Hello Everyone,
I usually change my contacts on the 22nd of each month. This most recent time, I accidentally put in an extra pair leftover from my previous prescription which I’d had updated in December. These lenses were noticeably weaker than the ones I had been wearing for the past month. I don’t know which was more worrying: the thought that for much of 2009, I had been functioning relatively well with such a poor match for my eyes (please don’t tell the Department of Licensing!) or that in such a short time, I had forgotten how much more clearly I am now seeing.
For those of you who don’t wear contacts, corrective lens prescriptions are measured in diopters which tell the amount of correction the lens must provide to bring your vision to approximately 20/20. My prescription usually needs a bit of strengthening each year, and this year was no different. I went from -4.5 to -5.25 in the right eye and -4.0 to -4.75 in the left. It might not seem like .75 would make that much of a difference, but when I went back to the old ones, everything seemed off. My balance wasn’t right and I was less alert. I couldn’t read signs easily and my visual attention span was shorter. Simply put, my vision had lost its edge. I’ve heard two sayings which on the surface sound contradictory but which I don’t think actually are: “God dwells in the details,” and “The devil’s in the details.” Details could be good or bad, but they are the worst of what is lost when your prescription goes down .75 of a diopter.
Ever since ninth grade, when I learned about Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, I have been fascinated with the notion that there could be a “more real” reality underpinning our experience. Contacts can be a bit of a bother especially while swimming or on camping trips, but I am grateful that I have a daily physical reminder that what my eyes show me isn’t all there is.
Last week, one of my Muslim friends here invited me to attend the mosque he goes to each Friday. I haven’t gone yet, but I will. Perhaps it was because of this invitation that I was all the more angered and disheartened to read that evening of the violence occurring in Nigeria between Christians and Muslims. The grownup half of me understands that grownup conflict is always complicated: poverty, history, politics and culture are probably at least as responsible as religion for the animosity between the two groups. But the child half of me couldn’t help blurt out a child solution: “If I can be friends with Daoud or Fatimah or Yamen, why can’t other Christians and Muslims be friends?” There are no doctors for this kind of blindness. How I wish we could measure a person’s internal nearsightedness and then based on a set of preestablished formulae, attach the necessary corrective lens.
I came across a Frederick Buechner quote the other day that seemed apropos: “Religion and unreligion are both sinful to the degree that they widen the gap between you and the people who don’t share your views.” In other words, when Muslims and Christians (or anyone, for that matter) fight each other, they abandon the very creeds they claim to fight for, creeds which actually offer a new prescription, a way to see beyond the murky shadows dancing on a cave wall. True religion, at its best, is a lens which allows us a bit more vision than we would have had if left to our own defenses. Sight can lead to curiosity about other people which in turn can lead to compassion and even love.
I don’t know if there are any 20/20 people; we are all myopic to a degree, and we can’t help it. But few if any people are completely blind either, and if we keep our eyes open, there is always something to see, limited though the sight might be. The thing is, I came across that Buechner quote while I had my old lenses in.
Have a good week,
Sarah/Mouse
ps: As a reminder, I have created a weblog where I will be posting these weekly letters. It is at the following link: http://www.mouseinthesouth.blogspot.com/. After next week’s letter, I will continue to send these as emails only if you have asked me to remain on the email list, so if you would like to continue reading these as emails, please let me know if you haven’t already. Thank you to those of you who have responded.
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