"The eye is
the lamp of the body. So, if your
eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is
unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the
darkness!” Matthew
6:22-23
After
two weeks of recuperation filled with the loving attention of family and
friends and the prayers of so many, my eye is now well into healing. The amazing gas bubble the surgeon put
in the eye to hold the retina in place while it was reattaching has now been
absorbed and has disappeared. I no
longer must keep the head down facing the floor. And today I even was able to drive my own car again.
I
am so thankful for such a wide spread support network of friends. My life is blest with all these relationships
in which love is expressed in both word and deed. I also am so thankful for the skill of surgeons and nurses
and medical technicians.
But
most of all I am grateful to God for the gift of grace and faith which carried
me through this experience. I
believe that I was given a state of equanimity just before the eye incident,
and in it a sense of balance and trust that saved me from any issue of anxiety
or fear. As I watched the field of
vision in my left eye gradually diminish over a period of a few hours, I
considered how this would either get fixed or it wouldn’t. I would either recover or go blind in
one eye. If I lost the sight, then
I would face changes in life style and habit patterns. I also considered the possibility of
losing sight in both eyes, and what changes that would entail. There was such grace and trust present
so that even if the outcome would be the worst, I would still be able to adapt
and accept whichever reality I would be left with. And I am very clear that this equanimity is not anything I
can claim as my own accomplishment.
The source is the presence and love of the Resurrection Spirit of Jesus.
One
thing that has been very clear to me throughout the last two weeks face down is
that I would rather be physically blind than to be spiritually blind. To lose one’s spiritual sight would be
far worse. There are so many
references in the Bible to sight as a way to speak about spiritual
insight. John 9 relates the story
of the man born blind whom Jesus healed, and how he talked so clearly with the
religious leaders about his healing, but they could not see what did not fit
their belief system, and so the seeing ones were blind spiritually. All the references to light and having
eyes to see and ears to hear cannot be missed. In the Greek of the New Testament there are at least five
different words for seeing, and at least one of those words indicates seeing as
perceiving deeply in such a way as to “get it.” How does one see an idea? And yet when we come to understand something, we say, “Ah,
now I see it!” This kind of seeing
represents a leap in perception.
What was a mystery before suddenly becomes clear. The light bulb above the head of the
cartoon character lights up. It is
this kind of seeing that I value most.
May
we always see with the eyes of the heart, with the eyes of faith, and may our
prayer be the our eyes may be opened just as the Risen Lord opened the eyes of
understanding for the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.
And
I will see you all at the meditation groups at St. Dunstan Sunday evening, and
at Emmanuel Monday morning and Tuesday evening!
Keep
meditating!
Beverly
