Throwback week continues - Speck

That's right, it's throwback week.  Monday's post was written almost exactly a year ago and today's was written almost exactly two years ago.  I guess I had a lot of good inspiration in July until this year.

I have purposefully not edited these two posts from whatever final draft I saved.  It's pretty cool to see how my thoughts have developed.  A little glimpse of the last of my teen angst in this one, maybe?

Speck – 7/14/08

Oh! This speck in my eye.

Why do you bother me so much?

Agitating, irritating my sweet soft eye -

Cutting, scratching, scarring.

But more than that -

Driving my head crazy.

At first, I cried all day, unintentionally of course,

My bed sheets were streaked with wet.

I removed my contacts,

But that just added blindness to the pain.

My finger fumbled – it is too big.

All I could accomplish was to reaffirm

The existence of that stupid speck.

Nothing in my power can fix this problem.

Maybe I should see an optometrist

In his clean white coat

And perfect rimmed glasses;

So he can over-analyze

And over-criticize

The way I’ve treated my poor red eye.

He would describe the exact nature

Of that wicked speck;

Or tell me how it is ruining my eye;

Maybe he would prescribe some

Fancy eye drops to ease the pain.

Eye drops don’t last forever, Mr. Optometrist.

And what good would eye drops do anyway,

When even tears fail me every second

(That is, when tears do come).

Oh, why won’t tears come anymore?

The salty beads used to roll down my cheeks,

But even then only smeared my print-outs

Of ‘What to do in Case of a Speck,’

And never did anything to remove it.

They are absent now.

Surely my body has some sort

Of evolutionary mechanism

That would eject this speck.

The speck is simply lodged too deep -

It has been there too long.

If only I had flushed it out at first

With some cool, refreshing water...

But wait, is it still there?

I can’t see it.

I can’t feel it.

Yes…it is just ever harder to notice.

Maybe I am getting used to it,

Or maybe it is starting to callous my eye.

Oh, how wonderful that would be,

That the pain would give way to strength.

I would have a better eye

Impervious to any nasty new speck.

However, what good is a calloused eye?

Can I even see out of it?

No - an eye is supposed to be tender and pure.

Forget you, calloused eye

And damn you speck!

You are not making me stronger at all

But rather weaker.

And more frustrated.

Oh God,

If you would just remove it!

I can’t live like this.

Give me new eyes,

Just let me start over.

Senses

It is commonly believed/known that if you lose one sense (taste, sight, hearing, smell, touch) others will be enhanced.  For instance, if you lose your sight, you may begin to hear much better.

This is due to a really cool feature of our brains called plasticity.  It is an adapting function of our brain to move processing power around to where it can best be used.  The brain sort of shifts the neurons (brain cells that make everything go) that were at work with one sensing organ to another that is functional.  Really cool stuff.

I was talking to some friends about this last night when all of the sudden a passage of scripture popped into my mind.  Matthew 5:29-30 states:

If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away.  It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.  And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.  It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

Jesus says this in the middle of his ‘sermon on the mount’ directly after addressing the issue of adultery (specifically adultery of the heart – which I would guess most of us commit on a daily basis).  He repeats it in Matthew 18. 

I think Jesus means this literally.  It makes sense, and would probably work.  Besides, the guy who is saying this is the one who decided to give up his whole life very painfully, and not even for himself, but that other human bodies might not be thrown into hell.

It is shocking to think of following these commands, and troubling to think of disobeying a clear statement of Jesus.  As we continue to daily try to figure out the best way to minimize our sinning, maybe it could be helpful to see what it would really mean to cut out an eye or cut off a hand.

These are both senses.  Sight and touch.  That is what caught my attention.  So we are talking about removing our sense for sin.  That part of us that is naturally receptive to temptation.  And if we remove that sense, surely another would increase, right?  And through the work of the Holy Spirit, by God’s grace may it be that opposite sense – our sense for holiness. 

As we blind our sense for sin, we allow our sense for holiness to open up and more fully receive direction from God.  It will open up communication with God.  It is the spiritually biological principle of plasticity.  It is not easy and at first may seem harmful to ourselves, but I think in the long run we will see that one sense directed purely to God is better than any number submerged in the murky recesses of temptation and sin.

True we are losing a part of ourselves, which is difficult and hurts.  We are purposefully trimming away at what once contributed to making us who we are.  But this isn’t really us – it is merely the dirt and sludge we have collected as we have drifted across the bottom of the ocean.  We have mistakenly convinced ourselves that it is an important part.  That makes it both harder and more important to let go of.  But once we do break from that distorted sense, we can find ourselves free in the wide ocean of God’s love and mercy.

Brother Lawrence, a 17^th century French monk, wrote, “Remember that drawing this close to God takes denial – saying no to stuffing our lives full of everything the world has to offer.  Cut the umbilical cord!  No one who is still attached to worldly pleasures can find full joy with God.”

In order that our sense for holiness might prosper, may we snuff out our sense for sin.