The greatest thing a
human being ever does in this world is to see something… To see clearly is
poetry, prophecy and religion, all in one. ~ John Ruskin
After struggling with rapidly decreasing vision for a little
over a year in the only eye I can see out of (since the age of 12) and then
being declared legally blind a little over one month ago, I have become acutely
aware of how precious our ability to see clearly is and I am so grateful for
God’s miracle and the hands of my surgeon, Dr. James Hiatt, for returning that
precious gift to me. I am also grateful for the lessons this has taught me over
the past year. You see, although sight
is a precious gift to all of God’s creatures, it is even more so to an artist,
a photographer and a writer.
Pablo Picasso once said, “If only we could pull out our
brain and use only our eyes”, we would be amazed at the world around us. Seeing without thinking or analyzing is an
amazing talent!
Paul Klee, the Swiss artist once declared, “One eye see, the
other feels.” In my particular case...
my one eye had to, and still has to, do both.
As Paul Cezanne grew older, he doubted his own powers of
perception and worried that the authenticity of his art might be a quirk of
nature because his trouble with his eyesight made him doubt his own genius.
However, I feel that it was Georgia O’Keefe, whose work I
deeply love and who also became a desert dweller, who expressed it best when
she stated that “in a way, nobody sees a flower; not really. It is so small, we haven’t the time – and to see takes TIME; just like to have a
friend TAKES TIME.
To see takes time …
We haven’t time…
This is the unrelenting truth and it is chilling to the very
soul. Most of us have been given a
miraculous gift, the ability to see, and yet we don’t take the time to do more
than glance around at our wonder-filled world. We take our sight for granted.
When my eye sight was rapidly diminishing, my first concern
was for my loss of independence. I
initially lamented about my fear of not being able to drive, go grocery
shopping, hold down a paying job, or read the newspaper. Then I realized, as cloudiness became my norm,
that I missed mostly seeing my desert, a star filled night, the muzzles of my
fur boys; the precious moments that now make up the days of my life and which I
no longer take for granted.
So today, join me in REALLY looking around at the
world. Really look at your family, your
home, your pets, your co-workers, and the strangers that you will meet on the
street as you go about your daily life.
Smile at EVERYONE because you CAN SEE THEM!
Never ever forget that the gift of vision was so important
that when God created the world the first command was “Let There Be Light” in
order to see. Then after the Great Creator was finished with each day’s task,
He glanced back on his handiwork and “saw that it was good”.
We all need to see how good it is too. I know I see how good it is every morning I
wake up now and how I will never take any of it or any of YOU for granted
again.
