaining entity named Wontkins.\u00a0Wilkins always said yes to a cup of Java.\u00a0Wontkins?\u00a0He wasn\u2019t named \u201cwon\u2019t\u201d for nothing.\u00a0

The ads frequently displayed Henson\u2019s signature spirit of playful anarchy.

In one of the earliest spots, Wilkins asks Wontkins if he will try a cup of Wilkins Coffee.\u00a0When he refuses, Wilkins produces a cannon and blows Wontkins right out of the picture.\u00a0Then he turns the cannon toward the TV viewers and asks, \u201cSo, how about you?\u201d

That\u2019s it.\u00a0Eight seconds of mayhem.\u00a0

In fact, all of Henson\u2019s Wilkins ads were just eight seconds long.

It\u2019s worth noting that Henson personally couldn\u2019t stand the taste of Wilkins Coffee.\u00a0But his commercials \u2013 with their edgy unpredictability \u2013 became Must See TV for people living in the nation\u2019s capital.\u00a0

Viewers confessed to sitting all the way through Westerns and game shows just in case a Wilkins ad suddenly appeared. When Wilkins\u2019 coffee sales increased by 25%, Jim Henson and his Muppets were on their way.

Henson made use of whatever materials he had at hand.\u00a0He took a spring jacket his mother had discarded and with a few snips created Kermit the Frog.\u00a0

Kermit\u2019s eyes were two halves of a ping pong ball.\u00a0 As always, Henson carefully crafted their appearance, and experimented until he found just the right spots to attach them.

\u201cOutsiders\u201d who got to spend time with the Muppets \u2013 from little children to Johnny Carson to guest stars on their show \u2013 often found it difficult to believe they weren\u2019t real.\u00a0It was commonplace to overlook the human operator (who was, of course, right there<\/em>) and to be drawn in by a particular Muppet\u2019s personality, identity, and character.\u00a0

Soulful eyes are powerful things.\u00a0 \u00a0

Jesus made a remarkable comment about human eyes in his Sermon on the Mount:

\u201cYour eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have!\u201d (Matthew 6:22-23, The Message<\/em>).

Jesus wasn\u2019t speaking on behalf of optometrists. \u00a0

He was making the point that what we choose to look at, what we yearn to see, and what we give our attention to \u2013 in short, how we choose to \u201csee things\u201d \u2013 will shape our character and understanding as nothing else.\u00a0

When it comes to understanding the Old Testament, one interpretive principle trumps all: We must see everything the way Jesus sees it<\/em>.

Elsewhere in the Sermon on the Mount, he says, \u201cDo not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them\u201d (Matthew 5:17). If Jesus is really God\u2019s Messiah, then everything connected with God\u2019s chosen people must be seen through the lens of his own teaching.

What do we do with the commands in the book of Joshua to wipe out entire communities? Jesus tells us, \u201cThose days are over. My Father commands that we pray for our enemies.\u201d What about the nihilistic statements in Ecclesiastes about life ending in a cemetery? Jesus says, \u201cI am the Resurrection and the Life.\u201d

What about the standing orders in Leviticus to bring never-ending sacrifices to the Lord? Jesus declares, \u201cThe Son of Man gives his life as a ransom for many.\u201d What about the centrality of the temple? Jesus is the new temple. Where he is, God is. What about the Promised Land? Jesus\u2019 command to take the good news to every nation means that the whole world is now the Promised Land.

When we see the Old Testament through the eyes of the very Messiah predicted by the Old Testament, rough edges suddenly become smoother and mysteries become less mysterious.

If we get our spiritual eyesight right, in other words, everything else will fall into place.\u00a0 \u00a0
\u00a0Which means, in one important regard, we\u2019re all a bit like the Muppets.

The eyes have it.<\/em>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here It\u2019s all about the eyes. According to their brilliant creator Jim Henson, what always \u201cmade\u201d a particular Muppet were the size, shape, and placement of its eyes. \u00a0 That\u2019s why Henson insisted on personally applying them to every one of his furry puppet creations. When the eyes were just right, a… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4728,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[952,575],"class_list":["post-4727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-eyes","tag-old-testament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4729,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4727\/revisions\/4729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}