Here's mud in your eye!

I was playing around with a multiple lens magnifying glass and a camera last night. I used the ultra thick lens to capture the lights on our Christmas tree. The result was much different than I had anticipated. As I loaded the photo onto the blog site, I noticed the colored image inside the black background seemed to be moving ever so slightly. Sounds crazy I'm sure.

I know the image isn't moving, but my brain thinks it is. Why? Go ahead and stare right into the colored part of the image. Focus as near the center as you can. Does it look like the colored image is moving within the darkened background? I sure hope so. If not, then it must be just me and my mischievous brain playing tricks on me. Biologists and ophthalmologists can probably describe what is going on here and I would smile with a glazed look and nod my head.

Over the years, I have read about the blind spot we all seem to have in our line of eyesight. I also understand the images we see need to be inverted and then get translated by the brain into meaningful input for sight. If I'm not mistaken, images go into a right eyeball and travel to the left side of the brain and likewise with images in the left eye. How does that work?? The eyeball is a remarkable organ that defies logic. We have watched enough NCIS episodes to see them use the eye scanner to unlock doors.

When I think of all the injury near misses dealing with my eyes, I feel fortunate. All the foreign objects that flew into my eyes, all the dust, dirt, sawdust, overdrift from insecticides and herbicides, and a host of other things that ended up in my eye sockets was cause for alarm. Nevermind all the dumb things I willingly did as a kid. Have you ever crossed your eyes? I can still hear my mother telling this 8 year old, "your eyes are going to stay crossed one of these days." After she left the room, I crossed my eyes again.

"As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” "Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means Sent). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing. (John 9:1-7, NIV)

The sensitive nature of our eyes is something to consider when reading the account of the man born blind in John 9. Tragic as his life had been to this point, the prospect of ever seeing again was just a wistful thought. Then the unspeakable. How could sight be restored in one by placing more impediment into the eye sockets? Perhaps Jesus understood metaphor more more than we give Him credit. The man with mud in his eyes could see more clearly than the religious leaders with normal eyesight.

With man, putting mud in our eyes would be the last thing to attempt, with God it is the first thing. What struggles do we face today that could be rectified with a little mud? How does our life glorify God who created us and loves us? The rest of the story unfolds and reveals the punchline that we all need to ponder.

Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” (John 9:39, NIV)