On that recording of many hymns, full-choired and orchestra-ed, it caught me: the plea, the peace, the stilling…

“Dear Lord and Father of Mankind,

Forgive our foolish ways;

Reclothe us in our rightful mind;

In purer lives Thy service find,

In deeper reverence, praise…

.

“…Drop Thy still dews of quietness,

Till all our strivings cease;

Take from our souls the strain and stress,

And let our ordered lives confess

The beauty of Thy peace.

.

“Breathe through the heats of our desire

Thy coolness and Thy balm;

Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;

Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,

O still small voice of calm!”

            -John Greenleaf Whittier

 ~

I make the plurals singular, and add “Amen.”

~

 His calm to you this weekend.

*****

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The sheep lie peaceful in green pasture, legs tucked under, recline and ruminate—do nothing else but gaze around (if even that), and feel the breezes on their faces.

My vision’s better because my eyes are worse!

Yes, that’s what he said! Go figure…

But he explained. The cataracts that have clobbered me at relatively early age, they’re what poses my main seeing problem right now.  And those cataracts have grown bigger, smack mid-eye, each eye, right where I look out. So they’ve changed my eyes’ shape, making me more far-sighted, able to see better, if less crystal clear—in the distance.

“Second sight,” some people call it, he tells me, when this far vision improvement startles them.

So that explains it.

Or does it?

.

It explains the better far vision. What about my better near vision? That’s what first surprised me so that night…

In these past few months, I’ve done so much up-close seeing I couldn’t do a year or two ago:

threading my sewing machine needle, seeing clearly both needle eye and thread traveling through.

working jigsaw puzzles again, discerning subtle color nuances that had frustrated me so much before, I’d just walked away, let someone else assemble jigsaws.

reading the fine print: on pill bottles, DVD cases, and in books I’d packed to give away, but now have put back on the shelf…

working fine embroidery I thought I’d given up on for good…

If my eye’s just morphed more toward distance, why can I see those things better?

Maybe I should call and ask…

Maybe not.

The trouble? Decision-making.  The kind I hate:

Cataract surgery is fast, simple, highly successful, and the eye guy doing them around here has Super Surgeon reputation, for precision and dearth of ill effects.

Easy answer—except for the dystrophy.

For many folks with Fuchs’, cataract surgery apparently causes no worsening of their dystrophy. For some, it does. So you gamble.

I’d know right away, the doctor said. No slow and uncertain worsening. Any bad effect would rear up, immediate and noticeable. Wonderful.

So there it lurks, always: that possibility of lens replacement worsening my vision, lots.

So what do I do?

It’s a choice one must make for herself.

Also a choice that can be made at any time.

That last statement is the “out” I grabbed.

I left his office in peace unexplained.

Well, maybe not entirely unexplained.

Fact is, I’m am delighted, and so grateful, over how well I can see, right now. In some ways my vision’s better than Husband’s, though his eyes are healthy, never have been as poor-sighted as mine, and the eye doc doesn’t even mention cataracts to this man older than myself… Also, when I first learned of my cataracts, and the “something else” that might defeat their surgery, I imagined fast-approaching blindness! That over-drama hardly happened! Yet, anyhow.

Next year’s eye exam is all set up. I can always choose surgery then.

Meanwhile, did God do something miraculous with my near vision anyhow? I don’t know. I can see inexplicably better to do close things, that’s all I know.

He could keep me seeing fairly well the rest of my life. He could even give me better clarity than ever…

Or He could let me go completely blind.

Yes.

God heals in varied ways. Through doctors, surgery, nutritional improvements, medicines… and sometimes by means no one can explain.

But not always.

Jesus healed. Miraculously. Crowds of people. But not everyone (as after His resurrection, God continued healing miraculously, but not everyone. For instance, Paul—2 Cor 12:7-9). Physical healing was not Christ’s main earthly mission. He came to enable us to see His Kingdom (John 3:3). That’s the vision I treasure most. May everyone who reads here have it!

*****

He couldn’t get rid of things, that man. He’d buy a new chair because the old one was worn or uncomfortable or ugly, but he just couldn’t seem to get rid of that old one. So there they both sat, and now the room was less comfortable, and less navigable!

Repeat this endless times with other items, from tools to toys to other furniture to the old sink lying in the basement, removed from the kitchen, but not from the house. Clutter, clutter, clutter.

Some people do get rid of the old but keep buying new too fast to use up or store properly or even find function for, as in clothes worn only once or piles of equipment for a hobby not pursued… Clutter, clutter, clutter.

I just read that clutter obstructs joy, that one big help to gaining greater happiness is clearing out the clutter.

I believe it—about all kinds of clutter, not just physical.  I know my thoughts run clearer at a tidy desk in a clean room than at a messy table in a room—or life—crammed crazy with good stuff.

Note that: good stuff!

In our time, our culture, I believe it’s the “good stuff” that stumbles us up as much as anything. And I’m not just talking the material!

If one word could describe American women today I think it would be “overloaded.”

Our backs are piled high with burdens both concrete and abstract, baneful and beautiful. And perhaps the biggest weight: Heavy Expectations.

We’ve been taught to dream big and expect much.

from earth life.

from others.

from God.

and from ourselves.

Way too much, from all the above! And yet, not enough. Not enough of what we really need…

And maybe, just maybe, what has engendered our too high expectations comes from others manipulating us, trying to get more of what they think they must gain for their lives to be worthwhile!

Advertising (both obvious and covert) reigns for others’ “gains,” but pushes us to discontent, teaches expectation of more, more, more, than what we now enjoy (or might, if we weren’t so incited to discontent!)

If we don’t have all that’s advertised, we wonder: Who shortchanged us—others, or ourselves? Life down the street seems so much more bountiful—with not only material possessions, but interesting experiences, notable accomplishments, burgeoning popularity and affection from others… and… and…?

So we get resentful because we’ve been trained in entitlement, or expect too much from ourselves because we’re rooted in bootstraps tradition and Yankee (over)work ethic. “Pull yourself up better, girl!”

This is the debris blocking our path to fulfillment! Really, it is.

God did not create us to live in constant frustration. Especially He did not save us for that! Jesus said, “I have come that they might have life, and they might have it more abundantly,” but we don’t get what He meant because a lot of other messengers have been (mis)defining “abundant” for us.

Their abundance is junk!

His abundance is beauty and freedom that walks us way above the piles of impressive garbage.

At heart, way down, we understand this. But our lives are so bombarded (cluttered!) with happiness ads that we haven’t room to think.

I find this a constant battle. I’m sure I’m not alone. So I think it’s time for me to start excerpting a couple old Bible studies of mine, about finding our true identity and most fulfilling pursuit. (“Chasing Dreams, or Capturing Joy?” and “What Defines You?” two Bible studies for women.) If not for anyone else, at least for me. I constantly need the re-orienting!

*****

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[I wrote this a week ago for Five Minute Friday, but didn’t post and link it. I’m not sure why. I guess because I knew I needed to act upon it rather than just say it. Well, okay, I did some acting on it, so now I’ll go ahead and post it late.]

Free writing on the word prompt “After”:

Go!

There ought to be an After, to follow and contrast the Before.

Is there?

How different am I After?

Do I exude a new life, do living waters flow from my soul depths and water my heart and mind and others’ lives?

I don’t know, when a day grows dry and something nags, some sin thing I haven’t quite defined yet.

I feel I am the same old me… or, no, not that, I am not the woman I once was. Yet there’s not enough “after” to please me, or, I’m sure, to thrill with joy my resurrected and glorified Lord.

The resurrected glory life is an exchanged life. Methinks I have not exchanged enough old junk.

Exchange makes the Change of After.

Hanging on to worn-out oldies of the Before life makes piles of debris, hurdles and walls in the After path, bogs me down with useless extra weight, stumbles me up, makes me fall on my face, wordless, clueless.

I think I need to take a look around and discover what debris of the old “Before” I’ve not yet traded in for better beauties…

Good day for a declutter!

*****