Eye Strain

I am not seeing very well this morning. Actually I have not seen well for a few days now. Yesterday, I broke down and went to the doctor and I am currently being treated for conjunctivitis so I hope that in a day or so, I will be back on track. But while it lasts, I am trying to pay attention.

I have often had the notion that God works through the uncommon periods in our lives. Perhaps God is trying to teach us something specific or perhaps God is using the experience to give us a broader view of the world or the faith. I learned to do this during a rather long stretch of dental problems during my senior year in high school. There was a period when I had something like 3 root canals in a period of a few months. I spent hours on end with my mouth stretched open to its limit. I learned to anticipate the various sounds when the dentist changed the drills and files toward the finishing process. I had to find a way to distract myself from the process so I started imaging that this was my penance. I figured that I probably deserved the discomfort in one way or another and because it wouldn't last forever, this actually helped. It was almost like a prided myself on how much I could take. Perhaps you are hearing masochistic overtones here but I assure you that is not it. I did not enjoy the dental work at all. I simply figured out a way to get through it. In a way, I learned to make the suffering work for me. Specifically, it made me stronger--more able to get through uncomfortable and inconvenient times...

Now the eye thing here has been different. The main thing is that it has been much more indeterminate. I don't know that it will be over in the next hour and a half and this has been frustrating. So the lesson here has been harder to appreciate because it is not merely about patience or endurance. The biggest challenge that I have noticed is eye strain. I cannot look at a computer screen or watch tv for more than about a minute a time. The light sensitivity is brutal and my eyes tear almost constantly. These are annoying symptoms for someone who's work depends largely on looking at people, paper and light of one kind or another. Even as I am writing this entry, I have had to take a number of breaks.

The fact that it has been hard to look at things has been a strange experience. It is not that I can't see so much as it just hurts to see. It's made me think a little about folks whose eyes hurt just from seeing the world around them. And maybe that's the lesson this time. Most of the time, I enjoy what I see but maybe that's because I only look in certain directions. Feeling the discomfort in my own vision the last few days, makes me wonder about folks whose eyes must be really tired.

Doctor, my eyes have seen the years
And the slow parade of fears
Without crying;
Now I want to understand.
I have done all that I could
To see the evil and the good
Without hiding;
You must help me if you can . . .

Doctor, my eyes—
Tell me what is wrong!
Was I unwise
To leave them open for so long?

'Cause I have wandered through this world
And, as each moment has unfurled,
I've been waiting
To awaken from these dreams.
People go just where they will;
I never noticed them until
I got this feeling
That it's later than it seems . . .

Doctor, my eyes—
Tell me what you see.
I hear their cries . . .
Just say if it's too late for me.

Doctor, my eyes
Cannot see the sky—
Is this the price for having learned how not to cry?
[Jackson Brown, "Doctor My Eyes"]