The 1947 film, Perils of Pauline, starred Betty Hutton, William Demarest and Billy DeWolfe in a comedy depicting Pauline as an enterprising starlet. The movie has never been forgotten because of its exaggerated conflict.
Those of us who are blind will never comprehend the lackadaisical attitude of sighted people---those who just take their eye sight for granted. One young man, working for me, went home and covered his eyes with adhesive tape to see if he could manage, as I do, in just doing his routine around the house. He said it didn't last but a few hours. He just could not stand it. He said, “How do you live everyday in a world of darkness, taking care of yourself, even running several businesses, and on top of all of your financial and other interests?”
Many years ago, a young man in my military unit died in a vehicle crash. Since he was such an outstanding person, I went to the funeral and had the privilege of walking into the church (St. Paul's Methodist Church) with his mother. She said to me, “He was outstanding in every way: smart, never any trouble and never IN any trouble; but he did not want to attend church and I never did insist on his attending, and spirituality was completely left out of his life. This is the first time he had been in church since he was a baby.” As we went to the cemetery, and I walked up to the open grave with her, the minister at the head of the grave took some sand out of his pocket and put the sand on the casket in the figure of the cross. I realized, just as this grieving mother must have realized, that it was too late for her son to make things right with his Creator. “Without vision, people perish.” (Proverbs 29:18)
As with most children who find their life in front of a television screen, most of the time following the example of their parents, who spend six hours a day watching television, their space world has been drawn in—limited---and the eye doctor, such as your writer, must put minus lenses in Rx glasses frames on them to push their space world out where it belongs.
Contact lenses were a very new thing when I was in school and beginning my professional activities. The first contact lenses were scleral, covering the entire eyeball. Can you even imagine how uncomfortable they were? But as I said many times to many parents, “Young girls would wear thumb tacks in their eyes to keep from wearing thick eye glasses.” Then there were the smaller plastic contact lenses, then the soft plastic lenses, and now surgery to physically and surgically correct myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism. Today, very few people wear eye glasses but the physical, emotional and neurological problems concerning sight in learning still exist.
Like everything else in the health care industry, technology and development has made things much easier but problems still exist. As a young practitioner, the cataract patient had to lay perfectly still for days with a cement block on each side of the head. Today, a lens transplant can be made and the patient can be at regular activity the next day. However, there has been no cure and little treatment for diseases of the retina, optic nerves and the tracts through the brain, where all vision takes place. The eyeballs themselves are just receptors for light. All vision takes place in the brain itself. (Calcarine Cortex, area 18 at the back of the head) I never cease to be amazed about the trash that people will allow their eyes to see as unfiltered it pollutes millions of neurons in their brain, anymore than I can understand how a woman, or man for that matter, can spit in the face of almighty God by giving their most personal and private possession, their sexual senses, to just anyone who has the money to pay for such. Prostitution, fornication, adultery, the desensitizing of values, the corruption of purpose, must surely embarrass our blessed Lord who gave us a body created in His image, in such a marvelous manner. (Psalm 139:13-14)
According to Forbes Magazine, pornography accounts for $10 billion of revenue each year. Most pornography comes from the Northrigde area in California which was almost destroyed in the last big earthquake. Maybe, when the earth starts shaking there again, as it will, these pornographers might think of how almighty God will shake them one of these days for the misery and deception, despair and distortion they have brought to humanity. Any time I have talked to a Muslim about religion, he has always thrown pornography in my face. The fact that this “Christian” nation, a country built on the sovereignty of God's Word, would, because of the Supreme Court, allow such 'slop' (liquid garbage) to addict a large percentage of our young people and adults. The fascination and addiction to pornography comes through eyesight. Helen Keller, born deaf and blind, said in a speech one time, “How can precious eyes be used for anything except the viewing of beauty---a beautiful bird, flower, or smile of a child?” (When I heard Helen Keller by record she had never heard a voice and her speech had to have an interpreter. Buried in the floor of the national cathedral, this magnificent blind lady went on to graduate from several colleges and became an inspiration to the sighted world.)
Recently, in the presence of my son and youngest grandson (a college senior), I said, “Never doubt for a moment that God does not know what He is doing. He chose me to serve Him as a blind person. He knows how to keep us where He wants us.” My son said, “I have heard how fast you drove your car before the war; how you were always in a hurry.” GOD IS BOSS! He has a right to slow us down. Enjoy and prize your eyesight every day of your life. We may not have a Mount of Transfiguration experience such as Moses and Elijah but with purity of eyes we will see God.
“I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes.” (Psalm 101:3)
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