Ocular Fusion

On a day when scripture may seem a little arcane, my prayers dry and stale and everyone (including me) possessed of the devil himself, God often whispers to me, through the beauty of this intricate organ of sight, "Peace, be still. Everything's gonna be awwwright now."

No, I don't see secret messages inscribed in the retina (although I did once hear a story of an ophthalmology resident who laser-tatooed a patient's retina with his initials...urban legend maybe? Let's hope so). It's just that the view calms and settles me, reminding me that a God who could create such an efficient and complex "camera"(and whether it was in an instant or over millions of years, I frankly don't care) must be larger than my particular crisis du jour.

I suspect I will speak often of eyes and vision in this blog, and of the analogue of "spiritual" vision about which scripture has much to say. My favorite miracles are, no surprise, Jesus' healing of the blind (especially the times when he spat on the ground and made mud--the origin of the old toast "here's mud in your eye" perhaps?). In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ spoke of the eye as the "lamp of the body" and of the light that filled a person when his eyes were "good." True physically and even more so spiritually. Indeed, the ability to see beyond the mere material (even to see God in the material) and discern the First Things of life is a gift as precious as physical sight itself.

So, forgive me if I wax eloquently about eyes. When you have an office with a view like mine, you just can't help it.